People in cars ignoring EUC riders right of way

[LanghamP]

Got knocked off my EUC yet again about an hour ago. I had the green and the walking light, a woman texting on her phone (a nurse yet) coming from my left so she had a red...just rolls through I manage to swerve right but still knocks me off (lightly).

I'm yelling at her, another guy is telling at her, she's saying something unintelligible.

It's glorious I tell you.

Right in red should be abolished if drivers keep rolling through. I wonder if the smartphone has so penetrated our lives that most of us now use them when coasting to a stoplight. I think it has. 

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

Dude I see a bad pattern here...   Slow to a crawl, look left, extend right arm pointing in the direction of travel, make sure you make eye contact with any drivers in cars creeping through the red... if no eye contact full stop.  It's the only way.  You are gonna get a foot run over or worse at this rate...

[Rocky Romero]

On 6/27/2017 at 10:01 PM, JimB said:

Yup, funny Canadian video   But yes, I actually do this.  At one spot downtown, I'm riding on the sidewalk parallel to traffic.  I need to travel diagonally across a crowded 4-way stop.  Pedestrians should have RoW, but the poor folks in cars are just trying to navigate the crowded intersection.  So I turn left, in front of the car I'm paralleling, I slow down, and extend my arm so the driver can clearly see where I'm going.  Then I immediately turn right, crossing the other side of the intersection - same thing - extend arm.  It really helps.

Also, it works with other pedestrians.  When I'm aiming for the ramp at the end of the sidewalk, the peds see me coming and don't know where to move.  I just casually reach my arm out and point where I'm headed.  Pedestrians don't immediately realize that we can't go up or down curbs (ok, so sometimes we go down curbs).

Great thoughts.

I will use the pointing forward more intentionally.

There's a reason that hands are (mostly) free to signal.  I do it continuously, especially for turning on sidewalks.  Pedestrians look down to the wheel and my turning finger indicator or right/left side indicator makes the flow easier.

As I cross the street crossing, I will occasionally raise both my hands in surrender style, a way to get noticed, and stretch my arms and wave thankfully.

Because I can.

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[Rocky Romero]

On 8/15/2017 at 8:40 AM, LanghamP said:

Finally, someone who gets it.

While most drivers are just fine, I have encountered enough drivers who are absolutely convinced that pedestrians are in the wrong. Indeed, they are enraged that you dare cross in the crosswalk and slow them down. Undoubtedly they think hitting you is an inconvenience, and indeed they'd be right as St Louis does not prosecute or even ticket car drivers who kill pedestrians in crosswalk as several recent cases this year show. They do not really care if they hit you, and indeed they might go out of their way to bump you off as a way of teaching you a lesson for daring to cross in front of them.

My goal is rather modest; it's not to punish these drivers or teach them a lesson or try to get them off the road. Rather, it is just to get the license plate number if I have to jump away from the car but I cannot bring the unicycle with me, and so the unicycle gets run over. I doubt these car drivers would be apologetic and pay for the EUC unless they were legally compelled to.

This makes sense to me.

I will renew my efforts to wear a head camera.  Annoying as it may look.

It's little effort and I may get some great scenery rolls.

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[GoinPostal]

On 8/26/2017 at 6:15 AM, Rocky Romero said:

Great thoughts.

I will use the pointing forward more intentionally.

There's a reason that hands are (mostly) free to signal.  I do it continuously, especially for turning on sidewalks.  Pedestrians look down to the wheel and my turning finger indicator or right/left side indicator makes the flow easier.

As I cross the street crossing, I will occasionally raise both my hands in surrender style, a way to get noticed, and stretch my arms and wave thankfully.

Because I can.

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I wear bright orange gloves to help with signaling. 

[meepmeepmayer]

Realistically, I think most car drivers react to things that they can believe can damage their cars

Some kind of inflatable gizmos (like kids' water wings, so they are light) that look like you're carrying big red bricks, cobblestones, or big enough rocks (must be something immediately recognizable), fixed to your hands with a short strap, will get drivers attention when you're waving around your arms. A "pedestrian" they can't ignore or run over suddenly.

Or just carry around a curbstone in front of you when riding, and look at every driver menacingly.

This is meant more seriously than one would think Nothing gets assholes to think twice better than the fear of getting something heavy thrown at their windshield (and them behind it) by a panicking pedestrian.

[Rocky Romero]

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Realistically, I think most car drivers react to things that they can believe can damage their cars

Some kind of inflatable gizmos (like kids' water wings, so they are light) that look like you're carrying big red bricks, cobblestones, or big enough rocks (must be something immediately recognizable), fixed to your hands with a short strap, will get drivers attention when you're waving around your arms. A "pedestrian" they can't ignore or run over suddenly.

Or just carry around a curbstone in front of you when riding, and look at every driver menacingly.

