bunsen_h | Don't belong on the road

Earlier this afternoon, I was heading westwards along my street (Norice), and was slowing to a stop behind the student driver waiting at the red light to make a left turn onto Woodroffe. The SUV well behind me honked. I glanced backward, then returned my attention to the important matter of signaling my turn and coming to a safe stop, centred behind the student driver.

The SUV pulled up close behind me. Then edged fowards, partly in my lane and just to my right, so the woman could open her window and tell me that I wasn't supposed to ride across the road. "You're supposed to walk your bike across."

I gave her a "what planet are you from" look. "I'm a vehicle, and I have as much right to be on the road as you do."

She became more insistent. "But you aren't supposed to ride across the road. I'm sure of it. I don't want you to get in trouble."

A "what colours are the moons around your planet?" look. "Read your Driver's Handbook. I'm a vehicle, and I have as much right to be on the road as you or any other vehicle."

"But I don't think..."

Then the light changed, the car ahead went through, and I followed it. Carefully switched into the bike lane on Woodroffe when I was through the intersection. I was worried that the idiot was going to pass me on my right and then cut me off, but she stayed behind me through the intersection and stayed in the regular lane.

Good grief -- if she's expecting that cyclists won't ever try to bike across roads, she's going to hit somebody. Of the two of us, I know which one shouldn't be on the road. How can people be so ignorant?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She was in an SUV. Apparently (I've now come across a lot of SUV anecdotes that make me think so) the usual rules of the road do not apply when you are in an SUV. If you are in an SUV you are apparently allowed to drive according to whatever rules you deem fit, and it would seem that this extends to haranguing other road users about the fact that they are ignorant of the simple fact that you are supposed to defer to someone in an SUV.

Is it indefensible schadenfreude to note that during the last cold snap when we were snowed under and driving conditions were dicey - well - most of the vehicles in ditches by the side of the road were... SUVs...

SUV's and minivans are the bane of my existence both in a car and on a bicycle.

SUV Driver (to: "Paperback Writer", Lennon/McCartney)

SUV Driver (SUV driver)
Dear Sir or Madam, I am on my bike --
Exercise and fresh air, which I really like.
I am in clear view if you'd only look,
Right in front of you, but it's hopeless, you're an SUV driver,
SUV driver.

I'd be willing enough to share the road,
But you don't understand the traffic code.
You pay no attention to what's around,
And you're on the phone and distracted, you're an SUV driver,
SUV driver.

SUV Driver (SUV driver)

I was almost killed and you didn't see
When you made a sharp turn right in front of me.
If you ran me down would you even know
'Til the police found the mess on the grille of the SUV driver,
SUV driver.

I might mention the fuel you waste
In your two-block drive with such awful haste.
But my main concern is the threat you pose
'Cause you're driving like Mister Magoo, you're an SUV driver,
SUV driver.

SUV Driver (SUV driver)

SUV Driver - SUV driver
SUV Driver - SUV driver

Love it!

It's a puzzling question - what did all these people drive before SUVs? Buicks? Or do SUVs cause brain-rot?

In the old days, the heuristic was "old guy, wearing a hat, driving a Buick - keep well clear." I've added a few terms - vanity plates (sorry to my friends who have them, but often they indicate too much car-centricity), SUVs, obvious cell phone use, ski box mounted in summer.

Only 14 days left for legal hand-help phone use while driving in Ontario! I hope it helps, but I doubt it.

(I did wind up once driving a rental Ford SUV, which I mentally dubbed the rent-a-behemoth. They're scary to drive, you're so high up and have such poor visibility. I've driven most of the things you can with a class G license, including a 5-ton truck, a diesel with a 6-speed gearshift. I'd take the 5-ton over the SUV for a feeling of knowing what was where.)

I firmly believe that this problem (as

henrytroup notes) is not confined to SUV-drivers; it is endemic to *all* motorists. How else can one explain a death toll of up to 3000 people each and every year here in Canada from traffic accidents? See this web-page (http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/roadsafety/tp-tp3322-2006-page1-587.htm) for the specific details. [In the USA, that figure is up to 40_000 people each and every year. :-( See this page (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx) for more details.]

