Getting hit by a car within a year is an anomaly right? He brushed it off as his "only accident" like it's supposed to be more commonplace.
Worse, some take eye contact as meaning you know they are there and are prepared to get out of the way of what-ever manoeuvre they are about to perform!
Before my latest office move (it is not so close that messing around with the shed and locking up the bike at work and changing clothes if needed in bad weather add up to more than cycling saves over walking at a brisk pace) I rode to work for years, 3.5 miles each way for the most part, and while I've had a few near misses (the worst being a bus that halfway through overtaking me decided to shuffle in nearly sandwiching me between the bus and the road-side railings) I've never actually been touched by another vehicle. I'm on city roads, though small city (York, UK) rather than somewhere even more hectic than London, but here I'd say cycling to work is no less safe than walking.
Probably saccadic masking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccadic_masking
to avoid getting doored?
Wouldn't this slow the traffic.
Typically, the idea is that I would like drivers behind me to not pass me in the same lane that I'm in — that is, I'm trying to avoid having a driver do the typical half-assed job of passing by trying to squeeze their SUV in the same lane as me. (i.e., if you want to pass me, use another lane, not this one. If there isn't another lane: tough, I'll be out of your way ASAP — I don't like having a car behind me any more than a driver likes having a biker in front of them.)
> Wouldn't this slow the traffic.
Sometimes, yes. For me, most of the routes I take the car traffic moves at approximately the same speed or slower. If there's a huge speed difference and traffic is much faster, I'll usually avoid left turns and use a crosswalk to "turn", if I think that's safer. (Which has its own tradeoffs: one has to be very careful and ensure that drivers in the lane next to you are going to actually stop at the crosswalk before you enter it. Just because the light is red hardly means anything, and a lot of drivers will overshoot the stop line if they don't think anyone is going to be in the crosswalk when they do so.)
Only safe way to make a left turn is to get off the bike and do it like pedestrians.
Behaving like a car as much as possible makes you more predictable, and keeps everyone out of trouble. I stop at red lights too.
If traffic is light and not too fast, I just signal, merge into the turn lane, and turn as if I were a car. If it's a multi-lane road, that means "taking the lane" for a bit. I try to minimize that, but it happens.
If traffic is heavy or fast, I will signal, pull off to the side, and cross like a pedestrian.
Generally speaking, I try to be as "car-like" and predictable as possible.
Personally, for bike lanes I love the protected turns I saw in Germany. A separated bike lane will cross an intersection with a dedicated light. On the far side of the intersection, there will be a fork in the path with another dedicated bike signal to cross the road you were parallel with. I'll see if I can find an example.
https://bikeeastbay.org/protectedintersection
https://bikeeastbay.org/sites/default/files/images/Alta%27s%...
If you think merging across lanes is scary, do it sooner. The more time you give yourself and the people around you to process the maneuver, the easier it gets.
One you know the road, you can even exit an earlier intersection in a way that makes you magically end up in the right lane to begin with.
> I didn't run red lights
Thank you. As both a biker and a driver, I appreciate this. Too many bikers don't do this, and I've witnessed too many close calls for those that don't. I've been heckled by other bikers for stopping at red lights, so I know that sometimes this can be a pain to actually stick to.
(The close call I had was an idiot in lane 1, which was a straight/left lane, who decided to turn right. The only right turn lane is lane 4: he cut off a lane of traffic, the bike lane, and the right-turn only lane. I had to take the right "with" him, essentially, or I would have hit him, and I could feel the traction in my back tire slipping the entire time from the huge amount of braking I was begging for.)
Basically, if you are cycling on the road (and that includes bike lanes that aren't protected/separated), you have to assume cars don't see you. Ride defensively all the time. That will minimize accidents at intersections.
Nothing you can do about getting run down from behind (other than not ride a bicycle). But, that's rare.
I should point out that I ride in the suburbs and road traffic goes much faster than what I can sustain on a bike. Most roads are 35 or 45mph and hilly/curvy, so they are terrifying to cycle on.