After looking at the videos, I have to ask: are things really that combative out there? Or do these come from a particular milieu and population?
It has been 12 years, but I used to commute across town 15 or 16 miles each way on busy cross-town boulevards at rush hour, including night-time rush hour, and while I certainly had my share of run-ins, about which I'll say more in a bit, it never occurred to me that things were dangerous to the point of needing legal-proof records. I generally took care of such situations by yelling at the perpetrators, in the hope that they'd think more carefully in the future. Again, I insist that I am not deprecating others' fears and wishes for camera records, or thinking that other cities are no more dangerous for cyclists than Albuquerque. I am just curious and, more, concerned. Do riders on this list encounter traffic dangers, in particular, hostile motor vehicle drivers, often enough that you want to have a photo record for possible law intervention? In 55 years of riding in urban traffic of one sort or another*, and 33 years of riding on public roads in ABQ, NM, I've had a very few somewhat close calls, many from my own aggression, and exactly 3** accidents that prevented further riding, of which exactly 2 resulted in minor injurie; and of which exactly 3 could have been avoided by thinking a bit harder. * Starting in a moderately sized So Indian city age 11 or 12 in 1966 or 1967 when my parents let me ride my hot-rodded Hero to the local Jesuit prep school. ** 1. Soph or jnr year in HS, 1971, coming fast downhill one morning around righthand bend on long detour to school, lost control, went onto unpaved verge, clamped front brake by mistake, flipped bike 180* to dash and dent rear wheel on obstacle. I -- in Grant-approved street clothes and of course sans helment -- was wholly uninjured. Mom picked me up. 2. Pushing pb on return of local "Tour de Dump" route in Gallup, NM, ~1994, stupidly got front wheel into cattle grate, flipped and again broke rear wheel and hurt myself; caused driver backup and spectacle (recall some laughing), was picked up by pair o' WASP hillybillys from Deliverance in primered pickup (not kidding: fleshy, jeans and t-shirts, black beards; Hispano and even more a Native American area where hillybillys were rare, so perhaps really angels in disguise. But they stopped to help and the others didn't. They were taking their Harley's valves for grinding, showed me one) for ride to hospital -- where, ironically, I was PR Director. Bruised rib or 2, sore for fortnight, boss kidded me. 3. Commuting the 15-16 miles home summer 2006 in bike lane along Indian School Road, stopped at Wyoming for red, pushed forward when light turned green, kid in car at left looked left, accelerated right and knocked me over in slow motion. Facial stitches and soreness. Bike fine. On Thu, Jan 6, 2022 at 5:54 PM Matthew Williams < matthewwilliamsdes...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm just curious why people use forward-facing or rear-facing bike cams. > > > Probably have the same reason people get dashcams: to capture and preserve > evidence in the event of collisions, close calls, and harassment. > > https://www.reddit.com/r/CyclistsWithCameras/ > > https://www.reddit.com/r/BikeCammers/ > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgvsBy1%3DXQ7h2w9CCqQCCkCjYkRw5HcxSfH7YQf730B8mQ%40mail.gmail.com.