This is meant more seriously than one would think Nothing gets assholes to think twice better than the fear of getting something heavy thrown at their windshield (and them behind it) by a panicking pedestrian.

This throws my 3P theory out.

You know, Pause, Point, Proceed.  At intersections.

My wife thinks I'm doing some kind of salute and refuses to do it.

Politeness, I think, still reigns.

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[Rocky Romero]

On 8/25/2017 at 6:37 PM, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

Dude I see a bad pattern here...   Slow to a crawl, look left, extend right arm pointing in the direction of travel, make sure you make eye contact with any drivers in cars creeping through the red... if no eye contact full stop.  It's the only way.  You are gonna get a foot run over or worse at this rate...

This video of a biker pulled over by an undercover cop is a testimony to a cooler mind and a video camera as a witness.

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[LanghamP]

I wouldn't antagonize people here in St. Louis; it has one of the highest per capita murder and assault rates in the US.

Over the past few days I've been observing driver's at intersection by taking a few minutes per trip; evidently I'm not the only one to get run over in the crosswalks. It's a pretty common to get bumped in the crosswalk and while it feels malicious it usually isn't.

Smartphones are almost entirely to blame for bad drivers; just by looking in the cars of people who drive badly I can see almost a 100% are looking down at their cell phones. And almost 100% of drivers nowdays are on their cell phones.

Driving around and near my local college campus, 100% of walkers who are walking alone are on their cell phones. With groups of girls, most are on their cell phones.

I think it is now impossible to separate transportation from smartphone use. There is no law strong enough that is reasonable enough to stop people from using their smartphones while walking or driving. Bicyclist I hardly ever see them using cell phones.

Basically, the takeaway is that when any car is rolling up to an intersection with a red, simply assume the driver is looking down into his cell phone. With almost 100% assurance, he is. This isn't because people are dumb, it's because driving is so damn boring when it has all this downtime. Autonomous vehicles can't get here soon enough.

[Rocky Romero]

37 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

 

I think it is now impossible to separate transportation from smartphone use. There is no law strong enough that is reasonable enough to stop people from using their smartphones while walking or driving. Bicyclist I hardly ever see them using cell phones.

 

Agreed.

Although on my bike, I have a holder for my cell phone.

As a biker, the hands are busy enough with handle bars.

I do wear AirPods for calls, and Apple Watch for notices.

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[Stan Onymous]

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

Basically, the takeaway is that when any car is rolling up to an intersection with a red, simply assume the driver is looking down into his cell phone. With almost 100% assurance, he is. This isn't because people are dumb, it's because driving is so damn boring when it has

Cars should have an interference built in that make the passengers verify every 2 minutes of use that they are not driving. Accelerometers can sense a crash and should record if the phone was in use during such an event and log it for Insurance purposes. Risk has been ignored in the insurance market to democratize insurance to qualify more people. For instance, Insurers in Houston shouldve required elevated first floors in flood plains to qualify for flood insurance. That may have prevented developers from certain projects.

the same is at work in the auto insurance industry now with the addition of an unregulated risk like cellphones. Cars are already nearly autonomous for most drivers with automatic shifting, lane change sensors, and auto stop functions. Humans work on steady risk, so when we take away risk, risky behavior goes up to fill the gap. We are so pampered in our cars that we are bored. So we look for more risk.

If more people knew they could be held accountable for being on their phones during an accident, fewer people would act out so pervasively because we would be raising the risk for these behaviors. Until insurers are held to task to take on this fight, the data driven carnage will continue.

[LanghamP]

^^^^

Let's put risk in another way; do you think that a driver would not drive with utmost care if his bumper was attached to spike pointed directly at his heart through his steering wheel? Or better yet pointed at him and all his passengers?

It's insane how cheap flood insurance is...unless you're the one getting insurance. And people "needing" flood insurance the most (ie the coastal houses) have great lobbyist.

People who knowingly assume risk aren't always dumb; they often have no choice in the matter (ie pedestrians). People who are smart do know the risk and shuffle that risk elsewhere. A great example is the 2008 market crash caused by bad loans. A cursory review comes up with terms like, "asleep at the wheel", "underestimated the risk" but the loan market worked exactly as it was designed to do; sell the loan, get the commission, package them up and sell them to the government who then assumes the risk. Did anyone involved in the business have any contrary illusions?

On the face of it, insurance works to mitigate risk, but my viewpoint is that too much insurance elevates risky behavior. It's not just insurance; it's any system that pushes the risk to someone else. My recommendation is when someone is encouraging you to do something (be it insurance, loans, marriage, real estate, construction projects, etc...) then see if they "put skin in the game". If they don't have skin in the game, you <must> pass.

