Driver plows into bicyclist at JP rotary and then just keeps on going

Agreed, this rotary is rather terrifying to navigate by bike. Cars don't really pay attention to lanes and approach it at really high speeds, in some directions merging from 4 lanes into the rotary. After seeing another cyclist almost get taken out similar to this, I started riding on the sidewalks whenever I go through here. I also know of two pedestrians who were hit by cars exiting the rotary as they were crossing at the sidewalk. The speed limit here is I believe 25 but cars often take it at 40 or higher.

The rotary on the Hammond Pond Parkway has lanes painted on it with arrows indicating which one to be in for exiting. It would be really great to do the same at this one. If nothing else maybe it would slow traffic down as people would have to think about which lane to drive in rather than flying through only sort of in a lane.

What the actual fuck? The person even swerves after the collision. No way they didn't know. Can we start throwing the book at people like this?

Glad the cyclist was not seriously injured.

Great website. It even has a downloadable driving manual for you to read so that you can learn the rules of the road!

I highly recommend that you do so now, read it, and then throw your license in the insinkerator at the earliest opportunity. You need to get off the road before you kill somebody with your stupidity.

I have not been through this one, even when I lived in JP, so please don't try to apply my thoughts to it without carefully assessing whether it works for this one. I'd also like to note that having watched the video, I don't think there was much of anything the cyclist could have done to avoid the crash.

I have ridden through Sullivan and the one at 99 and 16 (Sweetser Circle on Google maps, who knew) a fair number of times, though not recently, and definitely not since they re-striped Sullivan. I've had good luck riding between the two lanes, where there is or would be a white line.

Doing so puts you out of the path of anybody entering the circle into the outside lane, which is helpful, because a bicycle disappears pretty readily in the visual clutter of a circle, especially if a driver isn't looking for bicycles specifically.

It also means you aren't occupying the inner lane, which is usually moving pretty briskly in both of those. Traffic has to pass through your path, but isn't following you along the path of your travel. This gives people clear space to pass in the inside lane People will argue whether drivers should do this, but it's moot; they do. I have not had any close calls with people exiting from the inner lane, and barring truly boneheaded behavior (as witnessed in the video), there's a pretty narrow window in which a car can pass through your path without giving the cyclist opportunity to avoid a crash by braking.

Note also, that being between the lanes means that if you do have to make an emergency stop, there is (at least in theory), nobody in a car directly behind you who needs to stop to keep from running you over.

It's worth pointing out, that at least in this area, most of the higher-speed multi-lane rotaries don't see much bicycle use. As a consequence, car drivers aren't used to seeing cyclists in them, or having the faintest idea how a cyclist would safely use the rotary. I keep my head on a swivel through them, and allow as much room for people to do unexpected things as I can in them.

Again, I don't think there's anything the cyclist in the video could have done to avoid this crash. The above is my experience in a different rotary, and shouldn't be construed to be applicable in any way to the rotary in which the crash happened.

As a further note, I also drive a car. I'm not going to engage in generalizations about all car drivers this, or all cyclists that. Some people in/on either of those do stupid things, and it's asinine to judge all of them by the actions of the few.

Some people *also* do things that appear to be stupid if you don't have experience operating a car or bicycle, but are in fact, not. Cyclists would be more proficient road users if they drove enough to understand how cars behave and why, and car drivers would be a lot safer around bicycles if they rode them enough to understand how cyclists behave and why.

Lastly, some of the cyclists here don't seem to like the reality that it doesn't matter whose fault the crash was when you're bleeding on the pavement. Please be safe out there, even if it means making allowances for cars doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.

TL;DR: Ride like you're invisible and everybody's trying to kill you. You'll be a lot safer that way.

I find the crosswalks at rotaries to be more problematic than just being visibly in the roadway.

I prefer my rotaries to be jammed solid so I can just cruise through them without hazard.

Good luck having cars stop for you when you use sidewalks in this rotary.