Bike crash mishap

[oldfatslow]

So today the wife and I were 60 miles or so into a 70 mile ride on our tandem when we passed three guys. They caught us at the next traffic light and we set out again. We were driving along at about 25mph when the light 60 meters in front of us went yellow. Thinking we could make the light I told me wish "push" and we accelerated a little closing on the intersection. A good two seconds before the intersection the light turned red. I grabbed the brakes with both hands as I wasn't going to blow through a full on red light.

You know what happens next. As our bike slows one of the three guys crashes over our rear wheel taking one of his guys out. Thankfully, I kept the bike upright and our only damage was to my wife's shoe which somehow got a tear in it.

I felt bad for the guy who took the brunt of the crash and told him so. We stopped to make sure everyone was okay. The guys couldn't have been better about the incident apologizing to us.

My wife honestly didn't know they were on our wheel else she would have told me and I thought we had dropped them.

I do ride even more defensively on the tandem than I do on the single. When the mother of your children is on the back of the bike you can't take risks (like running a red light) which could literally leave your kids without parents.

All that said, my question is was the crash my fault for telling my wife "push" only to nail the brakes three strokes later or was the crash the fault of the rider who crashed into the back of our bike?

[sbparker31]

Just as with most traffic incidents - car or bike - if someone plows into you from behind, 99 times out of 100 they will be deemed at fault. The wheelsucker/tailgater has to be aware of what is going on in front of him and take the appropriate action. Therein lies the problem with wheelsucking in general -- when you are riding paceline in a race or on the track, you generally don't have to worry about panic stops. On a typical road ride, panic stops can happen at anytime -- red light, cars turns right in front of you, etc.

[MattTuck]

Not your fault at all.

This is why unannounced sitting in can be so dangerous for all involved.

There's no reason that guy should have been riding your ass going into a red light.

[BlackTiBob]

Just my opinion that technically not your fault BUT mistakes on your part contributed to it.
1. not good to think you could make yellow light from 60 M out.
2. yelling push and accelerating briefly certainly gave wheelsuckers the impression you were going for it and so would they
3.did not see you indicate you yelled stopping when you changed your mind. I would do so to alert stoker of sudden/emergency stop and that would have at least alerted wheelsuckers and they might have averted you.
When I approach light turning red I flash stop signal with hand even when riding alone, just in case--habit from group rides.

??Similar to same thing in car where you punch it and then slam on brakes and get rear ended, not your fault BUT you contributed to it happening.
Just my opinion---interesting to see what others think.

[spamjoshua]

Not on you.

Anyone and anything in front of you has right of way.

You are not responsible for what is happening behind you, nor realistically can you be.

Ski'ing has the same rule.

[dekindy]

The stoker should be monitoring activity from behind, using hand signals, and in this case a verbal warning for an emergency stop. Obviously you had no duty to them since no conversation had taken place but it is only prudent for the stoker to stay aware of what is going on behind, especially when there is a high potential for an incident. Defensive riding, as in automobile driving, is prudent. I suggest a mirror for the stoker.

I am surprised that the sound omitted from the tandem brakes was not enough alert to keep them from running into you. Either the single bikers were morons or had zero experience riding with tandems or they made the mistake of putting their heads down for the hard effort to keep up. Still the brake sound and slower stopping rate of the tandem would be enough to prevent most accidents of this type.

I don't care who is in front of me, I watch ahead for hazards and intersections and do not rely on anyone else's judgment to keep me safe. Safety is solely my responsibility.

[Dan Le foot]

Just my opinion that technically not your fault BUT mistakes on your part contributed to it.
1. not good to think you could make yellow light from 60 M out.
2. yelling push and accelerating briefly certainly gave wheelsuckers the impression you were going for it and so would they
3.did not see you indicate you yelled stopping when you changed your mind. I would do so to alert stoker of sudden/emergency stop and that would have at least alerted wheelsuckers and they might have averted you.
When I approach light turning red I flash stop signal with hand even when riding alone, just in case--habit from group rides.

