Stupid Driver and Some Learning Points

Here's a video of me getting cut off by a woman making an early left hand turn in front of me in Shanghai. Not serious but could've wound up bad. Things happened quite fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6KOte1-iJQ

Rather than dwell on what a dumbass driver this woman is (because there's not much I can do about that) I will critique myself on what I could've done better.

1. Ride slower - I though I was free to hit the throttle as soon as I was close to clearing the intersection. The woman turned left early before the intersection and stopped in front of me.

2. Don't get object fixated - I was too focused on the black car that just turned and saw the other car behind it a little late. If I look a little further I may have anticipated better.

3. Don't think they give a shit - I ride with my headlights on, even in the daytime. I flashed my lights at her. Guess she didn't care.

4. Stayed left rather than break right - I wasn't sure if she was going to let me pass first and my first instinct was to pass to the right. Bad choice. I need to train myself to be more conservative in my decisions.

5. Not hit the brakes so hard - I hit my brakes hard right on the white lines of the crosswalk and my rear tire slid a little then screeched. I almost lost control of the bike. Don't know if I could've pumped the brakes but I probably need to practice this a little more.

6. Don't get physical - Probably shouldn't have hit the car's mirror. No point and just makes me take my hands off the handlebars... But damn it felt good...

-Wrangler

Wrangler,
Good objective analysis. ABS would be nice for #5 above.

I keep telling myself that they don't see me. A guy hit me in my red Toyota truck the other day,said he didn't see me.

I was really angry and frustrated after a very near miss the other day. But I sat down and thought about it. I would truly take an opportunity to punish these drivers, even if they are otherwise decent folk with kids and parents etc! But until the law catches them, usually after they kill someone, there is little we can do. People talk about 'driver education' as the answer but that is long term and in my opinion will only work when the whole of society changes, maybe a few thousand more years of social evolution if we are lucky.

Another point - two or three days after I nearly got killed, I turned into my road, waved at the new folk on their porch, was distracted by that for only a second, no more, and I was only doing twenty kph as I rounded the corner and then right in front of me ran the three year old daughter of the other new folk, opposite side .... makes you think. Her mother was running at top speed from the driveway and grabbed her arm and pulled her back as I locked my front wheel and I ended up six foot from getting her. I would have felt terrible of course if I had hit, injured or god forbid killed a child and I was doing nothing wrong ... or was I?

Nothing should ever be allowed to distract us from the view ahead for an instant. And if turning, that includes to the side!

No good sitting at the pearly gates frustrated and angry at the other bugger whose fault it was. And no good surviving an accident in which innocents are killed. That one must be so difficult as there are times when it is really, 'not our fault'.

I enjoy ranting at folk that piss me off or do me wrong. However, in the end it is up to me/us to survive by our own actions. We ride bikes and we HAVE to know the real danger on busy roads with lots of fast traffic, or as in my recent case, an empty road, just me and one other bloody vehicle with a totally blind or insane driver that overtook me as I indicated and turned! A two-lane country road with 500 metres straight visibility and a clear day.

I dunno. What do we do? In my case, just be extra extra extra careful, that is twice in the same spot in a year. No bushes, no reflections, nothing to account for it. My indicators are working. Just ignorance and as Barnone says, blindness - but they survive and their story would be what? That we turned into them? Where would the justice be, who would even care about it much?

I am trying to teach myself NEVER to relax, never to do anything without triple checking. To wear stupid fluorescent yellow or orange ALL the time. And to crawl around my local roads now it is becoming more developed, I mean crawl. 30 kph tops. Lets hope I can remember and stick to it all. I want to enjoy riding my bike!

Dear Wrangler,

Excellent, excellent posting. I've been in China for almost 21 years, and it's still not long enough to cure me of the anger that boils up when drivers weasel through left turns like this one did across your path. Her crime is particularly egregious because of the sense of entitlement she shows as she executes her turn. Yes she sees you but her brain (if not her heart) says, "I'm a car, you are a bike. I take priority. Deal with it."

Your analysis is excellent, but I'd add a sixth point: Always assume that as the light turns green the oncoming traffic will turn left across your path -- particularly if a) there is a line of cars all wanting to turn left so they can weasel through in a little samba line or b) as in your case, there is a large piece of open space to take, even if there is oncoming traffic (you) and they have to seriously cut the corner to do it. Or c) you are on a motorcycle or bicycle. They will ALWAYS do this, predictably, every time. Even if you are there with your high beams scoring their retinas.