[And to think, in my frustration with the miserable bus strike in late January, I considered buying a car. UGGGHHH.]

At some point, I plan to petition the provincial government to tighten the licensing rules for drivers in the province. It might get people like your SUV driver *off* the road where they belong. It also might require the elderly to be tested -- and give up their license before they kill somebody, as has already happened a few times. :-(

I've had near-accidents with a number of vehicles over the years, of a variety of makes. But in recent years, the majority of the dangerously-careless drivers seem to be at the wheel of SUVs and similarly oversized non-commercial vehicles. Part of the problem seems to be that they offer poor visibility of their surroundings, and partly that the drivers seem to be not paying as much attention to the road.

Did you notice the SUV's license plate? If she was from Quebec, this explains much -- they have a mandatory side-path law there which forces cyclists to use bike lanes. And segregated bike lanes in Montreal that make it almost impossible to travel efficiently if you want to turn.

Most of the ignorant drivers I run into are from Quebec, where they don't expect to or want to see cyclists on the road.

Though I must admit I'd never heard of being forced to walk your bike across an intersection - at least not for anyone over 8 years old!

I didn't notice her license plate, and I've been wishing that I had. Most of the traffic on Norice is local, though current sewer and water main work in the neighborhood has diverted some other traffic onto the street -- and of course the idiot might have been visiting someone local. I'm going to be watching for the vehicle as I travel around my neighborhood for the next little while. If I see it, I may leave a copy of a Driver's Handbook under the windshield wiper or in the mailbox of the house. With a Post-It note attached just saying: "Learn, guys."

I was just completely boggled by the notion that I wasn't "allowed" to ride my bike across a street at an intersection.

Actually, for me, my worst driver problems have been in TO.

In Gatineau I have had almost zero problems even on 70K roads.

Some people have gotten confused about the two possibilities cyclists have when crossing intersections - one is to ride on the road and the other is to walk in the sidewalk (recommended especially if you want to turn left and find the intersection too busy so that you don't do a left turn from the right lane).

After reading some of the other comments above, we definitely need a rethink of the design of the SUV in general, assuming that the whole thing doesn't end up in the dustbin of automotive history sooner than later.

As for the story that started all this off...wow.

Don't be ridiculous.

No matter how intrinsically stupid a vehicle an SUV is, they are popular precisely because of they way they are designed.

Until we run out of gas/alternatives making the whole personal gas-based vehicle thing moot, SUV-drivers will be perfectly happy with their chosen cars without needing "we" to redesign anything.

Might as well redeisgn the human brain to prefer transporter pods or unicycles

Living downtown, I hate drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians with almost equal vigor, depending on my mode of transportation.

I notice the stupid drivers and cyclists when I am a pedestrian (and trying not to get killed)
I notice the stupid pedestrians when I am a driver (trying not to kill a pedestrian or get killed by another driver while avoiding killing a pedestrian).

My current pet peeves are

1) cyclists who barrel the wrong way down a one-way street - sometimes on the sidewalk and sometimes not. they are worse on the sidewalk because this is where they all try to run into me when I have the temerity to try to stop in front of my apartment building to enter it.

2) drivers who make right turns on a red without bothering to look for crossing pedestrians. And for that matter, drivers 0 especially bus or other large vehcile drivers - who enter inserctions without being able to clear them, thus forcing pedestrian traffic to move to the next block or do the macaranea smack dab in the middle of the intersection in order to cross.

3) Pedestrians who don't bother to look before they jaywalk

Yup, yup, and yup to all three.

But I hate the self-righteous ones the most -- especially the cyclists who ride on the sidewalk because it's "too dangerous" to ride on the road, thus making it dangerous for pedestrians. I usually encounter these on perfectly cyclable roads.

Don't belong on the road

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"SUV Driver"

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Danger: Amateur Behind the Wheel

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