A Worrying & Serious Near Incident!

[Canrider]

Have you got a point to make here?

Maybe you should read back? I'd highly recommend making more voluble responses to posts rather than thinking that Lindfordesque-one-liners will secure you 'points'.

 

[Bengarbage]

get some driving tips from adrian (he's not near me thank god).

 

[Bengarbage]

fair enough, I never mean offence, however i'm good at sarcasm

 

[Canrider]

I have invited the discussion of the underpinning principle that you don't drive faster than the speed that enables you to stop in the bit of road you can see. Your individual junction does not add or detract from that so it has no relevance to add. Sorry.

I have proposed a junction where the maximum safe speed is approximately 0 MPH, therefore it is, by your definition, undriveable. Here's another: http://goo.gl/maps/Gyqm0

 

[G2EWS]

Can I just clear up a point? @G2EWS has confused two principles, which is the fastest safe speed to take any given corner, but that is based on that corner having full sight lines, therefore the "racing line" (out,apex,out) simply extends the geometry of the curve and means a car can travel round that curve "safely", ie without losing grip.

However, the police driving manual also talks of sight lines, and the "arrowhead" effect, which is the point at which the sides of the road appear to converge. Too fast, and that point rushes towards you, bang on the right speed and the arrowhead stays at a constant distance until the road straightens again. That arrowhead principle also teaches a driver to shift position in the road to extend that arrowhead, for example by moving to the offside edge of the carriageway to extend the sight lines on a left hander, and as far over to the nearside as possible on a right hander.

Absolutely none of this theory over rides the most fundamental principle of safe cornering, which is that YOU MUST AT ALL TIMES BE TRAVELLING AT SUCH AS SPEED THAT YOU CAN STOP SAFELY WITHIN THE DISTANCE YOU CAN SEE AHEAD. Oh, and the other point made above, which is that the vehicle should be able to stay on the correct side of the road.

So sorry G2EWS, but if you had to make an emergency stop to avoid the cyclist, you were simply travelling too fast. Please don't fall out with me, I'm not doing this as a personal attack, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Unless you have done all of the Advanced driving course, leave fast cornering to the experts, or the race track.

Been there and done that! Not falling out but it seems strange to have people who don't know me, ignore some of what I have said but pick out the bits they want to discuss.

As some have said brave or maybe naive of me to put this on a cycling forum and expect a sensible debate.

To those who have raised valid points many thanks I have enjoyed your rhetoric.

Best regards

Chris

 

[Cyclist33]

The way I read it, the cyclists were simply cycling, and couldn't be expected to go faster, slower, or be anywhere else, so the responsibility therefore lies with the car driver, I'd say. Everyone on the road, walking, cycling, or in whatever vehicle, should expect the unexpected, and take appropriate precautions.

I think your two statements contradict each other somewhat - If every road user should take appropriate precautions, then the "simply cycling" cyclists perhaps should have also slowed to a halt, dismounted, taken their bikes to the roadside and walked the section of the bend that would potentially have been fatal for them if they'd continued riding.

But I suppose, as a non-driver, the only angle I can relate it with, is, supposing you were a mountain biker on a trail, and you came to a corner in your singletrack, nothing bikey seemed to be coming the other way, it was a run you knew well so you knew what speed you could maintain... you head round the bend and find that a hedgehog is paralleling you . Then there are also cyclists in view coming the other way. Would you splot the hedgehog, or brake to within an inch of stacking your bike and yourself in order to avoid splotting the hedgehog? Or would you have previously imagined this scenario for every impending corner and therefore cut your speed accordingly?

Stu

 

[Cyclist33]

It's a tricky one G2EWS, though i am glad everything worked out okay on this occasion.
Is it realistic to expect ALL drivers to slow down to 20-30mph on blind bends? You could argue yes. Certainly would prefer it as a cyclist, but as a realist i would suggest it's not likely. As a cyclist i suggest, like it or not, cycling on the road brings with it risks. Being struck by a car from behind is very much one of them. All you can do is ride best you can to keep yourself safe and hope the other road users are going to be safe also.
How many people have seen a few slow moving cars in front of a long que of traffic. Clearly holding everyone else up but in their minds they are travelling at a safe pace. ??
Right or wrong this encourages risky overtaking and needless crashes. I see this all too often and is one of the main reasons people die on busy 60mph roads such as the A9.
So again G2EWS. It's a tricky one with no easy answer. You could forget what everyone else does and treat every corner as if there may be a cyclist just around that blind corner. Cos you never know.

This is a fantastic answer.

