Truck backed over my bike

[afm199]

:laughing :thumbup

 

[PorradaVFR]

Choice B seemed safer at the time...

I wouldn't be in position B even if the truck was proceeding through the intersection or turning right. At worst I'd have been at A....but ideally ahead of, or significantly behind the truck...I never live in their blind spot.

 

[Deftone]

Put yourself as far back as the '*' but please in lane position A. You're invisible for at least 175ft if you're directly behind a truck / van or tractor-trailer rig.

I drove a 36ft box truck in SFO for almost 6 years. Two collisions while making deliveries in teh city - lucky both with cages. First was a dimbulb who tried to squeeze between my truck and the curb. I was stopped, he took off my right mud flap and the front left corner and most of the left side of his Lexus. He still claimed I hit his car - even with all the damage showing that he was the one going forward. The second was a woman in a Mercedes who decided that my LOUD beeping backup signal, BRIGHT backup lights and four-way flashers all meant that I was going forward, so she pulled up to within 5ft of my lift-gate _while I was backing_. My lift-gate peeled her hood back to the firewall, the engine in her car was pushed under the passenger compartment. At 3mph. My 78,000lb truck didn't feel a thing.

You were VERY lucky that you weren't injured or squished dead. That sticker on the back of big trucks about blind spots? It's real. Truckers call the blind zone - "The DEAD Zone" for good reason.

One last bit for you - NEVER pass a truck on the right, especially in the vicinity of an intersection. Big rigs need room to swing and will pull left in their lane before initiation of a right turn, you can get squashed in the pinch zone. That rarely ends well.

That's funny. Back in my pool cleaning days I drove around a corner and saw a garbage truck backing up. He's going all of 1.5 mph, lights flashing, beeping loudly when a lady pulls up behind him and stops five feet behind his truck. He can't see her. She just sits there until he smashes the crap out of her car and finally stops when he realizes he's hit something.

It was like the scene in Austin Powers when the guy gets run over by a steam roller...