I once had to go around a car stopped in a bike lane, slid and fell badly while trying to re-enter the somewhat elevated bike lane (about two inches from the road -
it's like a red painted sidewalk, two feet wide, with a bevel on the edge). The driver was inside the car having a phone conversation, so he was probably stopped there for just 30 seconds -
enough to cause a bicycle accident.
You could have, you know, stopped and waited for the car to start moving. As cars do when blocked.
A post elsewhere hear said it already, but it’s my experience too: cyclist break laws constantly, due to apparent feeling of entitlement to keep moving fast, regardless of the traffic, lights etc. the thought of just stopping safely for a few seconds didn’t even cross your mind in the situation.
No. Sorry. They did not cause an accident. It is important that your understand this.
Note that I am not sympathetic to the driver of the car. They probably deserve criticism, but not blame for your slide. I know that you want to blame somebody that is not yourself. That's human. But when any pedestrian, bike, car, airplane, drone, skateboard, etc. runs into a stationary pedestrian, bike, car, airplane, drone, skateboard, house, fence, animal, etc. it is almost certainly the fault of the moving object's operator.
In your case, you failed to change lanes safely. It sounds like you really blame the lane design for having a bevel between lanes. It's interesting to me that the bevel probably has almost zero effect on cars/trucks but a significant effect on bikes. That seems like a bike-hostile design. The fact that it is only two feet wide seems questionable to me. A slow-moving bike would also encourage you to change lanes, navigating the bevel twice.
So by the same logic, if you stop your car in the middle of the highway and someone slides into the parapet after going around it, you did not cause an accident?
I agree with the bike hostile design part. Navigating the bevel downwards is not a problem. Navigating it upwards at a steep angle of attack is.