??Similar to same thing in car where you punch it and then slam on brakes and get rear ended, not your fault BUT you contributed to it happening.
Just my opinion---interesting to see what others think.
+1
Dan

[zap]

I fully understand wanting to push through the intersection. I don' t have to say anything as my wife senses my efforts.

But, if I decide not to go through I would shout out "stopping" then get on the brakes. Being in front carries some responsabilities but same goes for those riding behind if they were riding with you.

If they latched on, more their fault

[ultraman6970]

Agree with Dan too, many things went wrong, the other guys screw up because u have to be with an eye in the wheel in front of you all the time. The track racer and road racer in my will speak now, always when u are sucking wheel u have to be ready to move to the side in case somebody hit the brakes or something weird happens, is not responsibility of the guy that is in the front at all, after all the one who's going to have an accident for looking the birds flying is the wheel sucker, not the rider in the front. In a matter of fact i have seen too many good frames with seat stays bent because of accidents like this one. U guys got lucky too, the frame could have gotten a nasty bent or broken seatstay.

Not your fault but at the same time i believe your wife needs to be more alert of her surroundings, in the case of the captain, the guys were too far back to feel them, she should have known they were there all the time. U can't ride concentrated in the road in front of you only. Don't want to generalize but i have seen too many women riders than can't see, hear or feel anything that is behind their shoulders. Even if they move their head back a little bit to look, their periphery vision is simply bad.

Probably she could start practicing looking over her shoulder more and more, after some time practicing it gets better at the point that u can see the guy that is almost in your back w/o any problem.

Not your fault but clearly there are problems that need to be tuned up so it doesn't happen again.

Cheers :D

[Elefantino]

At least you weren't a Passat. :D

[Fivethumbs]

This should go in the I hate wheel suckers thread. Why would someone yell out "Stopping" when there is no one behind them? Unwanted wheel sucking is annoying. Unannounced wheel sucking is just plain bogus.

[ultraman6970]

All depends of the experience too.

[mtnbke]

The stoker should be monitoring activity from behind, using hand signals, and in this case a verbal warning for an emergency stop. Obviously you had no duty to them since no conversation had taken place but it is only prudent for the stoker to stay aware of what is going on behind, especially when there is a high potential for an incident. Defensive riding, as in automobile driving, is prudent. I suggest a mirror for the stoker.

dekindy: Have you ever put even 100 miles on a tandem?

I've got Tons of miles on a tandem, and it is absurd to suggest that the stoker SHOULD be monitoring traffic behind the bike. Absolutely freakin' absurd. In a full on emergency stop situation the stoker is going to need both hands on their bars, period. Otherwise, the entire bike might be going down due to the stoker affecting the balance of the bike, and the captain's ability to control the bike in a full lock up.

Everyone should understand that a tandem even in full lock-up (you can lock-up the front wheel on a tandem, without any risk of flipping, something Sheldon Brown used to encourage captains practice for emergency stopping), AND with a drag brake fully engaged to boot, takes much much longer to stop than a single does. Its not even remotely comparable.

The real point here is that most cyclists are wanna be athletes only. You know the type: couldn't play any sport worth a lick, let alone at the varsity level in high school, or god forbid Division 1. Instead, they validate themselves into their thirties, forties, and fifties as being "competitive" in a sport long after their comparable age peers having taken to drinking beers and watching their own kids play and compete. Being able to run a marathon, or put out wattage on a bike for hours on end does not an athlete make in the real sense. Being an athlete necessarily imparts competition, and if you're playing in a sport after everyone else has hung it up, and no one else competes in your sport, really, to begin with, is their really competition? For all the roadies out there, you would be freakin' shocked to find that you couldn't hang with Div 1 or Pro athletes from other sports who were just riding a bike to rehab another injury for any moderate distance. The real deal is a far cry from the skinny kid who couldn't catch a ball thrown at him, who in his late thirties "became a cyclist/runner."

