Seeing Things
I was waiting for an appointment the other day when I struck up a conversation with another woman in the lobby. She noticed my bike helmet and the conversation quickly turned to a discussion of cars versus cyclists.
It was just on of those casual conversations you have with a stranger in passing. After voicing the usual complaint about cyclists never stopping for red lights she added that she just “was not looking for cyclists.”
I started thinking about the word “looking.” Do drivers only see what they are looking for? And are they only looking for other cars? Which would mean, to a driver, a city intersection looks like this:
But when I bike through an intersection I am not looking for anything. I am seeing everything. If I were to travel through same intersection at the same moment I might see something like this:
But I probably see every street like this because I have to compensate for what the drivers are not looking for.
I got knocked off my bike in London three years ago by a motorist who came from behind me in the lane outside, on a clear road on a sunny day, turned left across my path and knocked me into the road. As I mentioned above, I’m six foot five and weigh 240 pounds. I cycle a big touring bike, with panniers with reflective patches and a silver helmet. I should be fairly unmissable.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to check out my number one theory about how the driver missed me because the charming Metropolitan Police told me they could check his ‘phone records only in cases of “life-changing injuries”. In other words, he didn’t hit me hard enough.
When I got up off the road and told him I was calling the police, he got upset with me because he said he’d lose his job. I pointed out that, given he’d just knocked me off my bike into the road, my sympathy was limited.
Motorists really do seem blind to cyclists except when they’re sitting ahead of them in traffic – in which case they take on the proportions of a lumbering, impossible-to-pass elephant that needs to be treated with regular horn-hoots and abuse.
More on this at http://invisiblevisibleman.blogspot.com/2012/01/invisible-visible-man.html
Invisible.
I honestly think that if you really see everything on the road… there’s no way you can drive. Because when I’m in a car I see everything too (even more so after I started cycling), except for the stuff that’s in my blind spots, and let me tell you, I have major anxiety about the stuff that might be in my blind spots. Also I can never, ever forget that I’m basically piloting a giant weapon (again, this hit home even more after cycling). Of course, people say similar things about cycling, but at least there’s no blind spots and I can be reasonably sure I won’t kill anyone. I think as I’ve become a better cyclist I’ve become a worse driver because I’m a billion times more cautious now (over-caution can be almost as bad as under-caution), good thing I only drive like every two months.
Anyone who believes drivers even notice the other cars around are giving them too much credit. Last night I’m driving on the highway in the right lane at about the speed limit, merge left to the middle lane to pass somebody. Dude in a BMW going about 80 MPH moves right to get around me (and no, I didn’t cut him off, and he had plenty room in the left lane to pass) and nearly rear-ends the car that I’m just then passing. Ditto for the near sighted magoos who make jack rabbit starts at the traffic light, when it’s obvious the next light a hundred yards up is turning red.
Day time blinkie lights, front and rear.