How to Not Get Hit by Cars

This
is the most common way to get hit (or almost get hit).(source1, source2) 
A car is pulling out of a side street, parking lot, or driveway on the right.  Notice that there are actually two possible kinds of collisions here:  Either you’re in front of the car and the car hits you, or the car pulls out in front of you and you slam into it.

How to avoid this collision:

1. Get a headlight.  If you’re riding at night, you absolutely should be using a front headlight.  It’s required by law, anyway.  Even for daytime riding, a bright white light that has a flashing mode can make you more visible to motorists who might otherwise Right Cross you.  Look for the new LED headlights which last ten times as long on a set of batteries as old-style lights.  And headlamps (mounted on your head or helmet) are the best, because then you can look directly at the driver to make sure they see your light.

2. Wave.  If you can’t make eye contact with the driver, wave your arm.  It’s easier for them to see your arm going left and right than it is for them to see a bicycle coming straight towards them.  You could also use a loud horn (like the Air Zound) to get drivers’ attention.  If it looks like the driver is about to pull out without seeing you, yell “Hey!”  You may feel awkward waving or yelling, but it’s better to be embarrassed than to get hit.  Incidentally, many countries require bells on bicycles, but the U.S. doesn’t.

3. Slow down.  If you can’t make eye contact with the driver (especially at night), slow down so much that you’re able to completely stop if you have to.  Sure, it’s inconvenient, but it beats getting hit.  Doing this has saved my life on too many occasions to count.

4. Ride further left.  You’re
probably
used to riding in the “A” line in the picture, very close to the curb, because you’re worried about being hit from behind.  But take a look at the car.  When that driver is looking down the road for traffic, he’s not looking in the bike lane or the area closest to the curb; he’s looking in the middle of the lane, for other cars.  The farther left you are (such as in “B”), the more likely the driver will see you.  There’s an added bonus here: if the motorist doesn’t see you and starts pulling out, you may be able to go even farther left, or may be able to speed up and get out of the way before impact, or easily roll onto their hood as they slam on their brakes.  In short, it gives you some options.  Because if you stay all the way to the right and they pull out, your only “option” may be to run right into the driver’s side door.  Using this method has saved me on three occasions in which a motorist ran into me slowly as they hit their brakes and I wasn’t hurt, and in which I definitely would have slammed into the driver’s side door had I not moved left.

You might worry that moving left makes you more vulnerable to cars coming from behind.  But the stats say you’re far more likely to get hit by a car at an intersection ahead of you that can’t see you, than from a car behind you which can see you clearly.  So while both positions have risk, you generally reduce your risk by riding a little farther left.  Your actual lane position depends on road conditions.  On fast roadways with few cross streets (and thus less chances to get hit at intersections), you’ll ride farther to the right.  On slow roads with many cross streets, you’ll ride farther left.  See lane position for more about this.

You’re
riding the wrong way (against traffic, on the left-hand side of the street). A car makes a right turn from a side street, driveway, or parking lot, right into you. They didn’t see you because they were looking for traffic only on their left, not on their right. They had no reason to expect that someone would be coming at them from the wrong direction.

Even worse, you could be hit by a car on the same road coming at you from straight ahead of you. They had less time to see you and take evasive action because they’re approaching you faster than normal (because you’re going towards them rather than away from them).

How to avoid this collision:

Don’t ride against traffic. Ride with traffic, in the same direction.

Riding against traffic may seem like a good idea because you can see the cars that are passing you, but it’s not. Here’s why:

1. Cars which pull out of driveways, parking lots, and cross streets (ahead of you and to the left), which are making a right onto your street, aren’t expecting traffic to be coming at them from the wrong way. They won’t see you, and they’ll plow right into you.
2. How the heck are you going to make a right turn?
3. Cars will approach you at a much higher relative speed. If you’re going 15mph, then a car passing you from behind doing 35 approaches you at a speed of only 20 (35-15). But if you’re on the wrong side of the road, then the car approaches you at 50 (35+15), which is more than twice as fast!  Since they’re approaching you faster, both you and the driver have lots less time to react.  And if a collision does occur, it’s going to be at a faster relative speed.
4. Riding the wrong way is against the law and you can get ticketed for it.