 

[Cubist]

My point was perfectly serious. What parts of it did you want to debate? You told us that you had to make an emergency stop to avoid a cyclist who was the other side of a blind bend, and told us that you didn't think you were going too fast because a police officer told you how to corner in a car. That officer was either wrong, or didn't tell you all of the principles of safe cornering, or you mistook what the officer said.

Imagine (God forbid) that you had hit the cyclist. You are standing in the dock of a court, trying hard to explain that it wasn't your fault because a police officer told you how fast you could go round corners?

You compound this by telling us that you think none of us would ever go round that corner safely or slowly, and don't expect a reaction?

 

[Bengarbage]

lets not forget peds are fully entitled to use the carriageway (morally right or wrong)

 

[Bengarbage]

Don't drive it then. Get a mirror put up so you can see.Take a chance but don't cone whining to me when it goes wrong. You choose.

stay in lane then no issue , we all know the motorist must get ahead though. There's no answer i'm afraid. education does not work...

 

[RWright]

I do some riding on narrow country roads and even with little traffic I get a little nervous. A lot of the time they also have a soft shoulder. When I am riding I try to get out of the curves as fast as I can and after I go over a hill I try to get away from the peak quickly as well. An uphill blind curve on a narrow road like you described is probably the worst place for a cyclist to be because it can be hard to get out of the curve quickly.

I think cyclist need to get over as far from center as possible in those situations, at least that is what I do. I know others may disagree with my approach but I try to take up as little road as possible.

As far as what drivers can do I guess it is to try to recognize problem areas like sharp uphill curves, just after peaks on hills, and slow down more approaching them. Contact politicians to get the roads widened. I think a lot of roads are too narrow for the posted speed limits to start with.

 

[Oldspice]

@Cubist

 

[G2EWS]

.............. I think a lot of roads are too narrow for the posted speed limits to start with.

Very good point.

Chris

 

[subaqua]

Hi Jamie,

Having been taught by the man who wrote the Police chase manual to drive round a bend, I can confirm that I was well within the 'safe' speed for the bend.

But I think you are right, any vehicle that has stopped becomes a danger. If you broke down on a bend, the first and safe thing you would surely do, is let oncoming motorists know by alerting them before the bend.

A conundrum for sure!

Regards

Chris

this is not a personal attack but what i beleive and what I TRY to do all the time, and it annoys the hell out of some people when they are behind me.
I was taught to pass a test by an instructor, who taught me to travel at a speed that means I can stop safely in the distance I can see.
then when all of my friends had passed their tests, the fatjher of one of my friends who was a commended police driver and instructor at Cheshire police taught us to drive. one of the first things he asked us was How fast can you drive round a corner? , i gave my answer as I had been taught whilst learning to pass the test and he congratulated me on having a bit of sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadcraft item 3 Speed .

from the info given in your post it shows you were not meeting the requirements. this is one reason HMG wants to bring in lower limits on a lot of rural roads. Not that there are the resources to police this effectively , which isn't a dig at the police more HMG .

 

[G2EWS]

I was taught to pass a test by an instructor, who taught me to travel at a speed that means I can stop safely in the distance I can see.
then when all of my friends had passed their tests, the fatjher of one of my friends who was a commended police driver and instructor at Cheshire police taught us to drive. one of the first things he asked us was How fast can you drive round a corner? , i gave my answer as I had been taught whilst learning to pass the test and he congratulated me on having a bit of sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadcraft item 3 Speed .

from the info given in your post it shows you were not meeting the requirements. this is one reason HMG wants to bring in lower limits on a lot of rural roads.

Hi Subaqua,

Sorry you are just totally wrong. Go back and drive that route on Google maps then tell me that you would go at 20 mph round it!

The point I am trying to make, is, I was driving as I normally do and that was safely. Having been on that road many times I and no one else I have ever seen has travelled that bend at anything less than 40 + mph. But I can now see that even using all the common sense and guidelines as taught to me and used by me in my many miles of travelling, was just too fast.

Remember NO ONE I have ever seen travels around that bend at 20 mph. That should tell you something and do what I have asked of this thread to open a debate not about me, or anyone else who travelled around it at a sensible speed, but what do we need to implement to make sure a tragedy cannot happen.

I feel that I must go back to this bend today and drive round it at 20 mph just to see again why this bend is such a problem and believe me, there is something not quite right here. I have never been let down by the guidelines or sensible practices of safe driving before.

As it happens I have asked local cyclists on a group I am part of if they know the bend and what speed they would drive round it. If they say 20 mph then I hold my hat up and say I need to go back to the drawing board. But somehow I feel that won't be the answer I get!

Regards

Chris