Dangerous Passing: Reflections on a Close Call and Bicycle Safety


Richard and I have ridden up to this corner together countless times on the Lawyer Noontime Ride. It was a fresh mid February day and I had just finished telling him the story of how my son Chris was hit by a car the night before, his first crash in a few years. He was commuting home and a Trailblazers fan trying to find a parking space before tipoff ran a stop sign right in front of him. Both were going about 15 mph and fortunately the only casualty was a broken rear wheel. We got to the stop sign at Civic Stadium and saw a White Subaru Forester coming toward us on the through street on the left but with plenty of distance back from us. Richard started to wait in case I did as I am the more timid rider but it seemed like the car was moving slow enough and my Car Psychoanalysis MMPI for a Subaru Forester was that it is a benign or at least semi-positive auto type (“Love, it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru” as the current ad slogan goes…) so I stopped enough to say I did it and rolled around the corner with him beside me.

As we headed northbound parallel to the Max tracks the rest of the riders were a ways behind us and had just pulled in behind the Subaru. They were now all behind the Subaru as we headed toward where the Max tracks cross the road. There were about a dozen of us, and it was one of those days where the pavement is damp but it’s not really sprinkling but is misting a little. As I approached where the tracks cross the road in front of us we were riding two up with me to the left. I moved slightly toward Richard to get my crossing angle correct as I know the tracks would be wet and slick, and then I steered left so I would hit them at as perpendicular an angle as I could. We were going about 12 mph, just cruising along companionably as we rode out of town to go race the hills just like we have every Thursday for a decade or so he has been in the ride, (for me that number was 25 years). This was the warm up and social part of our ride through NW Portland and we were just spinning through town picking up a few riders on the way who were waiting for us at the places they knew we would be coming past instead of them riding all the way to Pioneer Square where the main group assembles and rolls out together.

As my front tire crossed over the first track I suddenly became aware of movement to my left… I swerved right instinctively away from the threat as much as I dared so as not to get my tire caught in the track and the white Subaru came by me fast and I swear I could sense that the driver had jerked the wheel hard to the left to avoid hitting me at the last fraction of a second. I admit up until this point I had been pretty much on automatic, this part of the ride is usually so uneventful, and a nice time to maybe chat and put a little decompression time and distance between me and the office.

As the car went by it began to dawn on me that he had been successful in missing me, but barely. As we rode across the second set of tracks the Subaru made the light ahead of us and drove at a fast rate of speed down toward Burnside where he moved without signaling into the left turn lane as if he was gonna turn. But the light at Burnside turned red before he got there and for some reason he moved back into the right lane and stopped. Now I rode up to his driver window quickly, upset about what had happened. The window stayed up and I knocked on it lightly and it being a new red I knew I had awhile as it’s a slow light. The other riders had now caught up to us and were waiting nervously looking at me to see what was going to happen. The driver window went down and inside were a couple of guys who did not look at all like typical Subaru people, if there is such a thing. They certainly did not look like they were all about love. I told the guy “you almost hit me”, and then he said that I had pulled right out in front of him and he had to slam on his brakes not to hit me. I said that was total bullshit, and then a funny Portland moment occurred. His passenger pulled out his phone, pointed it at me and started repeating loudly over and over “Road rage road rage”. Unbelievable. This guy almost runs me over and now his “witness” accuses me of road rage. The light was now about to turn green. I rode my bike to the back of his car and went over to the group. When the light turned green we all went and I think he turned right. I have to admit the group with me probably emboldened me a little and I did admit to Richard as we rode past the Cathedral a couple blocks further that yeah maybe the fact that Chris had gotten hit last night probably had me a bit closer to “the edge” then usual.

As we headed out I received a little bit of “what the hell happened back there”, and “Ray don’t get mad at me and yell at me ok”. Now that it was over they were relieved I had not been run over and a little surprised to hear me unload on someone like that. I remember also thinking “the world does not need any more angry old white men”. But when it is your body on the line and someone does this sort of thing it is very hard not to let your fear and anger spin out a little.

As I rode toward the end of the warm up section of the ride I went back over what happened, processing it. I realized that actually what had happened was the guy had decided to “teach me a lesson” for not waiting even though he didn’t have to slow down for me; instead he speeded up. He had not anticipated that I would move right then left to take a different approach angle. But in crossing the tracks at an angle I was right at the edge of the path he had charted to go real close and quickly around me, i.e. “the lesson”. At a regroup later in the ride, I rode up to Richard and asked him if we had cut the guy off and he told me the only reason he was starting to pause and wait for the guy was because he thought I might decide not to go.

