“This picture was taken recently during a 20km TT community event. The youth is Canada Games age and he is riding appropriately. However, we see the driver is passing while talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette. Please drivers, especially this one, please be responsible and recognize that poor decisions can have terrible repercussions for a cyclist. We need a safe environment for our kids to be kids. Thankfully this one is able to start school this week. (photo shared with parental consent to raise awareness).”
On the plus side the driver obeyed the 1m law. The driver couldn’t have been too distracted if he saw the cyclist and gave him plenty of space. We have lots bigger problems with motorists – some of whom intentionally threaten us – so to my mind this picture shows a relatively good driver. Of course I didn’t see the whole overtake but this picture on its own doesn’t show a bad driver in my opinion.
Well, he could be one of the better bad drivers. At least he’s looking up and forward, not down at the phone, trying to hide it. And paying enough attention to the road to avoid hitting the biker.
No hands on the steering wheel could put him in bad driver category. Cigarette and white sunglasses is another category.
Agreed, but my problem with publicly calling out the driver in this picture is that it’s not terribly distracted or malicious driving. We have people struck and seriously injured or killed by hit and run drivers.
Fuck him. If the timing was just a -little- different this would be a picture of a driver looking down at his cell phone dialing a number and plowing into some poor kid who never saw it coming. I’ve been cycling and seen cars coming towards me in my lane while they looked at their phones. This asshole deserves to be caught and fined the max amount.
