Dear Sir/madam,
I am unfortunately writing to you with details of a complaint against one of your drivers, specifically with regards to the danger that they placed a cyclist in. However, it is possible that something positive could come from this incident for your company and for awareness of general road safety.
On the 28th October 2008, I boarded one of your buses at Govan Bus Station at approximately 16:20 (a number 59 to Glenburn). The journey started uneventfully, until we reached the stretch of Govan Road adjacent to Govan ship yards. At the time the available road was quite narrow because, for the whole length of this section of road, cars were parked on both sides. Therefore, with traffic constantly coming in the other direction, there was no space for overtaking.
As we travelled along the road we came upon a cyclist who was progressing at a reasonable speed, approximately 15-18mph. Due to the parked cars and oncoming traffic, the correct thing for the driver to do in this situation would have been to keep behind the cyclist at a safe distance, either until the end of the road (some 50 or so seconds later) or to wait until it was safe to overtake, i.e. no oncoming cars. However, instead of taking this course of action the driver proceeded to close the gap with the cyclist until it was no more than about 2 or 3 metres.
The cyclist was more than aware of the vehicle bearing down on him (he kept glancing back), and from his behaviour it was obvious that he was not happy having the bus quite so close. This is perfectly understandable as the stopping distance for such a bus would have been considerably further than the 2 or 3 metres now separating them. The driver kept this position for about 20-30 seconds and then hit his horn. A further 10 seconds passed and then the driver proceeded to overtake the cyclist despite the oncoming traffic. This was a particularly dangerous [FONT="]manoeuvre [/FONT] which forced the cyclist closer to the parked cars. As well as this the bus would have been well within touching distance of the cyclist during the manoeuvre placing him is considerable danger, had he wobbled at all. This manoeuvre completely contravened rule 163 of the Highway Code.
At this point I could not contain my disgust and asked the driver, 'Why did you hit your horn? What did the cyclist do wrong?' To which there was no reply.
A short while later, when the bus was approaching my stop I got up to get off and the following conversation took place (some of which I have recorded on my mobile phone):
Me: Why did you hit your horn at the cyclist?
Driver: How much room did he want?
Me: He has the right to as much room as he needs.., you were right up his ar*e
Driver: He was half way across the lane (He was not!)
Me: That was to try and prevent you overtaking dangerously
My recording unfortunately cuts out at this point. But the conversation went along the lines of,
Driver: and what is it to you?
Me: I'm a cyclist and so I understand what the problem was..
Driver: I'm a cyclist too. I don't cycle like that.
Me: Oh right....
Driver: right get aff ma bus... (It was my stop).
Me: That's fine, I will be reporting you
Driver: Aye, do that...
This drivers attitude was appalling. He felt the cyclist was in his way, so he was willing to bully him by sitting right on his back wheel which if the cyclist came off could be deadly, he used his horn illegally, and he overtook in a particularly dangerous manner. His attitude toward the cyclist was summed up by the replies he gave me.
I myself am a driver and a cyclist. In fact I am a cycle safety campaigner (a member of go-bike and the CTC) and have had some personal success in the past in encouraging First Bus to take part in a cycle safety campaign (
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1817738.0.0.php). In general, I have found that bus drivers are some of the best drivers on the roads, however, as with every group of road users, including cyclists, there are good and bad. Therefore, as this example of bad bus driving has highlighted some bus drivers react very poorly to the presence of cyclists, I wonder if your company would be willing to take part in a cycling campaign, which would involve some driver education. For example, you could follow the example shown here (
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/news.htm in the section titled
Cyclists and bus company work together to put road safety first).
Taking part in such a campaign would not only raise awareness of bus/cyclist conflict issues, it would also, hopefully, provide some positive media coverage for your company and get across the message to the general public that there should be mutual respect on the roads. Therefore, I have carbon copied this e-mail to the reporter that covered the original First Bus story. I know from talking to him since that he is keep to follow up the story, and I am sure he would be willing to run a positive story for your company if you chose to take part.
I look forward to hearing from you shortly with regards to my incident and to my suggestion of a road safety campaign. If you require a copy of the recording that I made, I can arrange to have that sent to you, either via e-mail or by other means.
Yours sincerely
