an example of how vunerable we are on our roads

[downfader]

And there is nothing you can do about it. Scary isn't it!?

No. We can help campaign: joining the CTC and possibly Brake, write letters to MPs, newspapers, etc. We have to get more political about these issues whether we're in a car or on two wheels.

 

[Mr Pig]

No. We can help campaign

Campaigning is going to stop people dozing off at the wheel? Superb, sign me up! ;0)

What we're talking about here is people making the kind of mistakes that people always will. They are always going to doze off, reverse into driveway gates, open their doors against lamp posts, because people are just like that. Not perfect, not machines and naturally good at making mistakes. It's just a tad unfortunate that as cyclists the consequences of other people making mistakes tends to be worse for us!

Their car goes to the body shop, we go to the morgue! :0(

 

[Night Train]

I had a bus driver do that to me in London when I was driving my Dad's Land Rover. I was stopped in traffic at traffic lights on Tottenham Court Road for about 5 minutes. The bus was stopped at the lights behind me. When the lights changed the bus driver accelerated away as if the road was clear and drove straight in to the back of the Land Rover. She didn't seem to have seen me or the quarter mile of stationary traffic in front of me!

 

[HLaB]

When I was younger my car was rear ended too. I was sitting in a queue at the toll booths for the Forth Road Bridge, for a change they were only 4 or 5 long and a big 4x4 came into the back of me. If there's one place to expect a queue it was there, the dovy idiot what did he think he was going to do just smash through the barrier .

 

[LLB]

I had a bus driver do that to me in London when I was driving my Dad's Land Rover. I was stopped in traffic at traffic lights on Tottenham Court Road for about 5 minutes. The bus was stopped at the lights behind me. When the lights changed the bus driver accelerated away as if the road was clear and drove straight in to the back of the Land Rover. She didn't seem to have seen me or the quarter mile of stationary traffic in front of me!

But that would be your fault for not anticipating it and 'doing something else' to avoid it happening

 

[hackbike 666]

Berk.

Muppet.

 

[Mr Pig]

But that would be your fault for not anticipating it and 'doing something else' to avoid it happening

Whenever I come up to the back of a traffic queue, on a motorway for instance, I always stop well short of the back of it and put my hazards on, ready to pull forward or out to the side if the driver behind me is dozing and doesn't notice that the traffic has stopped.

About twenty years ago my sister was living in Germany. She and her fiancé were on the autobahn with friends in another car in front. As they came up to a traffic queue Dieter, her fiancé, suddenly pulled over to the side. Next thing there was a loud bang and the car that had been behind them shot past and smashed into the car in front! The car behind had stopped ok, but Dieter had seen that the car behind 'it' wasn't going to. Observant, I was quite impressed.

I've just realised that the only time I've been in a car that was rear-ended was coming back from Germany! My Grandfather had picked me up at the airport and we were just coming into Coatbridge. There's a stretch of 40mph dual carriageway, which everyone speeds on, that ends at a set of light. We'd been sitting there for a minute when *BANG!*. Nova GTE piles into the back of us. Cars were write off's but no one was hurt, although they did take my Grandfather to hospital with a sore neck. Police took one look at the guy's GTE and decided he was speeding! ;0)