Accident garbage cans.

[Gr8fun]

I live in a bicycle friendly city. The contract with the garbage company specifies cans that can not be seen. No reflective surface. Even with a headlight these cans can not be seen until an accident is unavoidable. They are allowed to block bicycle lanes for 48 hours before and 48 hours after pickup. 4 days a week unusable bike lanes. This is blocking public right of way.
reactions to my complaints have been "sir i can assure you that we can not and will not do anything."

All i. Ask is that they paint or put on reflectorized tape.
So the cans can be seen. The city contracted for dark colored pickup cans. (Invisible light absorbing) These garbage cans have always been a near miss until last night. Now injured shoulder bruised ribs cut up rock embedde elbow and hand. Pain.
response as been rude with " not our problem". Anger is building with the pain.

[max_volt]

Doesn't sound like a bike friendly city to me. I'm peeved just reading about it. You may want to speak at a city council meeting or as much as I hate to say it, retain a good lawyer and a doctor.

[tklop]

I wanted to suggest he team up with local cyclists, in the middle of the night, to push them all into the main roadway. Ride all over town--en-masse--hundreds of cyclists--pushing those "invisible" cans off the bike-paths, and into the streets instead.

But then--yeah. To the original poster: I'm not the same as your "bike-freindly" city--and as vengeful as I might feel over reading your post--I, unlike you city's leadership, don't want to see anyone get hurt.

Perhaps a better "citizen-action" would be to gather the same group of cyclists, and race though your city at night, applying reflective tape to the cans. What's the worst they could do to you? And just how would the judge react, in court--should it get that far? Taking action to improve safety in your community--when your city won't--even the most heinous of judges wouldn't hand down anything more than a slap on the wrist.

Intentionally putting invisible obstacles into the roadway is plainly insane. I am also not a big fan of "lawsuit land" but any reasonable person can see you would have a solid case.

Whether or not you pursue it further on your own, I do also suggest you have a talk with your medical insurance company. Your provider may wish to pursue their own legal action against your city to recover their costs, especially if it turns out they're paying out many of these claims in your area. By helping provide them with good evidence, they may well be able to bring a bit more "leverage" to the situation than you can--as an individual.

Anyways.

Take care, lick your wounds. Get night-vision goggles.

Tklop

[commuter ebikes]

I live in a bicycle friendly city. The contract with the garbage company specifies cans that can not be seen. No reflective surface. Even with a headlight these cans can not be seen until an accident is unavoidable. They are allowed to block bicycle lanes for 48 hours before and 48 hours after pickup. 4 days a week unusable bike lanes. This is blocking public right of way.
reactions to my complaints have been "sir i can assure you that we can not and will not do anything."

All i. Ask is that they paint or put on reflectorized tape.
So the cans can be seen. The city contracted for dark colored pickup cans. (Invisible light absorbing) These garbage cans have always been a near miss until last night. Now injured shoulder bruised ribs cut up rock embedde elbow and hand. Pain.
response as been rude with " not our problem". Anger is building with the pain.

I live in the same community as Dan (Gr8fun). Sorry to hear about your accident, Dan.

It is very crowded here. I almost hit a big black BBQ that was in the bike lane one night this week. I have no idea why somebody would leave a BBQ in the bike lane.

[Gr8fun]

I have two bikes and have ridden othera
fat bike, trail bike and recumbent. Etc.
I will only ride the recumbent on the street now. It can take the corners faster, gets much better watt hours per mile, goes appreciably faster. Easy to add aero. Carries a lot of cargo low to the ground keeping a low center of gravity. The laid back seating goves full vision ahead to the side and above. Comfort plus. No shoulder back wrist or lower arm pains or uncomfortable sitting. Add an electric motor and it becomes the lazy boy on wheels.

and if all else fails it is not near as far to fall.

Older rans nimbus.

[commuter ebikes]

So tell us the story of the garbage can collision.

I always wear my helmet cam, but nothing exciting ever happens.

[Gr8fun]

I went up and down the street explaining how much the garbage cans hurt. Everyone is now placing them out of the street. Garbage trucks are being careful to place them back off the strreet.
no help from city, garbage company or police. Just making people aware of possible consequences of their actions and they become more responsible. 100% compliance.

[Gr8fun]

Don't wait for an accident before you confront people who are placing hazards in the road.

[derfobas]

Sorry to hear about your accident. I was actually blamed one time for creating a potentially hazardous situation for bicyclists. Last year we were getting taking down walls and getting rid of garbage in our basement. A Bin Rental service delivered a large 15-foot container and placed it on our lawn. Part of it was sticking out into the road, blocking the bicycle lane. I placed two traffic cones down the street. Still, I had unpleasant run-ins with bike riders for the rest of the week while the disposal bin was there.

[qiufavourite4]

Is it really a bike-friendly city? There should be any garbage bins on the bicycle road. I think you should be more attentive the next time. We also have a big problem in our city. There is a lot of garbage on the street, even though garbage bins are everywhere. We have a local group of enthusiasts whose mission is to clean the city's streets. Every month we choose a region in our city and use the services of dumpster rentals in Lafayette, LA, to stock the garbage we store from that region. It is a good method for cleaning the streets.

[Retrorockit]

I personally avoid bike lanes like the plague. But everything where I live is not typical of other places. There are miles of empty sidewalks available. On small side streets I take a lane. But with a 1500W BBSHD and 24Ah battery that may not be practical for everyone else. Then there will be those who forget to take the cans in. Maybe start a Garbage Friendly City campaign. Put the mayors name on it. You may try the state or federal motor safety departments. There may be requirements there for reflectors on roadside hazards. Every vehicle is required to have passive reflectors. May be garbage cans could be declared trailers. or vehicles for that purpose.
I will give an example. There was sewer cover that was overflowing in the middle of a sidewalk cafe. The city crews were working overtime for several days trying to control it. The manager made a phone call. Nothing changed. I sent an Email (forever) and mentioned that the sewage was flowing into a storm drain and going into a navigable waterway (Federal EPA violation). It was like they shut off a valve.
There are black reflectors available that will only show up when a light hits them. Look for a higher authority, and have a constructive suggestion ready. Good luck.
Send letters or emails, so you can document who and when they were notified. Send them to specific people in responsible positions. Traffic engineering would be a good place to start. That bike lane may have involved federal or state funding to add it.