What, if anything, did I do wrong?

[Radchenister]

Rat race madness .

Seriously though, think you handled it really well and I reckon you should be pleased with yourself.

I couldn't hear him fully but my impression was he was ready to be humble, apologised and showed empathy, whilst taking blame (some), which is good IMO - I think it means a lot when someone aims to be decent ... but I am a bit niggled, as he was also a bit cheeky in aiming to slide the blame a little onto your conscience with the high vis' issue. This might be accepted as a valid argument in many circumstances but actually I feel it's a little academic here; I think it was more of a quick thinking excuse, rather than a fact relating to it affecting his ability to register your presence - I don't think it would have made any difference in this instance.

It's looking squarely like it was his mistake.

Yes it can be suggested that you might have blocked him off by taking more road width when stopping but I don't think that would have felt safe either in the circumstances and can see why you didn't - this could of course lead to penalty passes and more aggro; IMO the emphasis shouldn't be on the cyclist having to manage other people's risk taking and the onus should be shifted more onto drivers having to make sure they act more responsibly in these scenarios, they are the ones with control of the lethal weapon after all.

Water under the bridge now and best forgotten though; you were a credit to cyclists and set a good example by standing your ground on the issues in a balanced way ... a bit of swearing is probably OK when someone hits you with a hard and heavy object of that size !

 

[benb]

Yeah, the high vis is a total red herring, as according to him he had seen me anyway!

 

[Boris Bajic]

Gosh! Now I've seen the video.

1. Very diplomatic by OP after initial (quite understandable) profanities on contact.
2. Yes, I'd agree that the 'Hi-Viz' stuff is just a garbled get-out of sorts.
3. The van driver was extremely apologetic (which is fitting, but quite rare). That reflects well on him.
4. It is brave to put video of self online and ask for criticism.
5. I stand by my initial comments, although the speed at which events took place in the vid make some of them irrelevant.
6. Jolly glad nobody was hurt and very impressed that everything was calmly dealt with.

 

[400bhp]

That could've been nasty.

I don't believe you did anything wrong to be honest. It looks to be one of those dangerous junctions that flange at the end. Meaning traffic will often merge onto the main road at speed (and is a perfect SMIDSY junction).

It's too wide to take the lane by the looks of it. You might even have traffic try to squeeze you on your left.

The main thing is you walked away from it unhurt.

 

[semislickstick]

Sounds like he's admitted to not looking anywhere but right, for a gap in traffic, so that's about 7 seconds?

Hi-viz wouldn't have worked if he wasn't paying attention.
You'd maybe have to sound an airzound at every junction or have a head torch to shine into the cab to get his attention.