After the ride I second guessed myself. I could have pulled my own phone out, taken his photo, gotten some footage of him in asshole mode, photographed his license plate and then after the ride maybe chosen to do a Citizen Initiated Violation Prosecution for Unsafe Passing, an Oregon Vehicle Code violation. But the die was cast, I had let it go, he was gone. Later I decided I needed to go back to the scene and think about it some more.

The next day while on an errand I rode over to the scene again. It was clear to me the guy had driven up alongside me where there was no lane at all. So clearly it was not only an unsafe but also an illegal pass and very dangerous. It had never occurred to me that anyone would ever try to pass me there as they would have practically had to drive up to me on top of the raised pavement sections placed to keep people from driving close to the Max tracks. However, I saw that a hundred or so feet ahead and to the left there was a developing “wide spot” in the lane which then turned into a dedicated left turn lane for turning Eastbound along the North side of Civic Stadium on SW Morrison. I am not sure what disturbed me more, that he had chosen to make such a boneheaded move to pass me there, or that he had gotten so far along in his pass before I even realized it was happening.

I say this because I have been cheap shotted by irritated motorists or had close calls with distracted motorists at just about every place it could possibly happen in the twenty five years I have been riding this same route every Thursday noontime. Should I have anticipated that a motorist may do that there? If so then I should have at least checked my helmet mirror before moving left in my position in the lane. I wear a helmet mirror on the left side for just this sort of hazard. However, I admit I never thought anyone would try to go around me there and I was focusing on getting into correct position in my approach to the track. I guess I probably did catch the mid part of the pass movement in my mirror but by then I was completely at the mercy of his reflexes in steering quickly left to miss me as there was little I could do to change direction as my tire passed on top of the gap in the track.

It was so crazy to pass a bicycle rider there! But we have had drivers do some crazy stuff over the years as the group winds it way slowly up into the west hills and some people are just enraged that a group of riders will not move over quickly enough to create a safe passing path when they overtake us.

The other problem was that my car type MMPI test failed me, but I have known that it is on shaky ground anyway and it is more entertainment than anything to predict that the Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade and jacked up pickup truck drivers will treat me like I am vermin of the roadway and the Volvo with a bike rack on top will be nice. When I am pleasantly surprised then my expectations are exceeded by my gratitude, but sometimes an innocuous seeming car type will contain a driver from hell so you can’t really count on it, not ever.

I am not going to say I am proud of my behavior in cussing angrily at the guy. But I loved the road rage accusation by the passenger and his putting up the phone and pointing it at me as if it was a talisman against my angry energy. Of course I am relieved and lucky that the driver did not go ballistic on me and maybe even endanger one of the others, and of course I was damn lucky I did not get hit.

As I rode back to work after leaving my scene visit, I thought of how it would have gone if I had to describe what had happened to a police officer or judge. I wondered what the passenger’s phone video would have shown, me with my eyes bugged out and the veins in neck and forehead all bulging while I was yelling angrily looking like some sort of angry senior citizen with a mirror hanging off the side of his face, not a pretty sight. My kids of course have this assemblage of my behaviors “down” and compete to see who can do it best when they gather and pantomine my various foibles and poor dance moves. I suspect that even with photos of the scene and witness accounts from the other riders it would be hard to establish that I had not in any way “cut off” the approaching driver- it just happens too often in this town that a bike rider does just that. And I also suspect that my tapping on the window and unloading on this guy would not have helped place me in the blameless victim category. Plus, and finally, I would have had to admit that I actually moved out toward the left side of the lane and it was my move to cross the tracks better that placed me in the position where “the pass” came so close to me.

I am glad I was not hit, no one else got hit or hurt, and I hope I got some good lesson from it. I do know that in the future I am going to be more attentive to the possibility that a driver may choose an awful place to pass and make sure that any time I change position in the lane I will use my mirror and do a shoulder check. And I’ll try to contain my upset and anger too. In looking back on it I have to somewhat appreciate the irony of being almost run down and then accused of road rage by the driver’s passenger while filming my angry reaction with his cell phone.