But they didn’t signal, they came from nowhere, blah blah. There’s only one hand sign drivers recognize.
Likewise, why would you ride a bicycle there? You need proper separated infrastructure, i.e. a segregated bike lane.
There's more than enough space for that, but drivers scream bloody murder if you take away one of their 8 lanes to make a bike lane or a proper sidewalk or a speed bump or whatever (even though this would actually ease congestion for cars!)
But yes horns are for car-to-car.
But - where I live, good 80-90% of cyclists on the roads are absolutely mad a-holes, and I try desperately not using more appropriate words. Red light with all traffic stopped doesn't exist for them. Unfortunately they are part of road traffic on many places, even though some good additional cycling lanes appeared recently.
I've personally as pedestrian have been almost hit 2x by cyclist going above 30-40kmh who zoomed through crowd of pedestrian crossing without even touching breaks, on red light. He drove not further than say 5cm from me, felt quite powerful wind wave he generated. This can easily end up in me being dead or permanently crippled (wife worked at emergency and they had exactly same case few years ago, the 40 year old pedestrian hit by cyclist on red light came in full consciousness, was dead within 2 days).
If you have such a person doing very dangerous stuff, rather than quietly tolerating and enabling him/her, horn is way more appropriate if it can make a positive difference. And as a car driver I've seen so many cases like that. I've seen probably drunken cyclist trying to smash kick side mirrors of cars stuck in traffic jam.
Just to be clear, I talk about Switzerland here. But not places are created equal - Geneva in this case is literally on french border from 3 sides, has tons of french folks living in it and even much more commute daily for work there. Suffice to say, Geneva has absolutely horrible traffic of all types compared to rest of the country (plus also highest crime).
Bikes should be on dedicated lanes, if Dutch or Danes can do it and managed to put it into tightly built medieval cities, many others can too. Then all the power to you guys. But mixing with traffic where every cyclist is an hard-to-avoid obstacle, on very narrow roads, thats recipe for many unhappy participants and some bad situations. In US this should be easier since every city US road I've ever seen is absolutely massively wide, often equivalent of 2 lanes here.
Confirmation bias everywhere.
Maybe because you have to be one to have the courage to share the streets with inattentive car, scooters and moped drivers, and don’t forget pedestrians who walk around like zombies looking at their phones.
You have a 2-4 ton hunk of machinery that's oozing safety features designed to destroy every part of itself, including all of it, in order that you survive. In contrast: I have a bike. Who do you think comes out worse if our two selves collide?
Next time you're going on the road, park your persecution complex.
Runner here, I only communicate with cyclists by means of rude hand gestures because cyclists think they own the road and leave no room for pedestrians. At the stop sign near my house, not one cyclist slows down or stops and infact many have yelled at me when I am running across. V2V probably wont solve this problem but I wish cyclists start to yield to pedestrians and stay a safe distance away from us runners because we dont want to get hit by cyclist folks.
Nobody has common courtesy and they all think they own the road. Everyone. It isn't just drivers. But drivers are nonetheless the most dangerous because they're operating heavy machinery that kills you on impact.
Common courtesy should be a more important component of the whole education process.
It's a lot about subjective safety feeling: Many cyclists feel safer on sidewalks, runners feel safer without cyclists, scooters and cars around them and motorists feel quite safe all the time in their metal box. Separating traffic, slowing down cars in towns and cities is the only way forward and even though it might seem very slow going or even small reversals like in Spain are taking place: It will happen within our lifetime.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/29/upshot/traffi...
It is a totally different world on US roads these days. There is so much dumb shit I've done on a bike in my 20's that I refuse to tell my kids about and that makes me cringe thinking how lucky I have been and after about 2 weeks of commuting this summer I have abandoned that dream and instead choose to ride where the cars can't go. I am fortunate to have access to a massive trail system outside my front door but will avoid as much vehicle interaction as I can here on out. Aside from the crazy, impatient drivers there are so many other ways you can get destroyed by a massively oversized car or truck that the distracted driver can barely see out of. Not to mention the erosion of trust that people are going to actually behave on the roads, as illustrated in the above article. Riding on city streets was always something that put my faith in other humans to the test and since I already know the answer, the safest thing one could do is to simply remove yourself from the equation.
And I know I'll probably get some dickhead typing an angry reply about how one time a cyclist didn't obey a stop sign or something and therefore we're the scum of the road fit only to coat the tread of his tires, but just like, this is not the same goddamn situation. I'm moving about a hundred pounds of light metal and rubber, and you're moving between 2 and 4 tons of machinery. Fuck off with this ridiculous equivalence.
