Transportation
Science Tackles the ‘Right Hook,’ Biking’s Most-Feared Crash
Toronto researchers used eye-tracking devices to determine whether motorists were looking for bicycles when they turned right. Most weren’t.
Bicyclists know it as the dreaded “right hook”—a driver passing a cyclist on the left turns directly in front the rider while making a right turn. It’s among the most common and dangerous kinds collisions between motorists and bikes. (Here’s a textbook example.) And it often leaves riders who survive these infuriating encounters shaking their heads in disbelief: Just what the hell are those drivers looking at?
That’s one of the many things a group of University of Toronto researchers wanted to know when they outfitted motorists with eye-tracking technology and had them make right turns from Bloor Street, the Canadian city’s main drag. The answer: usually not at where the bikes or pedestrians would have been.