I haven't posted to this thread in a while because my computer died. Then some other things came up. But, I'm back now. And I have a backlog of video to go through.
Yesterday, I think that I avoided a left hook.
Here's the
link to the helmet cam video.
And, here are some stills from the video:
left_hook_barbur_before_turn_in_wrong_lane04 by
pdxcommuter, on Flickr
left_hook_barbur_before_turn_in_wrong_lane_xwn_556 _06 by
pdxcommuter, on Flickr
Finally, here's the description from youtube:
Quote:
When I shot this video, I thought I was about to be left hooked. This was at about 8:55 AM, 8/15/2011, at Barbur and Lowell, Portland, Oregon, USA. I was headed northbound on Barbur. This part of Barbur has a northbound bike lane, 3 general purpose northbound lanes, and a general purpose southbound lane. I saw that XWN 556, a smaller grey SUV, was travelling southbound. The driver was using the western-most northbound lane as a left turn lane. That is, the driver was traveling southbound in a northbound lane. That told me that the driver did not know what they were doing. When the driver started to make a left across my path, I hit my brakes.
Watching the video, you can see that the driver slowed. From what I see now in the video, I _might_ have been able to "shoot the gap" and avoided stopping. I still think that I did the right thing by stopping. The driver was driving against traffic. If they were going to do that, who knew what else they would do.
I could see (and the video shows) that the driver appeared to be an older woman. She continued eastbound onto Lowell. When I go over the video frame-by-frame, the woman in the front passenger seat appears to be waving an apology. Although the video does not show it, I recall that she was cringing at what the driver had done. At the end of the video you hear me say the license plate, Oregon XWN 556.
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