Watch out for the dreaded pre-turn.

A car that wants to turn will sometimes steer his car toward the opposite direction that they want to turn in order to gain more clearance. It can be tricky, because if you react to the first “pre-turn” by passing on the opposite side thinking that the driver is going in that direction, you can be in for a nasty surprise when all of a sudden he turns right into your path and BUMP! Also when they do a preturn, they have already made a decision to turn, they will not look again after they have made their preturn. This can happen at intersections when they want to turn either left or right, or when they want to pull into a parking garage. I had to learn about the preturn the hard way, my advice is to judge for yourself where the car is really going to turn, just by thinking like the driver and intuit where they would want to go. Easier said than done, but it all comes with experience.

Using arms and legs:

You can stick out your arms or legs in order to let your presences known to nearby drivers who are getting to close to you. Its hard to see a cyclist because we are so narrow, drivers are usually looking for wide objects and when you extend either your arm or legs toward the drivers view they are more likely to see you.
You can also use your arm to tap or put your hand on the car, that will definitely get the drivers attention, usually I do this when there’s no time and I need that driver to recognize I’m there or I’m toast. Word of advice… don’t hit that car side, many drivers will not like it and react to you aggressively and you will end up getting hit or scared shitless. Sometimes when you want to get someone’s attention you tap them in the shoulder, you don’t smack them in the head. Unless you really have to. LOL.
Or if you don’t have enough time to signal your presence to car you can use your hands as a buffer to keep the car from knocking you off your bike. Push your hands against the car to guide yourself away from the car. The mirrors work best for this. This can work pretty good when you are getting hooked by a driver on an intersection. In this case go with car’s turn, and use your hands if it’s to close to you.

Obviously if you are on a fixed gear using a leg is out of the option. That’s why I enjoy my road bike, because a leg is bigger and thicker than an arm, so it’s easier to spot. And I can still be able turn my bike pretty good while I do so.

Using jaywalkers to feel out the intersection,

When you are at a red light at an intersection and for whatever reason your view of crossing traffic is blocked. You can either inch little by little to the intersection until you can see and risk your front wheel getting clipped. Or you can use peds who are crossing on the red to see if there are any cars coming and you can join in on the law breaking. Peds will always drift towards the intersection to see if there are any cars to cross, since they don’t have a front wheel to watch out for and can accelerate to 5 mph faster than we can. Its more safe to do it when more than one ped crosses the intersection, the trick is to wait to see till they are in the middle of the intersection. If you just go, when one ped starts to cross, he could easily be one of these guys who are not paying attention and hell either jump back in or sprint across the intersection with the car still coming through at full speed. Since you cant accelerate as fast as a ped can your stuck in the middle of the intersection with a car coming in at full speed. The clueless leading the clueless. But, if you wait for the pedestrian to be in the middle of crossing and he doesn’t look alarmed and keeps at his leisurely pace, than that means that there are no cars coming and you can go. If a whole group of peds are in the middle of crossing an intersection than you can go, because even if there is a car coming it will stop and slow down for the group to pass. So use them as a shield and just cross the light.

The Bread and Butter of an Urban Cyclist

Dealing with Obstacles on the shoulder…

Being able to weave in and out of the shoulder lane and into traffic is one of the most basic and important skills you need to learn in order to ride in the city. New York City is full of double parked cars, trucks loading and unloading, construction workers, people trying to hail a taxi, etc. This is the bread and butter of any urban rider’s skill-set.
There will be many times when you are riding in the shoulder when there’s going to be a double parked car that’s going to push you further into car traffic. Of course try to look back to see what’s going on in traffic behind you, not just for yourself, but so that traffic behind see you looking back at them. When they see you that they will (hopefully) realize that you are about to move into their lane. The question is , do you let the car behind you pass by the double parked car first and wait or do you take their lane before they pass that parked car? Indecision here can cause you to get hurt, hit from behind, or being squeezed between a moving and a parked car. If you see that you will reach the parked car at your present speed first, then by all means take the lane (try to signal if you have the time), pass the obstacle and go on your merry riding. If on the other hand, the car at its present speed will get there first, do yourself and the car behind you a favor and let it pass the parked car first. Wait for it to pass and as soon as it does go right behind it to pass the parked car. If you go first , the car behind you has to either slow down and pump the brakes. Some drivers will just get pissed off and keep going. You don’t want to engender any ill-will from other drivers, remember they are stronger than you and can kill you.
Do it with no fuss and you'll get home safe and fast. Try to get too greedy and you’ll come home with many close encounters, and sooner or later you’ll get caught and get fucked up.
One of my rules is to let the traffic flow, you don’t want to slow down car traffic unless you have to.

