Cycling UK Forum

I have posted this elsewhere but though I would also share here.

Car pulled out of side road and he forced me into curb. His wind mirror hit my arm but no injuries.

He drove off but managed to catch up with him when he got stuck in traffic.

It would of been nice to get an apology but all I got was "I did not see you", even though I had a red jacket on and was also using a exposure joystick on flash on my helmet. I also had my exposure Diablo on constant on my bars.

http://youtu.be/bVqbw55STag

Ah, the classic 'turning out of a road to your right instead of waiting' idiot.

I go through spells of those, they don't usually hit me, instead they tootle along on the wrong side of the road for a bit apparently surprised at how much space they need to be going fast enough to get past.

Given he's a doddery old bloke I suspect he saw the silver car and did all his evaluation on that whilst you were hidden by it.

stopsmidsy, police report
then live

the passenger clearly saw you...

Sun in driver's eyes?

Ellieb wrote:Sun in driver's eyes?

Well if that's the case, he managed to see the car that overtook me. He did not pull out on the car.

So the sun does not affect him with the car but it affects his vision with the cyclist.

I watched the youtube and at the end it did the usual thing of presenting me with a further selection of stuff that I might be interested in.

This was prominent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JepRJC1D ... creen&NR=1

To save anybody looking, it stars a chap with a pet shop and a short fuse.

thirdcrank wrote:I watched the youtube and at the end it did the usual thing of presenting me with a further selection of stuff that I might be interested in.

This was prominent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JepRJC1D ... creen&NR=1

To save anybody looking, it stars a chap with a pet shop and a short fuse.

The subject of the "Road rage attack on cyclist" thread.

sore thumb wrote:I have posted this elsewhere but though I would also share here.

Car pulled out of side road and he forced me into curb. His wind mirror hit my arm but no injuries.

He drove off but managed to catch up with him when he got stuck in traffic.

It would of been nice to get an apology but all I got was "I did not see you", even though I had a red jacket on and was also using a exposure joystick on flash on my helmet. I also had my exposure Diablo on constant on my bars.

http://youtu.be/bVqbw55STag

And that couldn't possibly be dangerous driving .
He saw you alright.
He also saw the tipper truck coming the other way with a line of cars behind it,and didn't want to wait the 10 seconds it would take for the road to clear.

<inappropriate phrase removed> You had a lucky escape i'd say

No excuse for this. Very bad driving from the Citroen. The cyclist has my sympathy and honest wishes that he does not encounter any more idiot drivers.

However I am surprised to see later on in the clip, the cyclist riding on the wrong side of the road, against traffic, to pass a que of cars while catching up with the Citroen. He seems to leave very little space between the cars he is passing and the Cars driving the other way. I feel that if a car were to overtake him leaving such little space there would be complaints about bad overtaking by the driver.

I can imagine that we're I driving passed the que on the other side of the road, that I could be quite surprised to see this cyclist in my lane riding at me.

Having watched the OP's video I think I would have opted for the exit via the drop kerb and took to the pavement on his nearside...You were indeed lucky.

I've watched the footage a few times and every time I'm amazed there wasn't a much more serious collision. The space at the nearside of the car during and immediately after that right turn manoeuvre appears so narrow that there seems to be no way for the bike to remain upright. A very narrow escape,and not thanks to any skill on the part of the driver.

This doesn't excuse the driving at all, but I'm surprised that people think that the driver saw the cyclist. If he did see the cyclist, he must have been relaxed with the idea of killing somebody, because he did nothing to prevent that happening.

It looks to me like a place where drivers waiting to emerge feel they have to take the slightest opportunity to do so. The video at that stage isn't clear enough to see the occupants of the car just before it emerged but I suspect the passenger was looking to the left for a gap in the traffic and the driver was looking to the right. I think the driver has decided he had just enough time to beat the lorry approaching from his right and a misguided "clear" from the passenger (or possibly poor observation on his own part) has had him moving straight out into a non-existent gap in the traffic. If he had been driving out in spite of the approach of the cyclist, surely he would have left more room, and then when he realised that the lorry was coming he'd have pulled across to his nearside. The right turn was just one continuous curve.

The next bit is dramatised, presumably unintentionally, by speeding up the action to reduce time taken by the bit in between, but it does tend to heighten the drama.

thirdcrank wrote:
The next bit is dramatised, presumably unintentionally, by speeding up the action to reduce time taken by the bit in between, but it does tend to heighten the drama.

It does however explain the greatest irony of the whole affair: despite his anxiety to get moving, the driver was unable to stay ahead of the bicycle anyway. What a wasted risk.

Just as an addition to this, I am becoming more and more obsessed with the well-proven theory that the human eye does not see an entire panorama but intelligently fills in the gaps. If this is the case, the driver or his passenger may well have "seen" a continuation of the field and fence in the place of a cyclist. I don't think this need to look is properly explained to new drivers and was certainly new to me when raised on the forum (sorry, cannot find the link).

The cyclist's shadow is pointing pretty much at the car and it is a long shadow.
I used to have a saying "that the shadow points to danger" when I was a motorcycle courier because this sort of thing kept happening. I am not saying the driver couldnt see the cyclist but I reckon the sun had something to do with him failing to do so.