I was free wheeling along the rhs side of stopped traffic heading SW down Fenchurch Street this morning at about 9.45
The whole road is fairly dangerous, narrow, roadworks, lots of black cabs and coaches and vans and suicidal peds
Anyhow, I see, through a chink between two big vans, a car starting to pull out from a left turning, and clearly he can have no chance at all of seeing me or anyone else coming down the outside, I slow down a lot and then emergency stop as I get there and he's just starting to pull out while not looking right at all, I end up stopped perhaps a foot past the First van, perhaps a foot past the center line, just short of the center of the line he'll take turning right, right in front of him essentially
And out he comes, slowly but accelerating and I think Christ almighty, he can't see me, hike my left foot off the pedal and leap off the bike as he gets to me, fully expecting him to drive right over the bike
at the last moment he sees me and stops, clouting the bike front wheel
cue me shouting a lot, rather rattled, generally along the lines of 'I was right in front of you, how could you not see me?'
he only had two lines, nice old buffer as it turns out
'sorry' and 'the van driver let me out' he repeated that last one a lot
I'm almost certain that at one point he said ' you shouldn't have stopped in front of me'
anyhow, no harm done, the wheel was ok but that bloke will hurt someone if he thinks he can pull out right there without being able to see right, all the bikes and motorbikes run down the RHS, it's patently obvious
The whole road is fairly dangerous, narrow, roadworks, lots of black cabs and coaches and vans and suicidal peds
Anyhow, I see, through a chink between two big vans, a car starting to pull out from a left turning, and clearly he can have no chance at all of seeing me or anyone else coming down the outside, I slow down a lot and then emergency stop as I get there and he's just starting to pull out while not looking right at all, I end up stopped perhaps a foot past the First van, perhaps a foot past the center line, just short of the center of the line he'll take turning right, right in front of him essentially
And out he comes, slowly but accelerating and I think Christ almighty, he can't see me, hike my left foot off the pedal and leap off the bike as he gets to me, fully expecting him to drive right over the bike
at the last moment he sees me and stops, clouting the bike front wheel
cue me shouting a lot, rather rattled, generally along the lines of 'I was right in front of you, how could you not see me?'
he only had two lines, nice old buffer as it turns out
'sorry' and 'the van driver let me out' he repeated that last one a lot
I'm almost certain that at one point he said ' you shouldn't have stopped in front of me'
anyhow, no harm done, the wheel was ok but that bloke will hurt someone if he thinks he can pull out right there without being able to see right, all the bikes and motorbikes run down the RHS, it's patently obvious