Some particularly egregious behavior I see in the business world (pick up the Wall Street Journal) is some guy pitches a project that is bought by others, and then the project goes under and the guy gets insurance compensation. Basically the guy sells you a car, puts insurance on it, then cuts the brakes.

[Stan Onymous]

50 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

ome particularly egregious behavior I see in the business world (pick up the Wall Street Journal) is some guy pitches a project that is bought by others, and then the project goes under and the guy gets insurance compensation. Basically the guy sells you a car, puts insurance on it, then cuts the brakes.

If you have read about it in the WSJ then the person was caught and had to repay the insurance. You read about it because they were caught or are in the process of being caught, not because they ultimately got away with it. Insurance companies have their returns on investments at stake. They have to rely on better risk assesment instead of covering mistakes with historically low interest rate borrowing.

I still think there is a responsibility to the communities that these businesses, ie car companies serve that needs to be addressed. Insurance companies already offer tattlers that you plug into your vehicle code readers OBD2 devices. Why not really address the problem at the source - the personal responsibility of the individual to be accountable and therefore responsible for their actions for using their cellphones while driving? I abhor the idea of autonomous driving machines. We already have these. They are called Taxis(uber, lyft) busses and trains. They are fine for their purposes. Their purposes are city planning and regulating of traffic inside their limits. Uber and lyft are already filling this market and will switch to those automated machines as soon as they can. Driving yourself gives one a sense of direction and orientation that automated driving has so far failed to fill. I can see no benefits of this for self driving cars for the individuals who will be incased in them.

[LanghamP]

2 hours ago, Stan Onymous said:

Why not really address the problem at the source - the personal responsibility of the individual to be accountable and therefore responsible for their actions for using their cellphones while driving?

 

Driving yourself gives one a sense of direction and orientation that automated driving has so far failed to fill. I can see no benefits of this for self driving cars for the individuals who will be incased in them.

We already have laws, some rather severe, that attempt to limit distracted driving. Such laws cause more accidents as now people hold their phone down low in order not to be caught. Since smartphones now cause more accidents and deaths than drunk driving, it follows such laws are not effective. Maybe lawmakers could make the punishment so draconian that people would stop using their smartphones while driving.

No, since everyone is doing it, and we want a society where we feel pretty free to do what we want, within limits, I'd much prefer technology that helps us drive safe(r).

Self-driving vehicles should address the safety aspect of driving; for self-fulfillment people have clearly chosen social media. For most, tapping on their smartphone is far more interesting than driving, and for many affording a performance car for a driving enthusiast is a choice most of us cannot do (which is why I still ride my MSuper occasionally).

[Stan Onymous]

I get it, you are jaded about laws that are useless and want anything new to detour around them. Well not so fast, how has this worked out so far with all of our technology replacing human input?... So do you trust windows updates, and flash updates to work properly better than human decision making enhanced by technology? Technology has solved nothing so far, and if anything in editing it makes more work in audio and video editing. It is nice because you never have to permanently lose the original, but that is archiving, and only librarians are good at that. You can see where they are now. So long Mr Duey Decimal. Even in banking, the ATM machines were supposed to remove all tellers and make bank branches obsolete. They made bank transactions cheaper and easier and allowed banks to open more branches and hire more tellers. Certainly using the accelerometer inside your device you get distracted by in your your car with a crash logger is the least that can be done. It is something that is not reliant on chance to get caught doing something wrong, since just as your car is evidence, so should the crash logger on a cellphone be.

we alreaady have sophisticated driving machines. They are called people, and nothing is as complex or beautifully constructed to accomplish the task of driving as humans. If you dont think so, have a robot pick your nose with the same hand he drives in a nail into a piece of wood and get back to me.

What we have, and you have pointed out several times so I am not sure why you are laboring the point, is technology getting in the way of that beautiful driving machine and making riding a EUC dangerous. You must have some extra knowlege on Courtesy algorythms, but as of yet it is too sophisticated and intricate to be done as fast as human thought can accomplish it, and the circuitry wont be here in theory for another 7 years at least. So lets work with the actual problem we have instead of making bigger future one is all I am advocating.

[LanghamP]

Dang, had two close calls today, both from drivers looking down on their cell phones while rolling through a red light. Not sure what use that would be for them as they still have to stop eventually before getting into the intersection. They weren't making right-hand turns so just stop, already.

Second case I had to slap the hood of the pickup truck as I was trollying the wheel across the intersection. I have the walking man light, they have the red, I'm on the crosswalk, jeez what else can I do? Mind you these are the two inner traffic lanes, and I'm shinning a flashlight into the truck's cabin.

Useless; he's on his phone looking downward while rolling through the pedestrian zone. I slap his hood, loud, he stops but he's still looking down on his phone. He can't see a thing, he's a drooling zoombie on his phone.

