Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cyclist kills pedestrian; does calling “on your left” not work? (Now with Paul B)

When I was stationed at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, the PX was having a huge spring sale event with lots of stuff set up outside in the parking lot. Several booth of food vendors.Hundreds of folks enjoying the event.

There was a young guy, not sure if it was a young soldier or a teen dependent, racing around on a bicycle through the crowds being a complete dick. Even bumped a few enough to cause them to loose their plates of food. He went by me about ten feet away and I noticed his sweatshirt draped over the handle bars with a sleeve hanging down close to the spokes. I thought that looked like an accident waiting to happen.

You guessed it. I no sooner thought that and it happened. Total lockup of the front tire. Over the handle bars face first into the pavement. Blood and teeth everywhere. And a resounding cheer from the crowd. I never enjoyed so much, seeing someone wreck.

Although it was not his move, the biker is at fault. Hell, half the world is out there now with ear buds on and likely won't hear an approaching thunderstorm.

Not witness this type or wreck, but have seen two good ones. 1. A guy approaching a well-tanned chick coming the opposite way and exposing lots of cleavage. He turned to savor a rear view and gradually drifted to the right into the curb. All but the biker saw it coming together and it was spectacular. The chick was far enough along that she had no idea.

2. A guy paused to let an approaching bus pass and continued to look left as he made a hard right turn. He failed to notice the bus stopped for a pickup just as it passed, and he rode right into the back end. Never saw what hit him. We picked him and his bike up, dusted him off a bit, and he seemed conscious when we left.

I have had some pretty spectacular get-offs. Most in my youth. We used to ride our bicycles to junior high school. When the bell would ring, we'd race to get to our bikes to see who could get home the fastest. One day, I got caught up in a crowded hallway and my buds all got to their bikes before me. They were a few hundred yards ahead of me. I decided I would take a shortcut across a few lawns to cut the gap. I was looking at them as I angled across. THWACK. I didn't see the telephone pole guide wire. Right across the forehead. Peeled me off my bike and it rolled another 30 feet or so. I had an egg growing on my forehead for a week. I wonder if that's what's wrong with my head today.

I have never gotten into so many bicycles and reckless riders on public streets as I did one evening in Fort Collins Colorado. My son and I stopped there to spend the night 5 or 6 years ago. After reading this thread I did a search on Fort Collins bicycle accidents. There are several lawyers in that town soliciting runover bicyclists for contingency lawsuits.

Also there were several news articles about runover bicycle riders. In a way it seems that people that ride bicycles on public roads ought to be treated like rodeo riders that get hurt or killed. You took your chances when you climbed on that thing.

I agree with them, and I ride bicycles more than most.

The pedestrian has the right of way, it is my responsibility as a cyclist to accommodate them.

Most times the cyclist considers it too much of an imposition to merely slow down, will call out “ON YOUR LEFT!” moments before zipping by from behind, giving the pedestrian little time to react.

Strapping on spandex does seem to bring out the d$ckhead in folks.

This explains an awful lot.

Like the desire to buy .22 ammo he doesn't need and offer pics of his junk on the internet ?

silly boomer covtard.

You can't purchase 22 ammo now? Are you that dumb and helpless?

It's not that he doesn't need it - it's that he knew you did. That's why I buy it.

City Bicycle messengers, in many cases Ate a perfect example of this. Although they are like french/Greek cab drivers. At least they are working....it is the recreational cyclists who behave like they are on a mission from God, that are the real menace....

In what ever mode of transportation you choose it is the duty of the overtaking to avoid the overtaken period.

OP, I’ve got to ask - what prompted the posting of this article (from 2012) a dozen years later?

https://www.arlnow.com/2012/06/11/woman-seriously-injured-after-being-hit-by-cyclist/

SImple, there hasn't been a good bike thread in at least two weeks. Paul Barnard is slipping, once he retired, it was all downhill. which, for a cyclist, is bitchin.

When you are town crier and something comes across your many feeds, you pump that schidt out, you don't do any meaningless verification. Veracity smacity. Recency peencency.

Ha. I think I have you topped Paul

High school age, probably sophomore year or so, delivering papers in the early morning gloominess. Had smoked a hooter up the hill after delivering the first paper and before starting out on the rest of the route. About 1/2 way through, rode up to a house, tossed their paper on the porch, came off their lawn and onto the street to continue and ...........................bam. Smack dab right into the big white ass end of a travel trailer...............Like where the hell did that come from.

No egg on my forehead though. Just kinda embarrassed about missing a big white trailer. In my favor, I was probably operating on auto pilot and I seem to recall the trailer had never been there before.

Do you need a hug?

LOLOL.

Another of my top 5. I grew up on the edge of Pascagoula MS where a residential area abutted some borrow pits and many acres of wooded land. We had bicycle trails all over the place. There was a dirt road that ran alongside a where they had recently dug out the ditch and install a culvert under a paved road that ran perpendicular to the paved road. We built a dirt jump on the dirt road. We didn't have any money, so we cobbled bikes together out of whatever we could find at a nearby landfill. I never was the wheelie or stunt king, but I could jump crazy long distances. One day I was trying to impress a neighborhood girl with my jumping skills on a newly assembled bike. I hit that jump at full speed and yanked up on the handlebars as I approached the peak. The handlebars came out, stem and all! It seemed like I was in slow motion flailing the detached bars in my hand. When I hit the ground, the front wheel folded under, and I went over the front and about 8 feet down into the ditch. I impacted on my shoulder and the side of my head about 6 inches from that concrete culvert. There was no water in the ditch at the time, but there was some deep soft mud where I hit. I collected myself, more relieved that I was still intact than embarrassed. There was a perfect impression of my head and shoulder in the mud.

Last I checked....................................I and he live in the US of A and are free to buy what we want, when we want it (the exception being regulated items)

Well, it is the kind of thing that pisses resellers off.


https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/userposts/view/started/id/28360

LOLOLOLOL

Damn Paul, the scheidt we got into when we were kids.

Zooming around the sidewalks at the local elementary school one day ( can't say "halls as schools in SoCal were open breezeways), playing chase of some sort. Had a good head of steam up, came around the corner just as my friend did. Head on collision, me going right into the gooseneck stem of the handlebars with a certain part of my anatomy that isn't built for that type of contact.

Probably why I can honestly be called a brokedick?

Of course, should I choose I could likely recall a few more.

I won't get into the driver caused ones................like "I never saw you so I pulled out from the stop sign. "

How many days did it take someone to check?

I just searched for one I liked, put it on the hook, and tossed it in the poo. I didn't Eve have to jiggle it to get Captain spandex to latch onto the hook. Actually, I turned down several newer ones while digging... Heck, it is not even bicycle season in the cities where most of the maniacal cyclists are.....even the college kids are still piling in their vans to go climb the smokes to practice getting up to lethal velocity...
It will be may or June before a bicyclist kills someone in DC or NYC. Later in the UK.