Bicycle Austin forum

slugger415

Member

Registered: 2009-06-19

Posts: 2

Brief rant about drivers and phones

Twice in the last week I found myself biking in dangerous situations with drivers looking at their phones while driving.

The first time I was waiting for the walk sign at Braker and Burnet. When the walk light came on, a car to my left started inching into the crosswalk in front of me. Sure enough, the woman had her left hand on the steering wheel and her right hand held her phone, which she was looking at. I shouted at her and she stopped. No big deal, but still.

Then two days later I was biking west toward Duval on 32nd Street. I passed a car on a side street to my right waiting to turn in the same direction. I was about half a block ahead of her when I moved into the center of the lane and signaled my intention to make a left turn onto another side street. I slowed down to wait for an oncoming car to pass which took about 5 seconds. Suddenly I heard the screech of brakes immediately behind me. A guy waiting nearby on his scooter said “Wow that was close!” I didn’t actually see the driver looking at her phone, but there’s no way she couldn’t have seen me in the middle of the lane, from half a block away – she probably just assumed I was still in the bike lane and didn’t bother to actually look at the road in front of her until it was almost too late. (She did stop completely at that point, and I gave her a dirty look before taking off. Maybe I should’ve said something, but what?)

Don’t know what to do about this – more public awareness? – but it seems like something of an epidemic.

Scott

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,466

Website

Re: Brief rant about drivers and phones

I feel your pain.  People are just basically selfish.  I've said many times, it doesn't matter how many miles of bike lanes we stripe in, until we change drivers' hearts and minds, the roads will never be safe.

It's a lot different in Europe and Japan.  How exactly did we wind up with a "me me me me" culture while they didn't?  That's not rhetorical, really, how did we get here, when the examples of other countries shows that it wasn't a foregone conclusion?