When I ride during the day, I’m usually riding down some fairly busy neighborhood roads and it always distracts drivers. Many of them hit the brakes and go dangerously slow, or inattentively veer over the bumps of the traffic stripes, or stare directly at me, sometimes while shouting obscenities. None of this can be very safe.
Well today was a little worse than usual. People were not moving when the lights turned green, which made the other drivers mad. Another person gave me about 10 feet of clearance while going around and that forced the person going in the opposite direction to quickly move over. And then somebody jumped a curb right by me because they were staring at me off to the side and didn’t notice the slight curve in the road. They hit it at about 30 mph and the 2 right wheels bounced up in the air and into the grass, but fortunately they managed to recover quickly. The fact that this person was in an SUV explains the crappy driving to some extent, but I think a lot of drivers are just completely distracted by me. It’s not like I’m doing anything that interesting, I’m just riding along on my 36er. Anyway, what do you guys think, does unicycling near traffic create a hazard even if we’re on the sidewalk?
wow…I’ve never had anything that blatant happen around me. Usually one of the passengers just rolls down his/her window and shouts something at me, I’ve never seen a car swerve at my expense, though they have gone well over on the other side of the road to pass me.
I agree with DarkTom, though. We have the right to ride a unicycle if we want, but though he says it’s their fault if they crash, what if they hit/hurt you? Then it becomes your problem too.
I suppose then, that you can ride, but just be careful, attentive, wear a helmet, etc.
Where is Erf? You’ve got some weird drivers there.
What I usually get is some extra clearance. Plus, they kind of slow down for me. No harm there. Noone has ever shouted at me(at least I haven’t heard them).
I have distracted two drivers enough to cause an accident. The one in front slowed way down to watch me at an intersection. The one behind rear-ended her while watching me also.
I certainly notice drivers who are distracted / confused because of me. I ride mostly on cycle paths but sometimes on the roads because riding on the sidewalks isn’t really practical round here.
On the one hand, I don’t want to make the road unsafe. On the other hand, if you expect people who are distracting to drivers to stay away from the road then that also excludes (to a greater or lesser degree) attractive people, very tall people, people who are moving house and have strange furniture, etc.
Most cars around here behave sensibly. Some are too cautious, some are cavelier - but that kind of distribution is always the case, no matter what you’re riding.
When I hadn’t been riding very long, I did almost fall off because a black Mercedes was crawling along behind me. I think he actually might have just been watching me, but it was distracting me and I almost rode into a parked car
I think it’s annoying i’m not out there to impress anybody but the people that see my films. I hate being watched. And yeah, if they get into a wreck, laugh at them. Their fault.
There is some truth to that. There have been more accidents caused by people gawking at celebrities than accidents caused by people gawking at a unicyclist.
I’ve ridden with harper, he wears cycling shorts. She was checking him out.
The guy behind was checking him out too, saw the pony tail and thought it was going to be a tall chick. Got closer, when he saw it was a dude he did a double take which cause him to rear-end the girl’s car.
Someday my day will come when I can cause an accident.
One of my friends was told by a cop to stop cycling on the sidewalk 'cause it would distract drivers… Maybe it’s just me, but I figure it’s better to drive the car then check to see if that actually was something/someone weird/interesting/hot