Motorcycling anywhere is strictly defensive, but all the more so in China. Because we are all, as chinabiker has often noted, made pretty much entirely of soft tissue and cars are big heavy chunks of much harder metal, we will rarely win in a collision or even in a well-executed swerve that ends in a fall.

Your excellent point 2 about fixation also deserves further emphasis. We need to see the forest for the trees, or perhaps the river for the individual water droplets. Riding, especially in China, is like being in a flow of water. Traffic swirls around any and all objects, and rarely is stopped by any one object. We need to be looking 100-200 meters down the road, while also seeing everything in our immediate periphery, so as to anticipate how the current will flow. The ONLY way to accomplish this is to avoid fixation on anything, and absorb everything.

I cycle in Shanghai much more than I ride my motorcycle, and I'm often faced with situations like the one you filmed. With anger boiling up in me, I'm often tempted to put myself in their path, and once in a long while I do, thus catching the culprit mid-crime. Stupid, stupid thing to do, but pretty satisfying to stand there, blocking their path, put down my kickstand and walk over to the driver's window, and wait while they open the window to hear me ask why it is that they are driving on the wrong side of the road and directly into my path. I feel good about this for a few minutes, then realize: There are 1.3 billion people here, gazillions of them have cars, and 90% of those gazillions are newbies, who learned from teachers who had no idea about safety or courtesy or skills. By "teaching" one driver the error of their ways, I accomplish exactly nothing.

Road rage feels good until a taxi deliberately runs you over. I know this from direct, first-person experience. (I have pictures of my pretzeled wheel.)

Now I try to ride, and drive, in a state of zenlike meditation, which allows me to read the flow, anticipate heartless/egregious actions like the one you filmed, and get home safely to ride another day. And I've started wearing a helmet when bicycling.

Again, thanks for an excellent, honest and thought-provoking post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wrangler

3. Don't think they give a shit - I ride with my headlights on, even in the daytime. I flashed my lights at her. Guess she didn't care.

-Wrangler

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You're right, they absolutely don't give a shit. This is the classic Shanghai left turn, and we just have to get used to it. It's completely dangerous and illegal but there's nothing you can do to prevent it, you just need to be prepared (as you are now :thumbsup: ). Stopping too fast was how I got hurt last April going through an intersection, except it was an idiot on an Ebike and not a car.

As for your tap on her mirror, I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe you got her blood flowing a little better as a result :naughty:. One time I did actually block an idiot who was doing this. He kept coming left and I just kept going right, until he had to stop by the curb with me parked right in front of him while all the oncoming traffic passed him on the left. I just smiled and nodded my head at him, then passed him on the left as he had to wait for the light to change again. Didn't make my passage through the intersection any easier, but made me feel a whole lot better.

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Originally Posted by Nuhaus

As for your tap on her mirror, I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe you got her blood flowing a little better as a result :naughty:.

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A motorcycle boot print in her passenger door would have been satisfying too, or smashing her mirror -- but only until she sees another foreigner on a motorcycle and decides to take revenge. Again, we are not going to teach 1.3 billion people any improved rules of the road, nor are we going to do ourselves any favors by creating more enemies among China's nouveau motoring hordes. For a motorcycle, "sharing the road" almost always means "yielding the road".

cheers

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Originally Posted by euphonius

A motorcycle boot print in her passenger door would have been satisfying too, or smashing her mirror

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Just to reiterate, I advocate and use defensive driving in dealing with my fellow Chinese motorists, not direct assault. :lol8:

Thanks for all the great replies. I almost always have my helmet cam on now in case something happens. I know it can look gay but just in case something happens I have some to prove my case if it's in my favor. So I hope you guys don't mind I will post any clips I find interesting or worthwhile to note, but probably with less analysis.

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Originally Posted by Wrangler

Thanks for all the great replies. I almost always have my helmet cam on now in case something happens. I know it can look gay but just in case something happens I have some to prove my case if it's in my favor. So I hope you guys don't mind I will post any clips I find interesting or worthwhile to note, but probably with less analysis.

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Like your video.Keep it up.
I need to start using my video camera also. I mount mine on the handlebars.

not to defend her wrong doings, but you were in the right turning lane but went straight instead. if you had waited behind the cars, you would have met her. but no motorcyclist would wait behind a line of cars; me included.

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Originally Posted by iw84u

not to defend her wrong doings, but you were in the right turning lane but went straight instead. if you had waited behind the cars, you would have met her. but no motorcyclist would wait behind a line of cars; me included.

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Looks like Wrangler got back in the straight ahead lane before the intersection.
However passing the autos in the right turn lane and then going straight would be a violation in my home area. Don't know about Wrangler's area.