 

[Stan Onymous]

13 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

Useless; he's on his phone looking downward while rolling through the pedestrian zone. I slap his hood, loud, he stops but he's still looking down on his phone. He can't see a thing, he's

On my drive to Oregon and Idaho I found out that Idaho has raised the penalty for even having the phone in the front seat to penalties similar to Drunk Driving penalties. Which means that Cellphone Zombie could be fined $10,000 . Oregon has also outlawed driving with a cellphone on in the front seat too, but I dont know their penalties for such actions.

I still say mandate an accelerometer log that the police can check in an accident for all phones. It was amazing to see so many people merging onto a freeway while gazing at their phone and not the road or traffic. Something needs to be done that effectively stops this behavior or cuts it back dramatically. 

[Rocky Romero]

1 hour ago, Stan Onymous said:

 

I still say mandate an accelerometer log that the police can check in an accident for all phones. It was amazing to see so many people merging onto a freeway while gazing at their phone and not the road or traffic. Something needs to be done that effectively stops this behavior or cuts it back dramatically. 

It's futile to wait for authorities to take action or to change the existing behaviors of others. 

I ride safely on the sidewalks and very cautious at crosswalks, mostly daylight riding.

Occassionally when it starts to sunset or get darker, I have used a Bluetooth speaker to blast out music.  Classical when I ride alone and Bob Marley music when riding with my wife.  She refuses to ride with me unless she picks the music. 

However, it occurred to me that a motorcycle sound might be a better alternative.  People seem to move for that, as I can attest from the pedestrian viewpoint.

The speaker is loud enough and good enough to get around, probably safely.

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[meepmeepmayer]

I like the Jaws music proposal! (in some other thread)

Or maybe record the sound of a chainsaw (complete with maniacal laughter) and loop it for a motor sound

[Rocky Romero]

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

I like the Jaws music proposal! (in some other thread)

Or maybe record the sound of a chainsaw (complete with maniacal laughter) and loop it for a motor sound

Brilliant!

I could have chainsaw sounds mixed in with Bob Marley maniacal laughter (to appease my wife) with some sort of Hell's Angels motorcycle sounds.

I would definitely move out of the way if that came blasting behind me/in front/from the side. Problem solved.

Now where is that chain saw that I had and does it still work?

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[LanghamP]

This morning I saw a bicyclist with the walk rights get knocked off her bicycle by a car turning right on red, the car bumped into her lightly but the car's brakes were fully applied.

I had my camera with me; if I had been thinking better I could have recorded a video of this as it was very obvious the car was going to run the light.

[Rocky Romero]

31 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

This morning I saw a bicyclist with the walk rights get knocked off her bicycle by a car turning right on red, the car bumped into her lightly but the car's brakes were fully applied.

I had my camera with me; if I had been thinking better I could have recorded a video of this as it was very obvious the car was going to run the light.

I’m intending on having a camera continuously recording as I ride.

Cars and traffic are more critical situations.

You may know that marathon runners are in training more actively as the date approaches.  Because of that and warmer than usual weather, there are more runners on already crowded sidewalks.

One in particular was overly aggressive (and agile) and jumped within inches ahead on my wife riding her MiniPro.  Luckily no contact was made, however, my wife could have easily accelerated and a collusion would occur.

Awareness seems to be the key when riding.  I no longer use headphones with music because of these possibilities.

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[kour]

On 9/22/2017 at 9:50 AM, Stan Onymous said:

On my drive to Oregon and Idaho I found out that Idaho has raised the penalty for even having the phone in the front seat to penalties similar to Drunk Driving penalties. Which means that Cellphone Zombie could be fined $10,000 . Oregon has also outlawed driving with a cellphone on in the front seat too, but I dont know their penalties for such actions.

seems draconian, but really, there's no need to be on the phone while driving! makes sense to put in glove compartment and then pull over somewhere if you have to make a call/text/etc. such laws would work in everyone's favor - for eucers in two ways: 1) less collisions with zombie drivers 2) we have to stop anyway to adjust settings

[Rocky Romero]

5 hours ago, kour said:

seems draconian, but really, there's no need to be on the phone while driving! makes sense to put in glove compartment and then pull over somewhere if you have to make a call/text/etc. such laws would work in everyone's favor - for eucers in two ways: 1) less collisions with zombie drivers 2) we have to stop anyway to adjust settings

Modern day communications involves Apple Watch and AirPods.  Works seamlessly even when riding.

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[kour]

having not driven a car on a regular basis for about seven months now, and getting deeper into the pub transport/euc groove, i've definitely started seeing cars and their drivers through a different lens - also pedestrians, a lot of whom are also just ambling along looking at their phones. cars now seem lumbering and unnecessarily... large. cyclists? i've actually had a few express their didain for me, but for the most part they're halfway there...