mjr wrote:PDQ Mobile wrote:The obvious example is the car driver momentarily visually compromised on a narrow road by an oncoming vehicle.
30 or 40 mph is not unreasonable in such a circumstance [...]
I disagree vehemently and wish for any driver believing that to lose their licence ASAP (sorry PDQ). We absolutely must recalibrate our country to not accept people driving blind into spaces at lethal speeds. It may happen in error sometimes but it is not reasonable behaviour!
+1!
Amongst my friends and those who I give lifts to, I am known as a fast driver: If we need to get anywhere quickly, I will usually do the driving. I never drive across road surface which I have not seen to be clear. If my vision of the road ahead is "momentarily compromised", I slow enough so that I see a clear path (not "see no obstruction", I need to see a clear path - there is a substantial difference). If necessary I stop. A while back there was such a "momentary" compromising of my view by a bus passing the other way. The headlights prevented my seeing the road alongside the bus, so I stopped (from the speed limit). Once the bus passed me (two-way road, the main road from here into Carmarthen in fact), there was a woman (waving a "hi-viz" top) standing in the road who had been rendered completely invisible by the dazzle of the bus' headlights. Had I driven into her it would have been completely my fault for making the assumption that the road ahead was clear. Despite her "hi-viz", I would in all probability have been exonerated by our car-centric culture however, so all of you who think it's ok to be "momentarily visually compromised"; yeah, carry on .
More "hi-viz" stuff... Slightly more recently I rounded a corner to see a police car stopped with all lights flashing, beside another vehicle whose driver had crashed through the hedge. I stopped (in complete control, without skidding sideways or any other way) on my side of the road (because I had been driving at a speed which allowed me to stop in the distance I could see to be clear). Only after I had stopped did I see the policeman standing in full "hi-viz" and waving a torch, about 20 yards nearer to me than the car and about 5 yards from my bonnet (yes, I stopped in the distance I saw to be clear - i.e. before the policeman). He was nicely camouflaged against the lights and hi-viz of his car. Keep trusting those vests people, they don't really make you look like road furniture, not at all .
I cycle-commuted for over 25 years, distances ranged from as little as 12 to 50+ miles a day. The times that I have been closest to being hit (and the twice that I was hit), I was wearing hi-viz and had the bike plastered in reflectives. Idiot drivers who will drive into you are just as likely to drive into reflective road furniture, it's nothing to do with whether they have seen you or not, it's to do with drivers who assume (as some on here patently do) that the road is clear unless they notice (not "see"but "notice") something on it, in which case they might slow down (or might ignore it as "mot going to damage me").