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Part of riding a motorbike (cycle here) is also driving defensively is it not? I don't assume people are going to stop at a given intersection, I take a look at

Part of riding a motorbike (cycle here) is also driving defensively is it not? I don't assume people are going to stop at a given intersection, I take a look at their current speed and project it forward before determining if it's safe for me to go. If someone is going at a high rate of speed towards a stop sign or red light, I don't pull out just because I have the "right of way" I assume they are going to do something stupid. Another example: On the highway I get myself into a position where I have plenty of stopping distance for the car in front of me, but also behind me in case I need to stop rapidly myself.

foepys 4y ago
You will never be able to look into every intersection, even very open ones. You will never be able to look out for cars traveling 50kph/30mph unless you literally stop before entering every intersection. You also don't have any control over how far behind other cars are. The only thing you can do is to drive faster or to let them by by stopping or changing lanes. The latter is highly dangerous in fast flowing traffic on single lane roads while the first will almost never help as the other car actively wants to go faster. Being in absolute control is you can drive as defensively as you want, in the end a distracted idiot can take you out and the only thing you can do is minimize the risk.
xyzzyz 4y ago
> I don't assume people are going to stop at a given intersection, I take a look at their current speed and project it forward before determining if it's safe for me to go. While I sympathize with your overall sentiment (and indeed, as a fellow motorcyclists, I know a lot about defensive driving/riding), I have never seen people consistently drive the way you describe, ever. For many intersections in the cities (probably most), you simply cannot see if someone is actually going from a side road until you're so deep in the intersection that you have no chance of stopping before it if you notice someone. Imagine you're driving here: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703087,-122.3952816,3a,75y,271.49h,84.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMWG6CWlTVIoAgH8us8uGog!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703087,-122.3952816,3a,75y,... There's a side road on in front of you. Imagine there is a car going same speed as you, on a crash trajectory (i.e. it is exactly as far from the intersection as you are). Where's the first moment you see it? Most likely, around here: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703156,-122.3959313,3a,75y,273.03h,62.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFQrpeAZVvzq3kVUf9ROO_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703156,-122.3959313,3a,75y,... where you're around 20 feet from the intersection of your routes. If you begin braking immediately as you notice the other car, you need to be going slower 15 mph if you want to avoid a crash. If you add any amount of time to actually judge the speed of the other car and its intention of stopping, you need to be going less than 10 mph. Needless to say, nobody actually does that, people don't slow down to 10 mph in locations like above.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Not only is what he described simply not realistic, it's likely far more unsafe than "driving normally" because the behavior violates the expectations of many/most other drivers and when people are thrown into situations that violate their expectations things get weird. "But he should have been using a reasonable following distance" makes for easy low effort internet points but internet points won't get you out of a hospital bed.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  First I must say, in the city I'll park my car at the outskirts and take public transit so I admit it's situational. I don't like driving with so many unpredictable pedestrians running around, you could end up in prison because someone had a few too many drinks and fell into the road. But in your example I'd have a good chance to prevent a collision. I'd already have my foot on the brake due to the crosswalk there. I will have brought my speed down that I will be able to stop should someone suddenly appear within it. A kid could pop out from between those two cars on the right chasing a ball, so you need to have a stopping distance of perhaps 2 - 3 feet maximum, depending what vehicle of mine I am driving that's probably 20 - 25 mph maximum. 25 mph is the speed limit there so I probably wouldn't even get tailgaters at that speed, but I don't care if I do. That intersection is a good place for a rolling stop, where you bring the car down to perhaps 5mph before you proceed, mostly because of the sidewalks on both sides and the risk of kids running around or riding bikes. That's a residential street, there should be no need to move quickly down it. In addition to all that my car has a top of line collision avoidance system, side curtain airbags, a high crash rating, etc. I always wear my seatbelt and keep my kid strapped in with a age appropriate booster seat. I'm not saying I'm perfect but being careful can reduce your personal risk considerably.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    > That intersection is a good place for a rolling stop, where you bring the car down to perhaps 5mph before you proceed, mostly because of the sidewalks on both sides and the risk of kids running around or riding bikes. On the arterial street that I linked, intersections like this one are placed every 150 feet. I literally never seen anyone drive the way you describe, ever. Nobody does a rolling stop every 150 feet. Very few drivers even go speed limit there, maybe 1 in 20: most people do around 30 mph, a good fraction does 35 mph. In fact, if you drive the way you describe (which I doubt, because, again, I literally never, ever seen anyone drive like that), you're more likely to get into an accident (most likely getting rear ended), due to being extremely unpredictable. > I'm not saying I'm perfect but being careful can reduce your personal risk considerably. This is, of course, right, but my point was not to demand perfection, I just want to point out that what you describe is extremely unrealistic, and virtually never observed in real life driving.
toyg 4y ago
Yes, but let's be honest: none of us has 360º eyes, and very few have split-millisecond reflexes. You control for the front, meanwhile somebody hits you from the rear; you look to the sides, and someone brakechecks you; and so on and so forth. You can reduce chances, but not eliminate them. Statistically, by the simple fact that you are sharing the road with hundreds of other (often terrible) drivers, the chance that one of them will fuck you up is incredibly higher than the chance of that happening on a public-transport vehicle in dedicated lanes (or even rails) driven by someone whose job is to safely move such vehicle from A to B every day.

