I have evolved to use this techniqe in my commute. I was amused to find an info graphic about it.
an important corollary is don’t slow up traffic, be aware who’s behind you, find safe ways to let them pass.
Remember 50% of these people think bikes/esk8s aren’t allowed on the roads when in fact depending on the route they are often legally required to be on the road.
Behave like a slow car, be respectful and share the road.
This is a good reminder.
When riding on the road with vehicles… I just assume every vehicle is out to kill me.
I second this. The best you can do for your safety is to cover all the bases you can. And even when you are doing them all right something can still go wrong.
I’m not sure if anyone else has had a similar scenario, but just last week I had a guy try to run me off the road bc he was mad I was on my esk8. Dove over 2 lanes trying to hit me. After a call to the cops he was promptly arrested but it just goes to show no matter what you do you still need to be ready to defend yourself against a person in a big moving 3000lbs deadly weapon
Especially with how fast we all like to go, we can use that to our advantage if you can recognize a bad situation before it happens
This. It’s even better than pretending they can’t see you.
IME the right hook is the most common collision mode. I can’t count the number of times I had to kick off the passenger side door of some oblivious motorist while commuting on my road bike. I used to do a 40km round trip commute, I gave up my road bike because it was too dangerous. To be fair I was exceeding the speed limit most of the time, makes my esk8 seem slow…
Good stuff. This type of attitude/awareness kept me from getting liquified in over 25+ years of riding street bikes.
It has been my experience (and I’m sure this will be familiar to most of us) that there is literally no speed at which I can be riding my esk8 in the street that the motorists behind me will accept.
35mph in a 20mph school zone? Nope. Mommy is gonna put the pedal to the metal in her 3-row SUV, blast through a couple cross walks, and pass me in the left lane going 45mph.
The best part is pulling up next to/past them at the next red light.
All that to say, Vehicular Cycling is assuming that motorists will share the road when forced to by a confident cyclist (or skater), rather than simply run you over/off the road out of spite.
respect! You hit him you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Couldn’t agree more. I absolutely REFUSE to accept the logic “they can kill you so you must appease them”. Fuck that.
Threatening someone with a deadly weapon ( I consider a punish-pass the same as threatening my life) for making it harder for you to break the speed limit is NEVER okay and can NEVER be justified.
FTFY 
It sounds like you and I agree about the issue (motorists act unreasonable around esk8ers and do dangerous/threatening/illegal shit), but we do NOT agree about how to respond to it.
My point is that the best and only way to protect myself from motorists is to avoid them completely, assume they all want to hurt me, and avoid them completely. I’m definitely not advocating directly confronting them or provoking them by damaging their property. The moral high ground is nice, but living is nicer.
I was an idiot and provoked a motorist because I felt like I had the moral high ground. Doing that nearly got @Evwan seriously hurt or killed, because the guy decided to respond by attacking us with his truck. Was he in the wrong? Definitely. Would that have mattered if I got my friend injured by mouthing off at this guy? Not even a little bit.
Is it fucked up that I have to be so defensive around motorists to avoid getting injured or killed? Yeah, but that’s the world we live in, and breaking mirrors is not the most effective way that I can work to change it.
I would’ve done the same thing.
No, ride like you trust everyone, while trusting noone. This gives you space that your paranoid self would spurn.
Man don’t get me started. Way back in my college bike racing days (I was a cat 3 at one point!) I had a job as a bike messenger to help me get my weekly base miles in. There are various things I learned from living in NYC and Chicago at a formative age:
This is coming from someone who absolutely loves to drive - most drivers are idiots, don’t know how their increasingly larger crossovers handle (let alone work) and a ton of the safety features which automate the driving experience has led to millions of people who find things such as judging if they can fit in a gap or parallel parking to be an insurmountable task.
I regularly ride my boards at a sedate 12 - 15 MPH on city streets, not because traffic is heavy or the roads are bad (they are) or pedestrians are a problem (they’re usually not), but because on streets without protected bike lanes, there is a constant fear of being cut off by a the driver in front of you suddenly diving into a street parking spot, or a person who can’t do the most basic due diligence (let alone a Dutch reach) to make sure they’re not about to door someone. I can’t even imagine what it’s like doing this in the suburban sprawl.
Maybe one day we’ll be Copenhagen, but man are we are a long way off.
Ok I’ll jump off my soapbox now.
This video has the hands down best set up for riding with cars. The best deterrent to dangerous drivers is half a dozen anti tank mines, but probably best not to bunny hop or cat walk
OR
For the strict pacifist
I had a car literally chase me (that i hadnt even cut off) to get in front of me, tried to speed check me and yelled out his window to get off the road and i was a hazard… ironically
I was near Radium HQ so i blamed @Tony_Stark
It’s become normalized. It’s normal to hear drivers say they’ll do exactly this proudly and loudly.
It’s in the culture.
Thanks for posting about riding with cars & safety. I live in downtown Chicago and you can never be too careful when it comes to cars. A lot of drivers are pre-occupied with their phones and some drivers are in a hurry, but going no where. So defensive riding is the name of the game.
One of the devices I have found really helpful is the Garmin Radar. It is a smart light that attaches to the back of your board and it lights-up brighter when it detects a car. ALSO, I have the radar routed to my phone and smart helmet.
Which means, when a car is approaching from behind me while I am riding, a “ding” goes off inside my helmet letting me know that a car is approaching behind me. If the approaching car is coming fast, then it goes “ding, ding, ding” loudly. Also, when the coast is clear, and there are no more cars behind me, it send another “ding” sound to my helmet letting me know the coast is clear.
Here are some pictures of the Garmin Radar attached to a couple of my boards:
I work in the bike industry and have never seen this, How? I am asking myself the same thing. that’s so COOL.
What’s cost on one of those bad boys?
Wonder if there’s anything open source that works similarly?