You can't teach someone reaction time or to make instantaneous reads in sudden situation. The person who ran into the tandem was so obsessed with hanging onto the wheel of the tandem, something very very difficult for any single to do on any flat, and impossible on anything close to a descent, that they were not riding safely, or in control of their bike.

I'll bet that the roadie was riding a bike with hands on the hoods, on a bike that is too small for them in the first place, that that roadie can't spend 2% of the time in the saddle actually with hands in the drops because his bike just doesn't fit him (though it looks aggressively raceish). Translation: He couldn't reach his brakes quickly and effectively in the first place.

100% fault of the guy on the single. Even if this had been a group of bikes on singles, it would still be the fault of the guy in back. There is a reason most people hate riding in a peleton with wannabe roadies. They may have the legs, but they don't have the bike skills. Even in the pro peleton, they have to police young riders to keep things upright, let alone some weekend warrior.

The fact that this was a tandem tells us everything we need to know. The fool on the single caused the accident, and is dangerous to ride with because he either just wasn't paying attention, or is so obsessed with proving he "can hang" that he can't control his bike in a normal sudden deceleration. I wouldn't ride with that person again.

Two more or less fit fat people can blow by a Cat 2/3 cyclist with ease on a tandem. It creates hyper competitive situations amongst those who validate themselves on by their performance on the bike. I'm 350 lbs, and with a 200lb female stoker I've dropped a group of A level cyclists within a mile. We could carry on a normal conversation, while they couldn't stay with us. They blew by us as soon as we came to a "climb" that you wouldn't even notice on a single as being difficult. It wasn't a competition, just the normal inherent fun of riding a tandem.

From your post, I'd be surprised if you've ever even ridden a tandem. I laugh at the notion that the stoker needs to monitoring bicycle or car traffic behind the bike. Nothing stops slower than a tandem bicycle! The tandem can safely brake Harder than a single, but it is still going to stop slower (read longer), even in full lock-up.

[palincss]

All that said, my question is was the crash my fault for telling my wife "push" only to nail the brakes three strokes later or was the crash the fault of the rider who crashed into the back of our bike?

Shared negligence, in my opinion.

You were clearly wrong to go for it. 60 meters on a yellow, there's simply no way you could make that safely before it went red, and you should have known it.

The rider who crashed into the back clearly did not have a concept of how hard a tandem can brake, and it's the number one reason why I never liked Klingons drafting me on a tandem. I'll even go farther: in my opinion, if you've never captained a tandem you have no business whatsoever drafting one, because you don't know what to expect and you won't be able to anticipate what the captain will do.

[Louis]

But, if I decide not to go through I would shout out "stopping" then get on the brakes. Being in front carries some responsabilities but same goes for those riding behind if they were riding with you.

I agree.

A while back I drove to buddy A's house. The plan was for us to cycle to the home of B, whom I did not know. So we're riding along, not terribly fast, but on a slight downhill, so maybe 20 mph. Since I don't know where B lives I'm behind, but not drafting or anything like that. All of a sudden A applies the brakes with no warning and stops. I run into him and fall over. No major damage, but I come out of it with a sprained thumb. Apparently we had gotten to B's house, hence the stop, but I had no idea that that was where B lived and there was no advance notice. "He lives up there, about three houses down" is all it would have taken.

It is the responsibility of the person in back to be able to stop in time, but in this case I think "blame," if any, can be assigned 50-50 to both parties.

Louis

[Fixed]

are they paying for your wife's shoe ?
cheers

[Louis]

are they paying for your wife's shoe ?

Why should they?

[dekindy]

[QUOTE=mtnbke]dekindy: Have you ever put even 100 miles on a tandem?
[/QUOTE

I have 3 tandem teams that I ride with regularly including club training rides. They are all excellent teams so maybe expecting teams that are not excellent to be able to use hand and verbal signals and be aware of their surroundings is unrealistic.

BTW, I rode with two tandem teams for 105 miles a couple of weeks ago on a group ride and we had single bikes join our group all day without incident. Not a big deal to integrate them into our group. Nobody ran into the back of anybody or took anybody out. Simply amazing, a miracle really!