One study showed that riding the wrong way was three times as dangerous as riding the right way, and for kids, the risk is seven times greater. (source)

Nearly one-fourth of crashes involve cyclists riding the wrong way. (source) 
Some readers have challenged this, saying if 25% of crashes are from going the wrong way, then riding the right way is more dangerous because it accounts for 75% of crashes. That idea is just wrong. First off, only 8% of cyclists ride the wrong way, yet nearly 25% of them get hit — meaning wrong-way cyclists really are three times more likely to get hit than those who ride the proper way. Second, the problem with wrong-way biking is that it promotes crashes, while right-way biking does not. For example, cyclists running stop signs or red lights is 17% of their crashes. (source) 
But
do we therefore conclude that not running signals causes 83% of crashes?! (Hint: No.)

You
stop to the right of a car that’s already waiting at a red light or stop sign. They can’t see you. When the light turns green, you move forward, and then they turn right, right into you. Even small cars can do you in this way, but this scenario is especially dangerous when it’s a bus or a semi that you’re stopping next to. An Austin cyclist was killed in 1994 when he stopped to the right of a semi, and then it turned right. He was crushed under its wheels.

How to avoid this collision:

Don’t stop in the blind spot. Simply stop behind a car, instead of to the right of it, as per the diagram below. This makes you very visible to traffic on all sides. It’s impossible for the car behind you to avoid seeing you when you’re right in front of it.

Another
option is to stop at either point A in the diagram above (where the first driver can see you), or at point B, behind the first car so it can’t turn into you, and far enough ahead of the second car so that the second driver can see you clearly. It does no good to avoid stopping to the right of the first car if you’re going to make the mistake of stopping to the right of the second car. EITHER car can do you in.

If you chose spot A, then ride quickly to cross the street as soon as the light turns green. Don’t look at the motorist to see if they want to go ahead and turn. If you’re in spot A and they want to turn, then you’re in their way. Why did you take spot A if you weren’t eager to cross the street when you could? When the light turns green, just go, and go quickly. (But make sure cars aren’t running the red light on the cross street, of course.)

If you chose spot B, then when the light turns green, DON’T pass the car in front of you — stay behind it, because it might turn right at any second. If it doesn’t make a right turn right away, it may turn right into a driveway or parking lot unexpectedly at any point. Don’t count on drivers to signal! They don’t. Assume that a car can turn right at any time. (NEVER pass a car on the right!) But try to stay ahead of the car behind you until you’re through the intersection, because otherwise they might try to cut you off as they turn right.

While we’re not advocating running red lights, notice it is in fact safer to run the red light if there’s no cross traffic, than it is to wait legally at the red light directly to the right of a car, only to have it make a right turn right into you when the light turns green. The moral here is not that you should break the law, but that you can easily get hurt even if you follow the law.

By the way, be very careful when passing stopped cars on the right as you approach a red light. You run the risk of getting doored by a passenger exiting the car on the right side, or hit by a car that unexpectedly decides to pull into a parking space on the right side of the street.

A car passes you and then tries to make a right turn directly in front of you, or right into you. They think you’re not going very fast just because you’re on a bicycle, so it never occurs to them that they can’t pass you in time. Even if you have to slam on your brakes to avoid hitting them, they often won’t feel they’ve done anything wrong. This kind of collision is very hard to avoid because you typically don’t see it until the last second, and because there’s nowhere for you to go when it happens.

How to avoid this collision:

You’re
passing a slow-moving car (or even another bike) on the right, when it unexpectedly makes a right turn right into you, trying to get to a parking lot,driveway or side street.

