From Associated Press 'Speedboarding' Fight in California

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Premium Member Comment by Dani on March 4, 2011 at 19:49

I agree that skaters should ride with an attitude of ''they cant see us'' and bright clothing is probably a good idea but I beleive that anyone in control of a motor vehicle should be on the look out for ANYTHING that moves. A bird, dog, cat, lizard, skateboarder, pedestrian, car, bike or beach ball.

ASRA Admin Comment by bernie on March 2, 2011 at 12:54

If it was a car, she would have seen it with plenty of time to spare, and not have been upset by its sudden appearance, or high speed motion, because that is exactly what cars do. 

Same can't be said of skateboarders, because that behaviour is something new and unexpected, and can be quite upsetting to some one who was carefully backing out, while looking for other vehicles.

 

There is a thing that all skaters need to consider, that many motorcyclists have come to understand.

Car drivers are through training or habit, atuned to looking for moving objects (vehicles)  that present a predominantly horizontal image to their eyes.  Motorcyclists, bicycles and skate boarders normally present as a vertical shape, which to a driver of many years is more often associated with objects that are predominantly stationary (ie telephone poles).  Drivers are quite often surprised and unsettled by vertical forms moving at high speed, that they don't often register until the last minute, because they are not trained to look for, nor expect to see such objects entering their part of the roadway. (To head off the expected "but we tuck" discussion about presenting a verticle image, unfortunately, that makes a skater smaller and harder to detect by the untrained, or unready eyes of motorists.)

Ask any motorcyclist how many times they have either been involved in or heard reports of accidents where the driver said "I did not see you".  It happens to be a completely true claim for a motorist to make, even when they were completely in the wrong nad failed to give way, because those drivers are not trained to look for, nor do they expect to see vertical objects moving at high speed. 

Many motorcyclists are trained to expect a motorist to make a wrong move, until they have made eye-contact with the driver, because until that time the rider needs to consider him/her self completely invisible to the car driver, and they often are.

Perhaps if motorists could evolve such that they can readily detect and expect vertical objects moving at high speed, the roads will be safer for skaters, but while we are waiting the next half century or so for evolution to kick in, we should ride as we are completely invisible to motorists, and look forward to hearing "I did not see you!" while being inserted into the back of the ambulance.

Can I also suggest the bright clothing could help.

Comment by Michael English on March 2, 2011 at 10:43

wow lady, imagine if it was a car coming down the road... would have fucked everyone up...

Premium Member Comment by Robert-Da-Bomb on March 1, 2011 at 9:26

The lady would have had to stop anyways not back her car out without stopping.
Plus those groms, im sure, would have ripped out a 10m standie.

Comment by Bozac on March 1, 2011 at 9:21

good to see some coverage that didn't just call us reckless idiots, bonus points for also showing some groms able to slide to a controlled stop. that is what the non-skate community needs to see, that it is possible to control speed while skating downhill