We all know that cars are a clear and present danger to cyclists, but there are other serious dangers that receive less consideration. Naturally there is our own carelessness or ineptitude. But I have read that one of the three greatest dangers or sources of injury to cyclists is collisions with other bicycles. I have had a lot more of these near collisions than I care to recall since I started group riding. Mind you, I have been lucky that none of these close encounters with other bikes have caused me to crash or be injured as yet, but some were so close that my heart raced as I counted my lucky stars that I was not watching them spinning around my head.
I have learned to distance myself from other riders in keeping with my own skill and my perception of their skill. As a consequence these near collision incidents have grown fewer and fewer as time goes on. When other riders close in on me I move away or if I can't, I request that they give me space. All do so without issue, they don't want to collide either. They know that my call is not a slam to their riding skill, but a call to allow the tranquility of our ride to persist unabated. And so I ride in a serene state, with a sense of peace and calm, co-joined in the group of people with whom I regularly ride. We share a symbiosis of combined skills and perceptions and a respect for space that give all involved the joy of a ride unfettered by potential injury. In other words, we all have a great bike ride and no one gets hurt.
Now there is this other continuing problem and it has hit me (or nearly so) several times in the past year. It always occurs when riders of differing skill, speed and ride style converge somewhere on the road and I think it is the product of misperceptions on the part of some of the riders, as to what other riders are about. Particularly I have had some near collisions with what I presume are ‘A' riders who cut me so close as they passed, without warning, that their behavior startled me and made me jump, which in turn moved me out of the straight line I was following and almost made me crash in to them. Whose fault would the collision have been?
If you are the rider approaching me from behind, here are some things you need to consider.
1) You don't know what kind of rider I am, I don't ride with pacelines and am not used to being in tight packs with other riders. If you presume that passing in tight will not unsettle me, you are very wrong. If we crash as a consequence, it is your fault. This is a principle you should apply to every rider with whom you have not ridden paceline.
2) I am not at all likely to follow a straight line if I don't know that you are coming up from behind. Some sort of prior warning such as the conventional "on your left", "hello", "passing" or some such verbal warning will suffice. And you must not mutter it, you must say it loudly enough that I actually hear you. If you don't warn of your presence and we crash, it's your fault.
3) If you have seen that I have a mirror, this does not absolve you of your responsibility to alert me to your presence verbally. As a tour rider I may be distractedly talking to another rider or watching for cars and may not see you. Remember that the mirror is for my convenience, not your amnesty.
Here are some simple principles that will keep you from being responsible for a rear approach collision.
1) Assume all riders you approach from behind and do not personally know are complete beginners at cycling, that they are not going to ride in a straight line, and that they may be deaf and not hear your verbal warning that you are passing.
2) Never pass a rider any closer than three feet, even if they do acknowledge in some way that they are aware of your presence. This will leave room for their errors and allow you time to react to get away from a collision. Give them as much room as you can, more is better.
3) Always remember that the greater responsibility is yours when you pass. Why? Because you have full awareness of the situation that is unfolding and the other rider does not, therefore you have the greater degree of control in its outcome.
4) Remember that the riding characteristics of other riders, such as tour riders, weekend riders, casual riders, and children are not deficiencies, just characteristics. They have as much right to ride safely on their bikes as you do. To say that they should not be riding if they don't have your more refined skills is car thinking. "Because they are different they should not share my road." This is wrong. They have as much right to ride as you do and to do so without you causing them to crash.
5) Observe these same considerations for pedestrians, but give them even more space, they may act randomly as you approach, even if you have warned them verbally.
Finally, there is the matter of simple courtesy, so let me close with this. We as cyclists have become somewhat numbed to the needlessly close passage, careless, negligent and rude behaviors of car drivers, whose perceptions of us are the same as their perceptions of mosquitoes; but we have a right to expect a lot more from our fellow cyclists, because we are all in this together. Always ride with safety and courtesy foremost in your mind. We don't want other classes of cyclists attaching some improper connotation to what that ‘A' means. And you don't want some judge at a lawsuit explaining all this again during sentencing, pointing out that with your superior cycling skills and experience you could and should have averted this accident.
Following winds, my friends.
Rob Wilt