Nearly got collected this morning

[shouldbworking]

Staggered crossroads. I'm going straight on, so right, left.

Car pulls out from the other side indicating right.. are they going to turn left? can I get out? left indicator comes on, they look straight at me.. cool. safe

Off I go, halfway across the road when the dozy old bat changes their mind and decides to go straight on. Must've been fairly close to my back wheel as they went by.

Some passenger in a van that was behind me pulled alongside and tried to say something after, but I couldn't hear it in the slipstream...

Left with the frustrating conclusion there was nowt I would have done differently. The driver indicated, made eye contact, wheels starting to point in that direction, and then they aborted and ignored the immediate obstacle of me in front of them.

Guess its just one of those things?

[walm]

Passenger in van probably saying something like, "you ing cyclists should get off the fking road, you don't even pay any tax".

Glad you are alive.
Just one of those things I think.

[metalsteve]

I had a tesco home delivery van pull out a side road in front of me the other night, 8.30 ish so still light plus i had a 500 lumen light on at the time. He cant have not seen me.

[RRS_Staffs]

metalsteve said:

i had a 500 lumen light on at the time. He cant have not seen me.

He probably did but may not have twigged how close you were

I almost got knocked off by a car exiting a side road on the way home from an MTB night ride a while ago
Same thing occurred to me - how did they miss me??

Well over the years I do spot the odd cyclist using an MTB light on the road and it really can be pretty bloody tricky to gauge distance

From my own experience I pulled out to overtake a while ago thinking the on coming lights were a car miles away to realise that in fact it was a few members of the local club who werent in any immediate danger but were a lot closer than Id judged

Be careful out there
And especially with MTB lights on the road

I no longer use mine on full beam doing road stretches
Always on low and always angled down - and usually with my helmet light set to flash

Cheers

[scubadude]

metalsteve said:

He cant have not seen me.

I bet he did, and though- "Its only a F-ing bike, they go slow, I've got plenty of time"

I've had that twice recently, been knocking on at 25-30mph and had drivers look at me 2 or 3 times before pulling out right in my path, one did an e-stop as I skimmed the bumper, the other gave me some verbal about "riding too fast" and drove off like a typical Max-Power reader

Fact is that non-cycling drivers assume bicycles move at no more than 10mph and can stop in an instant, on urban streets with a 30limit bikes are commonly travelling quicker.

[dubbs]

I had a complete £$%&£$%& in a merc almost take me out through driving too close a week and a half ago. As they stopped at the lights I knocked on the window and asked his passenger to wind the window down - I simply said "Excuse me mate but you went really close to me back there, can you give a bit more room in future as it can be really dangerous". A$%hole in the passenger seat replies "You should rife on the f*&^king pavement then shouldn't you"...

... at least 6 things crossed my mind in that instant but the fact I was alone and the fact they both looked reasonable handy meant I didn't say anything else.

Still annoys me I didn't have it out with him even now... irritating p&*^k...

Still there we go.. "one of those things" :shrugs:

[IroningMan]

Take number, report for Due Care or, better yet, S59.

It's the only language they understand.

[neil_bolton]

Commuting through Bristol it's a daily occurance.

If you're not awake, then you're dead. Simple as that. Because 9 times out of 10, they certainly aren't.

And as for buses. s.