[John Rogers]

Back in the 70's when we started bike racing and eventually were riding 400+ miles a week I learned what some have already said.....the car will always win. I also had a copy of the CA bicycle laws I used to carry since it basically said the bike was supposed to adhere to all the laws of the road as a car was supposed to. The biggest one was "bikes stay to the extreme right unless a bike lane or you are going the same speed as the vehicles since after getting warmed up I could zip along the same speed as the traffic on regular streets. I was stopped several times by SDPD officers and they said I had to stay out of the traffic lanes until I showed them the copy I had?! They would also ask for my drivers license and I never carried it, only my military ID card and was ticketed once for not having a drivers license! I went to court and the judge threw it out and chewed out the officer for not knowing the rules of the road!

I was lucky I guess as I never got hit or hit a vehicle but I was with groups that would run through stop signs or red lights and those guys had several accidents where cars were hit. In all of those cases, the car's driver made the cyclist provide contact info so they would have to cover repairs. If I had been you, I would have gotten their contact info and put them on the spot for the repairs. I will be guessing that in a couple weeks you will be making a post about getting sued for their injuries and bike damages!