“No he keeps going at same speed and “tailgates” car for about 1/4 mile. “
The cyclist was “dafting” off the car, using the pressure wave the car creates as it moves through the air to cheat a bit and go faster than he could pedal. I won’t say that when younger I’ve never done it but it is dangerous as all get out. Not only does a bicycle not accelerate as fast as a car they don’t decelerate as fast either without doing a front wheel stand.
The cyclist presumes the driver knows what’s going on and that the driver will not have to make an emergency stop. Neither of those are valid presumptions. Unlike a car a cyclist has to watch his front wheel as small bits of road debris or small potholes, unnoticed by a car driver must be avoided by a cyclist. That means a cyclist can’t be looking for brake lights all the time.
Cyclist have enough problems with drivers that are valid that they don’t need to create more.
Also as others above have said, I have rolled through stop signs on my bike lots of times in places where I thought it was safe. However, it’s like going 32mph in a 25mph zone. You can do it safely and many many people do lots of the time but that’s not an excuse if you get a ticket and isn’t an argument to raise a speed limit.
A coworker was badly beaten up and his expensive bike was totaled because he was drafting a truck and the truck stopped suddenly. It was his fault because he was following too closely.
“The cyclist was “dafting” off the car, using the pressure wave the car creates as it moves through the air to cheat a bit and go faster than he could pedal. I won’t say that when younger I’ve never done it but it is dangerous as all get out. Not only does a bicycle not accelerate as fast as a car they don’t decelerate as fast either without doing a front wheel stand.”
Have no idea what you just said. Only thing I understood was the word “Dangerous”.
” That means a cyclist can’t be looking for brake lights all the time.”
Don’t get that. Just like in a motor vehicle, one must figure the car/truck in front of you is going to slam the breaks on for anything at anytime...another car, cat/dog/deer, a child any reason under the sun. Does not mean “all the time” but it means one must be watching more so if they are going to be “dangerous” and tailgating.
Last year, in Colorado Springs, I was driving a rental and was unfamiliar with the area. I came to a stop, looked both ways, then started to make a left turn on a four-lane street. Suddenly I realized there was some kind of strange turn lane in the middle of the street, so I braked to a stop to figure out how to get in this unfamiliar turn lane.
Unbeknownst to me, there was a bicyclist behind me. He slammed into my car right as I started accelerating to go into the turn lane. I felt a bump at the back of the car and heard a thump, looked back and saw him. He was upright and riding and wasn’t yelling at me so I went on my way. Later I found a huge deep foot-round dent in the trunk of the car.
Scary. I was able to easily punch out the dent. The car must have been made out of aluminum foil. That bike rider could have been killed.