Traffic Prediction Tip

Predicting what the driver in front of you will do by looking through their rear windshield. There are times when you have very little visibility but are stuck behind a vehicle, because you have no space to pass it. The faster you and the car are going the farther away you should be from its bumper, for the obvious reason of not wanting your face to smash their wind shield. But if you can see the same thing that the driver in front of you, then you can think like the driver and know when this person will want to change a lane, speed up or slow down. I usually do this when I can’t see the overall traffic conditions ahead of me…

Not so useful tip: Ride Fast

This will not work for everyone because not everybody feels like hitting it hard every day and every moment that they are on their bike. But the easiest way to ride in traffic with the least amount of trouble is to ride at a slightly slower pace than the car traffic around you. If you are flowing in traffic, there are fewer obstacles that present themselves. If you are going way slower than the traffic, just the speed difference is enough to make drivers think of you as an obstacle that has to be passed as opposed as something to drive along with. I rather ride along traffic as opposed to slowing it down. If I’m riding in the yellow lines and I see that I can’t keep the pace of traffic I will move over to the shoulder, where cars go a bit slower and where I’m allowed to be slow.
When you are being passed by traffic you have to be on the defensive, you got to make sure that every car that is passing behind you is not trying to make a turn in your path or pull in to a parking spot. Its nerve-wracking to be on the defensive all the time. I would rather be in neutral (riding like 2-3 mph slower than traffic), where drivers will wait for you before they pull out, change lanes, or make that turn. Either that or be on the offensive, where you are riding a bit faster or at the same speed of traffic. Because of your speed you get to choose whether to give the right of way to other cars. And if you remember what I said about momentum, the faster you go ,the more of it you have and the more respect you command, especially at the intersections.

Quick Tips 2

Someone is hailing a cab…now this takes a bit of a trained eye, but look back to see if there is cab behind you and look to see if there are any passengers in the back. If there isn’t any get ready to either get out of the area near the cab hailer, or get ready to be on the defensive using your voice, arms or legs to stop them from hitting or overtaking you. Because a cabbie pulling to pick up a passenger is a dangerous person, their mind becomes one tracked into just pulling over, no matter who or what is in the way. It’s better to just get out of there in my opinion but if you have to stay in the area for whatever reason be prepared to be very loud and aggressive to snap them out of it.
If a cabbie has just stopped for a passenger and that passenger is a woman with a lot of luggage, watch out…that cabbie will open the door and probably without looking so get out of there.

Quick Tips

Left turners on two way streets… don’t test your luck with them. Simply put, they rather hit a cyclist than hit a car. Though you might be going straight through the intersection and you have the right of way, if that drivers starts to turn and traffic is busy, believe me he will keep going in that turn. Because if the driver stops for you any car going straight through the intersection as well is going to be coming at him at full speed. The intention is not to hit you or cut you off, the fear of being hit by another 10 ton vehicle is less than the fear of hitting a 200lb cyclist. For your own safety give them the right of way, even though their supposed to give it to you.
There are many accidents that I have been through that occurred because I did not react defensively thinking that I shouldn’t have too because I’m in the right. But as we know what should happen, doesn’t happen. The end result is you or your bike being fucked up regardless of in you were in the right. Little by little, the more you ride in traffic the less you care about who should be doing what, who was in the right and learn to start reacting to reality. You learn to detach emotionally from the street and just ride. I still get mad at people who don’t signal their turns. And I still leave myself in awkward and unsafe situations because I feel that the driver isn’t doing the right thing and I expect it him to right him/her self.

Beware of Voids in Traffic

A void is simply a large enough space where a car can fit and is surrounded by other cars. Its psychological, when a driver is in heavy traffic and sees a space (void) where he can fit, he will move into it without thought , they probably think, that it’s a spot with their name on it, and they deserve it. This is an example of the physics law, “following the path of least resistance”, like water will rush in to fill en empty space in a vessel. It happens automatically. If a void presents itself on traffic, either totally get out of there before another car takes it. Or you can act preemptive and move right into the middle of it, effectively filling up the space. I usually don’t stay in the voids for too long after I take them because I don’t want to ride in a car lane. I want to ride between them. And also I feel it’s a bit greedy of a cyclist taking all that space when he can easily ride between the cars. Being greedy in traffic is an easy way for drivers to overtake you simply out of spite.

Momentum Reigns Supreme

It is the most important concept to understand. Because even though there are official rules to the road, all that goes to shit when you have a 30 Ton truck coming at you at 35 miles per hour. Momentum is the product of mass and speed. The more you have of it, whether it’s either in speed or mass, the more respect you command on the road. This applies to all traffic, not just cycling. This explains why people respect Trucks and treat cyclist like shit. We cyclist have very little momentum in the game of traffic, we will never get the respect we want from drivers, that’s why we have to ride 10 times more defensively and aggressive than car drivers.

Momentum also determines how you ride, the more speed you have the less you want to stop. Well this also applies to car drivers. At intersections even though cars are supposed to give the right of way, they don’t because they carry this momentum they don’t want to give up. For us Cyclists this affects us even more, because the momentum we have when we ride is not easy to build up, it takes effort to get up to 20 miles per hour, a car driver just has to press a lever with his foot, we have to push down on our pedals with our own muscles.

If you can learn to read the momentum of cars you will be able to predict whether a driver will run a red light, make a quick reckless lane-change, will make a right turn without looking, etc. Its psychological, a car who wants to make a left turn and is going at a fast speed is not going to stop for a cyclist who is in the right, simply because he knows he has more momentum than you have and you should yield to him even though by the rules of the road he should yield to you. So even though you know all the traffic rules in your area, know that momentum reigns supreme.

In the scheme of traffic we cyclist are flies, we are invisible for the most part. We have to ride very aggressive and “loud” in order to get out due notice.