close encounter

[fixedtl]

Well I decided to take a ride just around the city since i haven’t ridden for about 3weeks. On my way back home there was this yellow Ford focus coming out of the drive way. He was facing me, coming out the drive way. I saw he and i could of swear I saw him looking at me. There was a car ahead of me and when that car passed him he just zoom right but the drive way and i swerved on the other lane to dodge him. This was my first close encounter from getting hit. Pretty scary thinking about it but it but didn’t really bother me much. Ride safe everyone.

[iwannadie]

you didnt follow him and kick in his door?

at least you know where he lives, go back and slash the tires.

[slayergsxf1]

Yep,, what iwannadie said,plus a tad of an assault?? maybe??

[katman05]

I have had the same thing happen to me, so from now on I honk the horn so I'm sure they see me. Alot of times drivers have a hard time judging the distance of an approaching motorcycle, for some reason they always think we are going slower than we actually are.

[AMorgan]

It's cause your smaller. And just because he sees you doesn't mean you register. A friend of mine was struck by a woman. She said quite simply that while she knew he was there, it didn't click in her brain that he was a hittable object. I alway slow when I see people looking like they might pull out. If they think i'm slower that I am, I may as well be.

[KatanaSoldier]

a bag of shizer on his front door step!

[The CyberPoet]

I'll bet that even though he was staring directly at you, he simply "couldn't" see you.

Partially repost from http://www.katriders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20090

Very often they don't see you due to situational blindness (aka "inattentive" blindness) -- because their brains are not actively pattern matching you to their list of premade shapes to pay attention to at that instant, thus you don't exist in their conscious attention horizon. It's not intentional oversight.
The human brain gets a zillion bits of data per second from all the senses and has some exceptional filtering mechanisms to keep that data from overwhelming you, while keeping your attention focused on what may well keep you alive (at least in the evolutionary sense).
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Here's a simple test version: count many times the white-shirted players pass the ball while watching this video once:
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html (do it before reading the rest of this post)...
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There was a interesting bit of research by the researchers over at the Visual Cognition Laboratory at the University of Illinois where they had volunteers watch a one minute video of a basketball-passing-game involving a half-dozen players passing two basketballs around, and they were told to count the number of passes sucessfully made by people in white shirts during the sixty seconds. In the middle of the video, they had a man dressed as gorilla stroll onto the court, faces the camera, then wanders off. When asked about the gorilla, half the people in the study said "What Gorilla? Huh?". That's inattentive blindness at work. [Reference: Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (in press) Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception.]

The same thing is happening to many car drivers because they are not conditioned to look for motorcycles -- which is why commercials warning drivers to watch for them and which have motorcycles are filmed at angles you would tend to see them from in a car are helpful -- because they help reprogram the brain to add this shape onto their basic shapes list for driving (at least if they are paying attention to the commercial and learning-capable at that instant). The real problem is that we need to get that visual input into more people at a much younger age, before they start driving cars, in such things as driver's ed films, etc.

It's also a problem for lifeguards in seeing unconscious bodies in crowded pools... most don't notice before it's too late.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[J. Kidd]

That is something they teach you in the MSF course - just because someone is looking directly at you, don't automatically assume they see you.

I was on the other end of this once when I was on the bike - I almost hit a bicyclist. I came off the highway and the offramp split into two lanes. The right lane was for taking a right and that is where I went. It was a "right on red" light so I stopped for the red light, looked left and noticed some cars coming. So, I waited for them to pass. Took a quick glance to my right to make sure I was clear, glanced back to my left as I started to roll out to ensure nothing new had popped up and WHOA!!! Right in front of me was a bicyclist. If I had rolled out a few inches further, I would have clipped him! He had to be there when I was checking for traffic but I didn't pick him up. I was looking for vehicles traveling in the lanes of traffic and completely missed him. He had to be in my peripheral vision but he did not register. Pretty freaky - and now I have a pretty good understanding of how people can look right at you (or so it seems) and then proceed like they never saw you.

Always assume you're invisible and ride safely!

[StevieB]

J Kidd, as a cyclist and motorcyclist, I applaud your post.

[md86]

A friend of mine was struck by a woman. She said quite simply that while she knew he was there, it didn't click in her brain that he was a hittable object

I think SHE is a "hittable object" : . I mean WTF , there's something in the path you are traveling . How does THAT not register ? "Gee , there's something in the road , but it's not another car . I think I'll just go right through it" . I just CANNOT understand that . I've been that way even BEFORE I became a rider . "There's something in the road , let's NOT hit it" . Simple .

[skotty]

I have these kind of encounters almost on a weekly basis. Cagers will just get into my lane on the highway as if I didnt exist. And when I brake and slow down, they suddenly get surprised as to how I got so close behind them. They then realize they must have cut me off and avoid eye contact hoping that I wont try and confront them somehow. When I looked at them, they were either on the cellphone or doing their makeup.