Yeah, typical left-turners in Shanghai... Glad you escaped this one.

On the bicycle, it's always the same story. Riding in Shanghai is not fun nor relaxing, on the contrary. I'll admit to being several times guilty of putting myself on purpose in front of them because yes, it feels good to "show them". But to show them what ?
Euphonius is exactly right, I know it too, but sometimes you're really boiling over tenths of this kind of stuff during a 1 or 2 hours ride. What will it do if I stop in front of the car and show them their stupidity ? Maybe they'll not even understand the meaning, as they're not taught the road rules... In the best case I achieve nothing, in the worst case the car will run over me...

Thanks anyway for sharing your experience Wrangler, one more thing : could you tell me what is your helmet-cam setup ? ;-))

Not just a Shanghai problem, happens everywhere around here, and much worse.

Actually I think Chinese drivers are geniuses. If drove with a fluffy steering wheel cover and seat covers, blacked out windows, dangling crap off my rear view mirror, the annoying sound of 400 keys clashing in the ignition, using a cell phone, smoking a cigarette, drunk, having had awful training, little experience, probably having cheated on my whole or part of my driving test and with a selfish sense of entitlement and superiority, and no clue about the road rules I think I'd crash constantly, I can't understand how they can get anywhere safely.:lol8:

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Originally Posted by ZMC888

Not just a Shanghai problem, happens everywhere around here, and much worse.

Actually I think Chinese drivers are geniuses. If drove with a fluffy steering wheel cover and seat covers, blacked out windows, dangling crap off my rear view mirror, the annoying sound of 400 keys clashing in the ignition, using a cell phone, smoking a cigarette, drunk, having had awful training, little experience, probably having cheated on my whole or part of my driving test and with a selfish sense of entitlement and superiority, and no clue about the road rules I think I'd crash constantly, I can't understand how they can get anywhere safely.:lol8:

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Oh, that reminded me of something : some weeks ago it was snowing in Shanghai, maybe 2-3 cm of snow everywhere for a few mornings, I just loved to see so many people driving their cars without even removing the snow on the rear window (don't know the exact name in English) and the external rear-view mirrors... Ultimate proof they're not using any of them at all... ;-))

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Originally Posted by ZMC888

Not just a Shanghai problem, happens everywhere around here, and much worse ... I can't understand how they can get anywhere safely.:lol8:

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So true!

I think one of the key reasons why there are not more accidents (and there DEFINITELY should be) is that Chinese drivers appear to (correctly) assume that the idiot in front of them will do something incredibly stupid.

In the West, we assume that other drivers are somewhat skilled and will follow the rules. If someone does something stupid in the West, it will likely result in an accident.

In China, stupid driving is the norm, so drivers adjust for it. Defensive driving out of necessity.

I spent a few years in Beirut, Lebanon, and IMHO there is nowhere in the world where drivers are more insane (although I've heard that Saudi is even worse). Chinese drivers are stars compared to the Lebanese. I was told that the reason for insane Lebanese drivers is because during their lengthy civil war, it was literally a life/death situation of keeping your car moving. A stopped car was a sniper's target. Today, the practice continues, and cars frequently mount the sidewalk, completely ignore traffic lights, drive on the wrong side, and so on ... to a level that makes China look downright civilized.

That one was pretty close. Some rules I followed whilst in wonderland...

1) I am invisible
2) All lights are green
3) Mass makes right
4) All intersections have a 15kph limit
5) Rain is not water, but diesel drizzle

CC

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Originally Posted by CrazyCarl

That one was pretty close. Some rules I followed whilst in wonderland...

1) I am invisible
2) All lights are green
3) Mass makes right
4) All intersections have a 15kph limit
5) Rain is not water, but diesel drizzle


CC

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CC,
Those are good rules for everywhere especially here in Southwest Floriduh.
Might I add
6) That left turner is going to turn in front of you. (right turner for some of you). Got me twice in 50+ years of moto riding.

Fred I am using the Gopro camera for motorsports and got it on Amazon.com in the US and had someone bring it over for me. It is ugly and people stare at me but they tend to be on better behavior when they do see me and the blinking LED. It's mounted on my helmet. Show's the least vibration, offers the best view, and can turn with my line of sight. Plus I won't accidently forget it on my bike.

iw84U, you do have a point about me cutting in from the right. I do find, however, it is generally safer to be ahead of the traffic than behind it. But it got me thinking on how to use traffic more as defensive barriers

ryanpyle of mkride.com posted a passel of gopros and contour HDs that he and his brother used during their ride. he may have a couple left...

i have a contour and it's way sleeker than the gopro. both work fine.

cheers