A statistic in waiting?

[redjedi]

Look at the first few seconds of the video and where are you? On the centre line, very close to a bus and on a blind bend – very sensible positioning, isn’t it?
On undertaking, you said:-

There is nothing wrong with that. He waits until he has a good view of the road ahead and waits for the oncoming cars to pass.

Fast forward to 1:24 and what do we see you doing? Undertaking!

There's nothing wrong with "filtering" when there's plenty of room to do so. I think the issue with the other cyclist is that he has to do the one footed pavement shuffle while leaning his bike over to get past the car, which is something I'm not a fan of and waiting a few seconds gets you the same results.

Fast forward to 1:32 when you overtook the cyclist, you never gave him much room, did you?

This I may agree with, but these video can be misleading and it's not always clear how much space is left.



But apart from squeezing past the car and the RLJ I didn't see much wrong with either of the cyclists or the WVM (in fact I would be quite pleased if all WVM passed mw like that), just another commute for me.

 

[HLaB]

Maybe the cycling is not perfect but its all to common and if you choose to drive in congested streets you should expect things like that and realise there's no point in overtaking; most drivers do.

 

[Tynan]

Looked ok and at least routine, yeah the scooting was tight but I'll do that if the traffic is properly stopped

the WVM was in the wrong, everytime he passed he had to brake almost immediately, no reason to pass in those circumstances

I'd take that down, I really wold, if that was me I'd be well pissed off with being pilloried for that, the only thing 'bad' was the red but at least 50% of cyclists do that on my route, more like 75% some days

 

[the reluctant cyclist]

I've got to admit that I do that one footed shuffle inside stationary traffic too - mind you I have to say I only do it when there is a massive queue of traffic and there is just the one car that sits in really near the kerb. In the situation in the video however I would have said it's not worth it as you are all goling to start moving in a moment anyway.

I do agree that this video shows a typical must overtake mentality though - I am a "slow" cyclist and get overtaken A LOT by cars that cut me up and then just join the queue 100 feet ahead anyway!!

I suppose we just have to put up with each other's cycling styles and just be grateful that it's one less car on the road and all that??!!

 

[magnatom]

I'm on holiday at the moment so not much time to access CC. But here are my quick thoughts.

Undertaking traffic is taking a risk. Fact. Of course riding a bike is a risk, as is getting out of bed. What we should all do is be able to go about our business whilst minimising risk. The chap in this video was unecessarily increasing his risk for little or no gain. Undertaking moving traffic when space is tight (islands etc) is daft and risky. I've seen plenty of cars/vans etc swerve left for no apparent reason.

Of course as someone pointed out earlier this type of cycling probably happens thousands of times a day. However, thousands of drivers use mobile phones whilst driving every day, thousands (probably more) of drivers speed every day. The vast majority get away with it. However, I challange anyone to suggest that speeding and mobile phone use don't increase risk (mostly for others). So I suggest that this chap will more often than not get away with it, but it is unecessary and increases his risk.

I for one, will continue to try and not cycle like that in the future.

EMD, I see you are attracting the same crowd as I often do. Jolly good!

 

[goo_mason]

I see that kind of cycling every day, and it's not the place I'd like to be on narrow streets like that. I'd prefer to stay in the flow and overtake on the right if possible / safe to do so when the traffic came to a standstill.

BTW - was that the thinnest cycle lane in the world along the side of those streets ? Perhaps it's just some artefact of the YouTube compression algorithms, but I could swear that looks like a very thin red strip that the undertaking cyclist is riding in !

 

[fossyant]

I'm on holiday at the moment so not much time to access CC.

BUSTED !!!!!!!

 

[4F]

Looked ok and at least routine, yeah the scooting was tight but I'll do that if the traffic is properly stopped

the WVM was in the wrong, everytime he passed he had to brake almost immediately, no reason to pass in those circumstances

I'd take that down, I really wold, if that was me I'd be well pissed off with being pilloried for that, the only thing 'bad' was the red but at least 50% of cyclists do that on my route, more like 75% some days

Yeah I would agree with that. Why on earth did the wvm keep trying to overtake when it was obvious from the heavy traffic that he was not going to get any further ahead.

 

[Eat MY Dust]

I am surprised that there are so many posts saying that they don't think there's anything wrong with the kerbside shuffle and even some saying they do so themselves. I don't see many cyclists on my commute (watford to Acton) and when I saw this guy cycing in the manner he was, I really thought he was being unsafe. I just assumed that most seasoned cyclists overtake rather than undertake. Obviously I'm wrong in my assumption!

I'd say 90% of my filtering is done on the outside and the 10% that is done on the inside is when the road is either splitting into 2 or there's plenty of room.

 

[CotterPin]

I'm with you EMD on the kerbside shuffle. As I said earlier it looks inelegant and I would suggest there is even something downright rude about it - like barging past someone when walking down the street.

I also think it sends out a mixed message. I don't like a motor vehicle passing me too closely so I don't squeeze past them like this which could give them the idea I don't need much space.

If a cyclist needs to pass slow moving traffic, I would suggest they do it on the outside if there is space. If there isn't space wait. If they really must keep moving they can get off and push their bike.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

I also think it sends out a mixed message. I don't like a motor vehicle passing me too closely so I don't squeeze past them like this which could give them the idea I don't need much space.

+1
Nail. Head. Hit.

 

[mickle]

What this really shows is how inattentive drivers are, I'd overtake all day long but in stop start traffic like that they pull right up to the car in front preventing us from moving from the kerb side to the middle of the road. Sometimes the only option is to shuffle up the inside if you want to make progress. Let's not forget that this is congestion caused by too many cars, why the hell should we wait in their queue? They're stuck in a frustrating log jam of their own creation but don't have the good grace to adapt their driving to enable us to go about our business with the minimum of interference.

The WVM shoulld have held back, his overtaking was aggressive and unnecessary because he didn't have the speed or the space to clear the cyclist before the island. A move the cyclist encouraged by failing bto adopt primary btw.

I'm glad I don't have a camera, some of you would be horrified by my interactions with drivers.

 

[MacB]

I'm with Mickle on this one, I approach a queue of cars and you can guarantee someone will go past to join the queue and stop me getting to the outside. Also filtering on the outside has its' own risks, I have experienced cars being very reluctant to let me back in. I don't have a traffic heavy commute, the odd point that comes up is generally safer to filter, if at all, on the inside. My other option is to wait in the queue, it's all down to judgement, queue length and light changes. I will filter down the outside but I treat this as very risky.

I know that there is the option to take primary on approaches to queues ensuring that you have the outside filter option. But I can see how this can frustrate car drivers and create animosity. So far I seem to have had far fewer 'incidents' than some. I don't care if it's my right, or what best cycling practices are. I feel that overly dominant cycling, especially for slower riders like me, can create more serious issues.

Back on the OP, no to RLJ'ing but the rest looks fine and I really don't understand the van keeping overtaking, though he does leave a good distance.

 

[Eat MY Dust]

I thought I'd stick this up as well:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nNKfwMo110


Not very exciting but a demonstration of how I do the majority of my filtering. As you can see I'm in the opposite postition of some (MacBludgeon) where I spend a lot of time in heavily congested roads. I've only ever had a couple of occassions where a car won't let me back in, but I'm happy to sit in the middle until someone does let me in. I've never been "stranded".

I guess this proves that people's perception of safety varies a fair bit.

 

[MacB]

yep, and EMD, if I'm being fair I can accept that my riding style might change if I was faced with your sort of traffic flow.