Treasure Valley Cycling Club

I was riding South tonight on Eagle road just about to go straight through the intersection at Eagle and Chinden when a driver in a Mustang decided to try a right turn in front of me. I plowed into the quarterpanel behind the right rear wheel and went down hard on the pavement. Luckily I had arm warmers on or my left arm would have been scraped up pretty good. I got a minor scrape on my left knee. The main damage so far is that my lower left back is pretty sore. I'm icing it tonight. Hopefully it isn't too sore and stiff in the morning. I want to get back out on the road!

The gal who hit me told the officer that she thought I was turning right and the sun made it hard for her to see me. Interesting that she was heading south and the sun sets in the west! The accident happened just before 7pm so it was plenty light. I think her mistake was a common one. Many motorists get impatient around cyclists and worry they will slow them down too much. So they are willing to take risks in an attempt to get ahead of a cyclist rather than showing a little patience and waiting for them to pass before turning. They also underestimate the speed the bikes move at and don't realize that they have to slow down to approximately the same or slower speed than the bikes to make the turn.

Based on where I landed in the intersection I deduced that the motorist had swung way wide on the right turn. Probably because she realized how close it was and was trying to avoid the collision.

Not sure if there is a message to this story. One for the motorists out there is to be more careful around cyclists. One for cyclists is to remember that cars will always win in a collision. Who cares about right-of-way. The cyclist will always lose that battle! So do everything you can to stay safe. I don't think I could have avoided this collision. But it makes me want to be even more aware when I ride.