I ain't afraid.
What about severe injury vs. death
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This is pretty much true of automobile drivers also.This may be true........partially. My observation is that stronger more competitive road riders seem to get in more accidents than more recreational riders. Note that I'm not talking about city commuters, but rather those of us who ride because we want to, not because we have to.
Pushing the limit, no matter the tool, magnifies the probability of something going wrong.
Yeah, I had a guy take a wide turn onto the street I was riding and brush me with his side view mirror. I didn't go down, but rode the bike harder than I ever did, before or since, trying to catch him. Every time I caught up the traffic cleared or the light changed before I got my hands on him, until I finally lost him.and one time I had a driver swerve into the clearly marked bike lane so the passenger could take a swipe at my handlebars when I was going down hill at over 20mph.
Ride like no one sees you. Heck, people don't see police cars with flashing lights on the side of the road, so what chance do we have?
It's probably good I didn't catch him because he would probably have ended up in the hospital and me in jail. I seriously wanted to beat him into the ground with my bike. A nice DeRosa.
There's a lot of "Do as I say, not as I do" happening out on them mean streets.Everthing I have read above reinforces my personal credo, "it's ok for someone to deliberately do something egregious but not ok for anyone else to do anything they don't like".
An example might be.....their aggressive driving cuts me off in traffic but if someone else drives the speed limit for example, it's a problem".
But, I don't see things being as bad as many others do. By picking one's routes and riding with one's head on a swivel, situational awareness, odds become better.
Yeah, most of my rides I get a close pass, or two, but aggressive acts, not nearly as often. Maybe a number of those close passes are intentional, but I still have to consider the number of automobiles that pass me on any given ride before condemning every vehicle out there. How many pass a cyclist on a given ride, only to have the one or two ass holes considered.
I've reviewed rear mounted camera footage and have been very pleased to see the numbers of vehicles that slow leaving "car lengths" between them and myself, waiting till it is safe to pass. Shux, just yesterday I was driving with my wife and saw a tractor trailer put on its turn signal to pull completely into the left lane to pass a cyclist, and then use the turn signal to pull back into the right lane, never once crowding the cyclist.
Yes, cyclists get hurt out there, but so do drivers and their passengers, hell one can get beat to death walking into a bar. The nature of life is that stuff happens, sometimes God-Awful stuff, but we can't let the bad stuff be our only focus.
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