A Near Miss

A few weeks ago I started taking a new route home that takes twice as long to get home, but appears to be twice as safe. I'm starting to wonder what really makes a safe route safe. The reason I chose this particular route is because it actually has a dedicated bike "lane", as opposed to some streets that are just labeled bike "path". So, for 90% of the ride home, I'm on an actual bike path using this new route and there are significantly fewer cars on the road. The problem is that it seems that when the traffic thins out, everyone gets relaxed and starts letting their guard down. There are a lot fewer traffic lights, so people have a tendency to pick up speed on the road, including myself. Which, is partly why I think I almost had an accident on Wednesday. I don't have a cyclometer on this bike so I don't know for sure how fast I was cruising, but I'd say I was doing at least 25 mph (35 mph speed limit). There were no cars on my side of the street nor on the other side at the time of this near miss. So lets cut to the chase. As I cruised down the street I see out of my peripheral a moving mass that caught my attention. There was a car with a woman driver cutting across the street. See diagram below:



You like that drawing, don't you... Anyway, she was already 1/4 through the street when I decided I needed to take evasive action in order to avoid T-boning her. I started yelling as I hit the brakes and my rear tire locked up and started to scrub across the pavement as I struggled to avert a potential disaster. Luckily for me she maintained a constant speed so I was able to adjust myself accordingly, but she made it all the way across the street without even flinching or, as far as I can tell, even noticing that I was there.

Hypothesis:
There were a few different factors that contributed to this scenario.
1) I was traveling faster than the average commuting cyclist. Why should this matter you say? Well, from a psychological standpoint, its my belief that humans accustom themselves to recognizing patterns. For instance, traffic in this area of town generally cruises at 35 mph to 40 mph, most cyclists cruise around at 20 mph at the most, pedestrians generally walk at around 4-5 mph. So, I didn't fit into the normal pattern and therefore the person didn't take notice.

2) Color of clothing. It's my assumption that I didn't have enough flashy colored material on that day. I'm sure that if I had worn more vibrant colors I would have been more noticeable.

3) Head in the cloud syndrome. The lady simply didn't pay enough attention.

So, two of these items are in my control. I am going to purchase some cheap T-shirts with very bright colors and I'm going to monitor my speed a little more closely. Luckily, I was maintaining a speed that allowed me to take corrective action in this situation. But, I think I'll slow it down even more in order to allow myself to make these adjustments in a shorter distance.

Hopefully, this little bit of information will help you be aware of potential dangers and give some insight on what to do to avoid this type of accident. I was fortunate that the timing worked out the way it did. If I had arrived at that intersection a little earlier, she may have seen me and hit the brakes, or she would have continued and T-boned me. That's a bad scenario.

Remember this formula:
Bike T-Bone Car = Bad
Car T-Bone Bike = Very Bad