As for the rest of your reply, what's up with that?

[wc1934]

technically, not your fault as the one doing he hitting usually pays - however, as you know, yellow means be prepared to stop - not push. Glad that no one was injured. Did you get any grief from your wife?

[1happygirl]

All rear end collisions are the fault of the person who rear ends you. They should offer to buy your stoker some new shoes.

Sorry this happened. They (the peeps that hit you) should have been watching the lights too IMN2BHO

[oldfatslow]

I got no grief from my wife.

As for all the folks who say my stoker should have done this, that, or the other thing. I'm thrilled that my stoker enjoys this madness. When you find one that likes to ride on the back of a bike for 70-100+ miles so she can drink more beers without worrying about her slim figure you'd understand.

:)

Thanks for all the opinions.

I'll close by adding with apologies to Jimmy Buffet: "Some people claim that there's a (stoker) woman to blame But I know it's nobodys fault"

[Lifelover]

......All that said, my question is was the crash my fault for telling my wife "push" only to nail the brakes three strokes later or was the crash the fault of the rider who crashed into the back of our bike?


Yes, but if the guy behind you was asking if it was his fault, I would say yes to him as well.


Both of you made poor decisions that lead to it. Thankfully it was not a big deal and everyone learned from it.

[Len J]

All rear end collisions are the fault of the person who rear ends you. They should offer to buy your stoker some new shoes.

Sorry this happened. They (the peeps that hit you) should have been watching the lights too IMN2BHO

All rear end collisions? So you are 5 TH in line in a pace line and the person in the lead slams on the brakes without any warning, and it's your fault if you hit the rider in front of you? I don't think so.

To the op.........a tandem stops in a longer distance than a single.....rider behind wasn't paying attention and wasn't riding defensively on the wheel of someone he didn't know and who he should know might not be aware he was there........IMO. it's on him.

Len

[1happygirl]

All rear end collisions? So you are 5 TH in line in a pace line and the person in the lead slams on the brakes without any warning, and it's your fault if you hit the rider in front of you? I don't think so.
Len

No. I agree in your example. I was meaning in general. Of course riding in a pace line, peloton, big group you as the person in front have a responsibility.

In general though, you should be looking at more than the person's wheel in front of you. Drafting is also a responsibility.

So much to do as a draftee(?) that it's almost not worth it.

[zap]

dekindy: Have you ever put even 100 miles on a tandem?

I've got Tons of miles on a tandem,
Everyone should understand that a tandem even in full lock-up (you can lock-up the front wheel on a tandem, without any risk of flipping, something Sheldon Brown used to encourage captains practice for emergency stopping), AND with a drag brake fully engaged to boot, takes much much longer to stop than a single does. Its not even remotely comparable

Two more or less fit fat people can blow by a Cat 2/3 cyclist with ease on a tandem. It creates hyper competitive situations amongst those who validate themselves on by their performance on the bike. I'm 350 lbs, and with a 200lb female stoker I've dropped a group of A level cyclists within a mile. We could carry on a normal conversation, while they couldn't stay with us. They blew by us as soon as we came to a "climb" that you wouldn't even notice on a single as being difficult. It wasn't a competition, just the normal inherent fun of riding a tandem.

From your post, I'd be surprised if you've ever even ridden a tandem. I laugh at the notion that the stoker needs to monitoring bicycle or car traffic behind the bike. Nothing stops slower than a tandem bicycle! The tandem can safely brake Harder than a single, but it is still going to stop slower (read longer), even in full lock-up.

I question pretty much everything you post.

First, tandems can stop pretty well. If not as well as a single then real close. If you can't, well you have a few issues to look at.

Second, I repeat, you are not going to be riding by any cat 2 that puts a bit of effort into it unless they just don't want to ride with you. Not to many tandem teams can talk and sip tea at 28 mph.

Agree 100% with Steve, a good number of riders are not that familiar with what tandems can and can not do but skilled cyclists get it.

A stoker should try to be aware of what's going on but its quite possible that nothing could have been done by the stocker to prevent the op situation.