pwa wrote:The utility cyclist wrote:pwa wrote:
Maybe where you live but around here the dangerous drivers are a minority, and i think they are despised by other drivers. But why does every thread about one very particular issue, in this case driving while unfit due to tiredness, turn into a long list of every possible type of driving infringement?
I assess not just my behaviour as a cyclist but that of motorists and compare to how I would drive with care and attention and to a safe standard, I never mentioned dangerous, you did!
I don't live in a particularly high density area, the traffic does build up at times but it's a small town and lots of countryside on my door step.
My assessment is from the basis of having done advanced driving, being a serial car commuter in London from the Northern home counties and commuted by bike since I was a 17 year old in busy traffic.
Lack of care and attention (at best) = driving above the speed limit, driving too fast for the conditions, impatience, driving too close from behind, overtaking within a metre of my handlebar in a 30 zone, cutting in too soon, left hooks, turning in front from minor to major, cutting across lanes, overtaking within 1.5m of my handlebar in a 40 zone (unless they slow down below 30), not going completely over to the opposite carriageway when overtaking in a 50/60/70 zone and/or not slowing down before passing. This is not an absolute list but some of those that are common in terms of care and attention, "danger" would add a lot lot more.
Do a conscious count of transgressors using my standard, I don't think my standard is overtly bias or incorrect from just a care and attention basis, just what should be the standard all the time. Many experienced cycle riders get accustomed to poor driving standards, you then have the situation upon seeing videos of lack of care and attention as a 'well that's not all that bad' or 'I've seen worse' and more besides because we've being brow beaten so much even poor driving is now thrown aside as just how things are.
As for the why does every thread turn into something else? I wouldn't say every in any case but threads evolve pretty much on any forum on any subject, in this case though it's relevant because someone asked the question regarding driving standards and how motorists see not having to adhere to a certain standard and making decisions to ensure others safety as something that does not apply to them.
That applied here, the driver didn't think their actions were unacceptable (driving tired), just like driving too close, like speeding, impatience etc
I wonder if you and I have a different level of sensitivity to what you consider careless or substandard driving. For example, if a car is passing me at 50mph I couldn't care less of it has all its wheels over the central white lines, or just two, so long as I feel I have been given plenty of space. On some roads around here that would indeed mean all the wheels over the other side, but on some it wouldn't. All I care about is that I have been given enough room. The white lines are of no interest to me.
Similarly, sometimes cars can pass safely without slowing down first. Sometimes, not always. On long straights that can be the case. So I don't always judge a pass to be substandard just because I didn't detect a slowing down.
Most of the cars passing me don't raise any sense of alarm of even mild concern. Most of my encounters with other road users are fine. If that were not the case I wouldn't cycle on the roads anymore, and if you find most encounters with traffic unpleasant or stressful I wonder why you still do it. That would spoil it for me.
The case we are discussing here is one where the driver did something that I consider truly terrifying, and I do support the court taking it very seriously. But I continue to cycle on roads because seriously worrying encounters with traffic are, for me, quite rare.
I've being around, I'm no novice, I ride on dual carriageways, high speed bypass roads and everything else many would not dare to venture, I've ridden in high density traffic since the mid 80s when I cut my teeth going from the outskirts of a mid sized city along major arterial routes including through a major industrial area with HGVs aplenty (a higher % of the vehicles than even now in most areas) and still rode a lot even when I had a decade of car commuting into the big smoke.
It's not sensitivity in the sense you are talking about, it's awareness of people doing stuff wrong that can and does have negative consequences.
If the action/s would make a child or an 80 year old granny riding a bike feel fear of harm then it's lack of care and attention, if it's breaking the law it's at least lack of care and attention (so that's all that I mentioned above) and more likely dangerous, if the action would fail you on a driving test (though the basic test/training is proven to be sub standard in any case) then that's undue care and attention.
Driving isn't a game, it's not something to be taken lightly as at least 90% do in their actions, there are 160,000 reported minor injuries annually in the UK(438 a day), that's reported ones, and only due to motorvehicle technology and safety features is this figure not nearer half a million.
How many close calls/near misses that frighten people, into the hundreds of millions, that's an assault right there, ergo not driving with care and attention/dangerous driving.
Speeding is again a care and attention incident, I'd be surprised if 90% of motorists didn't speed, probably closer to 99.99% but because the standard of driving is so low and police are unwilling to keep the peace in most cases then people will simply drive however they like and not give a stuff.
This is a reality that kills and maims 24,000 people a year, including over 100 deaths and 3000+ serious injuries of people on bikes, I think that in itself is telling despite as I said all the tech in place, massively improved steering, control and braking.
If we continue as we have for decades, over half a century in fact of continually lowering the bar of what is an acceptable driving standard, continually shrugging it off as a non event it will not improve. As I said it's only the tech that is stopping more deaths and injuries and yet cyclists deaths have remained the same (if not gone up because Beyond the kerb's data on cyclist deaths seems to indicate 120 deaths in 2017) and injuries have started going back up as well despite no increase in cycling and despite much higher helmet wearing rates.
Overall KSI have also gone back up again since 2013.