How to avoid this collision:

1. Don’t pass on the right. This
collision
is very easy to avoid. Just don’t pass any vehicle on the right. If a car ahead of you is going only 10 mph, then you slow down, too, behind it. It will eventually start moving faster. If it doesn’t, pass on the left when it’s safe to do so.

When passing cyclists on the left, announce “on your left” before you start passing, so they don’t suddenly move left into you. (Of course, they’re much less likely to suddenly move left without looking, where they could be hit by traffic, then to suddenly move right, into a destination.) If they’re riding too far to the left for you to pass safely on the left, then announce “on your right” before passing on the right.

You
innocently
move a little to the left to go around a parked car or some other obstruction in the road, and you get nailed by a car coming up from behind.

How to avoid this collision:

1. Never, ever move left without looking behind you first. Some motorists like to pass cyclists within mere inches, so moving even a tiny bit to the left unexpectedly could put you in the path of a car. Practice holding a straight line while looking over your shoulder until you can do it perfectly. Most new cyclists tend to move left when they look behind them, which of course can be disastrous.

2. Don’t swerve in and out of the parking lane if it contains any parked cars. You might be tempted to ride in the parking lane where there are no parked cars, dipping back into the traffic lane when you encounter a parked car. This puts you at risk for getting nailed from behind. Instead, ride a steady, straight line in the traffic lane.

A car runs into you from behind. This is what many cyclists fear the most, but it’s actually not very common, comprising only 3.8% of collisions. (source) However, it’s one of the hardest collisions to avoid, since you’re not usually looking behind you. The risk is likely greater at night, and in rides outside the city where traffic is faster and lighting is worse. The three cyclists killed when hit from behind in Austin in 96-97 were all riding at night, and at least two of them didn’t have lights on their bikes. (source) The best way to avoid getting Rear-Ended is to ride on very wide roads or in bike lanes, or on roads where the traffic moves slowly, and to use lights when biking at night.

How to avoid this collision:

1. Get a rear light. If you’re riding at night, you absolutely should use a flashing red rear light. Bruce Mackey (formerly of Florida, now head of bike safety in Nevada) says that 60% of bike collisions in Florida are caused by cyclists riding at night without lights. In 1999, 39% of deaths on bicycles nationwide occurred between 6 p.m. and midnight. [USA Today, 10-22-01, attributed to the Insurance Institute for highway safety]

Bike shops have red rear blinkies for $15 or less. These kind of lights typically take two AA batteries, which last for months (something like 200 hours). I can’t stress this item enough: If you ride at night, get a rear light!

2.
Wear a reflective vest or a safety triangle. High quality reflective gear makes you a lot more visible even in the day time, not just at night. I had a friend ride away from me while wearing one during the day, and when she was about a quarter mile away, I couldn’t see her or her bike at all, but the vest was clearly visible. At night the difference is even greater. Bike shops have vests and triangles for $10 to $15. Also, when you hear a motorist approaching, straightening up into a vertical position will make your reflective gear more noticeable.

3. Choose wide streets. Ride on streets whose outside lane is so wide that it can easily fit a car and a bike side by side. That way a car may zoom by you and avoid hitting you, even if they didn’t see you!

4. Choose slow streets. The slower a car is going, the more time the driver has to see you. I navigate the city by going through neighborhoods. Learn how to do this.

5. Use back streets on weekends. The risk of riding on Friday or Saturday night is much greater than riding on other nights because all the drunks are out driving around. If you do ride on a weekend night, make sure to take neighborhood streets rather than arterials.

6. Get a mirror. Get a mirror and use it. If it looks like a car doesn’t see you, hop off your bike and onto the sidewalk. Mirrors cost $5-15. Trust me, once you’ve ridden a mirror for a while, you’ll wonder how you got along without it. My paranoia went down 80% after I got a mirror. If you’re not convinced, after you’ve used your mirror for a month, take it off your bike and ride around and notice how you keep glancing down to where your mirror was, and notice how unsafe you feel without it.