PDQ Mobile wrote:The pass itself does not appear to be that close, the driver appears to prepare to give plenty of room, appears to hesitate, and then goes halfway into to other carriageway and this results in the "cut in" as he runs out of room.
I agree. That sort of misjudged overtake and premature cut in is so common that, probably like a lot of cyclists, I am almost inured to it.
PDQ Mobile wrote:I would argue that had the OP not been so far out, he is in the middle of his carriageway at times, the outcome would have been more acceptable.
There is no good evidence for such a presumption, only evidence for the opposite. What happens in these scenarios is predominantly dependent on the driver. The only thing we can say for certain about the driver is that they show poor judgement when faced with a very simple situation on the road. Whilst such driving may not be uncommon, I think such a manoeuvre would have resulted in an instant failure by an examiner if it happened during a driving test.
The OP was far enough out into the road that the driver was presented with a situation where they had to make a conscious decision to overtake, and to assess the space available for doing so as well as the presence and speed of vehicles in the oncoming lane into whose path they would have to move during the overtake. This was a very basic, easy situation for a driver to see, assess, and act accordingly, despite which they did the wrong thing. Such a poor driver is probably much more likely to be one who makes a close pass when presented with a cyclist who is closer to the the gutter. If anything based on the actual evidence we do have, the OP's position did produce a better outcome, given that an actual close pass would have been worse and more dangerous to him.
PDQ Mobile wrote:While I fully understand Pete's opinion that taking primary here improves the driver of the waiting car's view, I think in view (no pun etc!) of the bollard and badly positioned lamppost this is open to question.
There are genuine blind spots for the driver wherever the oncoming cyclist is positioned.
I refer to my earlier opinion that there is no better guarantee of safety in such a place than decent eye contact with the driver.
It is no 'guarantee' whatever, as countless SMIDSY incidents indicate. More importantly it's not just a matter of the waiting car driver's view, it's a matter of the margin of safety when riding across the path of a car waiting to pull out. A cyclist has no control over the driver, whether with eye contact or telepathy. The only thing they can control is their own road position/speed and the margin of safety it provides against sudden unpredictable action by the driver. If the OP had been half a metre out and the driver started to pull out or their foot slipped off the clutch, the OP would either go over the bonnet or have to swerve very sharply and dangerously to the right (potentially into the path of an/the overtaking car).
I think it's reckoned to be better to watch the front wheels of cars waiting to pull out, rather than trying to make eye contact, because the wheel movement will give the earliest warning of the car moving.
To come back to the following point:
PDQ Mobile wrote:I would argue that had the OP not been so far out, he is in the middle of his carriageway at times, the outcome would have been more acceptable.
The only time he is in the middle of the carriageway is for a couple of seconds
after the overtake, when he is doutbless shaken up, and he then pulls back in.
In short, we are discussing how to minimise risk. Where the risk stems from a manifestly poor driver who makes bad decisions, arguing that presenting the driver with a different scenario - where they can just as easily make an equally bad or worse decision - is likely to significantly reduce the risk is indeed victim blaming and not constructive. Ultimately this is about the degree to which the OP and all of us are able to control and influence what happens on the road around us, which for the most part is relatively little.
Hence my comments about the OP's two other videos - probably the greatest control the OP had over the Warburtons lorry was
where it would overtake him, and slowing down would have resulted in the overtake well before the danger zone of the hill. Similarly with the staggered junction, keeping left in that situation would have controlled how close the van passed, because the van travelled in a straight line from its position in the middle of the road towards the junction.