foepys 4y ago

You will never be able to look into every intersection, even very open ones. You will never be able to look out for cars traveling 50kph/30mph unless you literally stop before entering every intersection. You also don't have any control over how far behind other cars are. The only thing you can do is to drive faster or to let them by by stopping or changing lanes. The latter is highly dangerous in fast flowing traffic on single lane roads while the first will almost never help as the other car actively wants to go faster. Being in absolute control is you can drive as defensively as you want, in the end a distracted idiot can take you out and the only thing you can do is minimize the risk.

xyzzyz 4y ago

> I don't assume people are going to stop at a given intersection, I take a look at their current speed and project it forward before determining if it's safe for me to go. While I sympathize with your overall sentiment (and indeed, as a fellow motorcyclists, I know a lot about defensive driving/riding), I have never seen people consistently drive the way you describe, ever. For many intersections in the cities (probably most), you simply cannot see if someone is actually going from a side road until you're so deep in the intersection that you have no chance of stopping before it if you notice someone. Imagine you're driving here: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703087,-122.3952816,3a,75y,271.49h,84.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sMWG6CWlTVIoAgH8us8uGog!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703087,-122.3952816,3a,75y,... There's a side road on in front of you. Imagine there is a car going same speed as you, on a crash trajectory (i.e. it is exactly as far from the intersection as you are). Where's the first moment you see it? Most likely, around here: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703156,-122.3959313,3a,75y,273.03h,62.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFQrpeAZVvzq3kVUf9ROO_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5703156,-122.3959313,3a,75y,... where you're around 20 feet from the intersection of your routes. If you begin braking immediately as you notice the other car, you need to be going slower 15 mph if you want to avoid a crash. If you add any amount of time to actually judge the speed of the other car and its intention of stopping, you need to be going less than 10 mph. Needless to say, nobody actually does that, people don't slow down to 10 mph in locations like above.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
Not only is what he described simply not realistic, it's likely far more unsafe than "driving normally" because the behavior violates the expectations of many/most other drivers and when people are thrown into situations that violate their expectations things get weird. "But he should have been using a reasonable following distance" makes for easy low effort internet points but internet points won't get you out of a hospital bed.
willcipriano 4y ago
First I must say, in the city I'll park my car at the outskirts and take public transit so I admit it's situational. I don't like driving with so many unpredictable pedestrians running around, you could end up in prison because someone had a few too many drinks and fell into the road. But in your example I'd have a good chance to prevent a collision. I'd already have my foot on the brake due to the crosswalk there. I will have brought my speed down that I will be able to stop should someone suddenly appear within it. A kid could pop out from between those two cars on the right chasing a ball, so you need to have a stopping distance of perhaps 2 - 3 feet maximum, depending what vehicle of mine I am driving that's probably 20 - 25 mph maximum. 25 mph is the speed limit there so I probably wouldn't even get tailgaters at that speed, but I don't care if I do. That intersection is a good place for a rolling stop, where you bring the car down to perhaps 5mph before you proceed, mostly because of the sidewalks on both sides and the risk of kids running around or riding bikes. That's a residential street, there should be no need to move quickly down it. In addition to all that my car has a top of line collision avoidance system, side curtain airbags, a high crash rating, etc. I always wear my seatbelt and keep my kid strapped in with a age appropriate booster seat. I'm not saying I'm perfect but being careful can reduce your personal risk considerably.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  > That intersection is a good place for a rolling stop, where you bring the car down to perhaps 5mph before you proceed, mostly because of the sidewalks on both sides and the risk of kids running around or riding bikes. On the arterial street that I linked, intersections like this one are placed every 150 feet. I literally never seen anyone drive the way you describe, ever. Nobody does a rolling stop every 150 feet. Very few drivers even go speed limit there, maybe 1 in 20: most people do around 30 mph, a good fraction does 35 mph. In fact, if you drive the way you describe (which I doubt, because, again, I literally never, ever seen anyone drive like that), you're more likely to get into an accident (most likely getting rear ended), due to being extremely unpredictable. > I'm not saying I'm perfect but being careful can reduce your personal risk considerably. This is, of course, right, but my point was not to demand perfection, I just want to point out that what you describe is extremely unrealistic, and virtually never observed in real life driving.

toyg 4y ago

Yes, but let's be honest: none of us has 360º eyes, and very few have split-millisecond reflexes. You control for the front, meanwhile somebody hits you from the rear; you look to the sides, and someone brakechecks you; and so on and so forth. You can reduce chances, but not eliminate them. Statistically, by the simple fact that you are sharing the road with hundreds of other (often terrible) drivers, the chance that one of them will fuck you up is incredibly higher than the chance of that happening on a public-transport vehicle in dedicated lanes (or even rails) driven by someone whose job is to safely move such vehicle from A to B every day.