On my way home today, I stopped at a red light. No one was coming, so I proceeded into the intersection, signalling right and began turning (although going through red lights on your bike is slightly less socially acceptable in Britain, this particular light has a major bike path coming onto it, so lots of people run it, if not everyone). As I began turning, another biker zoomed past me on my right (a right turn here is like a left turn in the US, in that you have to cross another lane to do it). I braked, but my front tire bumped his back tire, and my bike fell over. I landed on my feet while the man yelled at me in a Scottish accent, "JEEESUS! Yeh deedn't ee'n look behin' yeh!"
I apologized, got back on my bike, and finished turning (luckily there were still no cars around). I was feeling at fault because of his berating, but as I thought about it, I'm not sure what I did wrong. I probably didn't give a big enough signal, but the guy was nowhere near me when I stopped at the light. He must have been going fast, and clearly didn't stop at the light at all. Granted, I was going through a red light and am therefore somewhat at fault, but he did that while not stopping, so I'd like to allocate him more of the fault.
I remember in Chicago thinking there was something of a biker's code about how to run red lights, but unwritten codes don't work in situations where not everyone knows them. I guess the obvious answer is to just wait for the light to turn green. Anyone have any thoughts on how the biker's code would deal with this?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment