This photo of a recent bike vs. car accidents certainly makes most triathletes and cyclist shudder.
It happened this weekend in Key Biscayne, Florida on a closed triathlon bike course when Miguel Tellez, 37, was leading the bike portion of the race, and an SUV pulled into the road right in front of him.
Not even the police motorcycle escort leading the bike portion of the race could protect Tellez from a distracted driver.
You can read the entire story and all of the comments HERE.
According to published reports Tellez was hospitalized but in the end he escaped with non life threatening injuries.
But while the photo tells a 1000 words, the comments that follow the story should be a real wake-up call to anyone who rides a bike on public roads.
The comments that follow the story include:
"I agree that Miami is home to most of the worst drivers in the U.S. Their attitudes are nothing compared to these cyclists. Their arrogance is coupled with the fact that they believe they own the roads at the same they should be treated as pedestrians."
and
"If cyclists are supposed to ride on the road, why don't they have to obey traffic laws. I see them "running" red lights all the time, but motor vehicle traffic is stopped. Never any signals for turns or stops, no license fees or insurance,and these idiots want to blame any mishap on the motorist !"
and
"Why can't cyclist find a cow field to run their races on? Maybe an abandoned shopping center parking lot? They do not belong on the road with motorist."
The question that naturally comes to mind is, "why do motorist despise cyclist with such a burning red hot passion?
The motorist rationale seems to be either:
1) that because cyclist does not pay road taxes they should not have the right to use the public roads.
(Which of course complete ignores the fact that cyclist pay the same taxes that everyone else pays, and that 99.9 percent of cyclist also own a car or two and thus pay the same road tax like everyone else)
2) that because cyclist sometimes break the rules of the road they deserve whatever comes to them including (in fact especially including) accidents like the one pictured above.
(This seems to ignore the fact that a cyclist is someones father, mother, son and daughter and not an alien who decided that the only way to get from point A to point B is to ride a bike.)
There is something unholy that happens to some people when they get behind the wheel of a 5000 pound car. It seems to be some sort of primitive hunter and prey instinct that takes over when they spot a cyclist an a 20 pound bike.
Instead of giving the cyclist plenty of room, they begin to play a game of cat and mouse, or worse yet they complete pretend as if the responsibility for safe passage solely rested on the shoulders of the cyclist.
Either way the results are always the same: the cyclist loses.
This is the second story in less than a week were the cyclist is seen by many drivers as the biggest nuisance to their daily drive.
We know---it takes a lot of energy to turn the steering wheel a quarter of an inch to make way for a bike on the road---especially in Texas.
Please be alert and ride safe. It seems like way too many drivers across the country will at best not see you, and at worst decide that you a fun diversion from their daily commute.
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