Cyclists are pretty much the least predictable "vehicle" on the road.
Are we a car today and following the laws? Or are we going to blaze right through that red light intersection because we're a bike! We're so close to a new Strava PR, after all! Sudden left turn across traffic - look out for me, I don't even look over my shoulder!
I have been pushed off the road by a Tesla merging into a right turn lane -- a vehicle with a million sensors that should have been screaming at its driver. My friend, who was on a bicycle and following the conventions and laws of the road, was killed by a driver making a right hand turn.
Many states (in the US) have minimum safe passing distances required for drivers to adhere to when passing a bicycle. Maybe 90% of the time (anecdotally, in very liberal-leaning, bike-heavy areas of the Bay Area in California!) they don't. And so in return, we take the lane (as we are permitted to do, by law), and pissed-off motorists try to kill us.
The biggest difference is motorcycle riders don't ride in the bike lane until suddenly and without warning they pop into the road lane and ride straight through stop signs and red lights.
Cyclists are often the plague of the road. Can't decide if they want to be treated like a real vehicle, or a pedestrian. They often choose both, whichever being convenient for them at the time. This often leads to the interactions you have described.
Can cars be better around cyclists? Sure, without any doubts. But... cyclists need to do better around cars too. After all, the cyclist will always lose that fight.
I've had cyclists collide with me as a pedestrian and run right into parked cars because they aren't looking where they are going. Way too many of them think that everybody is responsible for their safety except for them.
Another cyclist and I stop at a stop sign, him waiting to turn left, I waiting to turn right, onto a main road (which notably does not have a stop sign).
A car traveling straight on the main road comes to a complete stop and waves at us cyclists with a "go ahead" hand gesture. We remain stopped, because the car has right of way.
Meanwhile there's a small traffic jam forming on the main street as some maintenance vehicles are waiting for the car to move so they can turn onto the side street. If us cyclists were to follow the car driver's "instructions" we would have to violate right-of-way for multiple flows of traffic.
Finally the car driver gets fed up at everyone else's insistence on following the law. Makes a rude gesture, shakes their head, and continues straight. The maintenance guys can finally turn, then the bikes.
I guess my point is: car drivers need to do a better job of following the conventions and laws of the road.
This includes people who put on their hazard lights when slowing down in traffic on the freeway. The entire world has decided brake lights are the universal signal for slowing down and/or stopping - yet these knuckle heads think that's not enough. So they do unexpected things and unintentionally create more unsafe conditions where people might not understand what's going on and try to go around thinking it's a disabled vehicle, etc.
In general, people need to stick to the well-defined and accepted rules and conventions of the road. That's how everyone stays safe.
I appreciate people who do that when the traffic ahead of them is stopped, not just slowing. It's hard to anticipate or evaluate a full-speed -> stopped situation, and hazard lights in addition to brake lights clearly communicates "this is an extreme case". If they're being used routinely in slow-and-go traffic then I will agree with you, but fortunately I don't see that where I live.
I think not.
18 percent – driver failed to see cyclist
24 percent – cyclist ran a red light or failed to stop for a stop sign
22 percent – driver or passenger opened a car door into an oncoming cyclistIt is arguable the 22% caused by open car doors is also negligence on the cyclist's part. Riding that fast and that close to doors that may or may not suddenly open without warning is negligent. It would be akin to a lane-splitting motorcyclist failing to anticipate someone might change lanes without warning during heavy traffic.
disagree. the most typical bike lane in America is nicknamed "dooring lane" - a painted lane that forces cyclists to ride in the dooring zone. As for speed, I've been stopped at a light and had a parked driver open their door into me without even looking. If riding next to parked cars is dangerous, then it's the street designers who are to blame.
To ride out of the door zone in many cases requires taking the lane and riding outside of a marked bicycle lane, if present. Cyclists can and should do this, but it is no surprise that many don’t, and it is no surprise that drivers complain of those who do.
I cannot but believe that every person that says that has never done any significant cycling on an urban area. If you’re riding a bike you don’t need to do a “stop” and every sign, (note that I said “need” not “should”) just pay attention and slow down as needed, same as red lights. Stopping means wasted energy but you also have to remember that you are the one losing in ANY crash, doesn’t matter if you’re right or not.
For cyclists it is a device that makes your bike have the electronic image of a huge oversize truck and escort vehicles or a whole battalion of Hell's Angels or something.