Dangerous trucker vid

[jimboalee]

Now can we agree on something?

"Motorists occasionally drive into the rear of another vehicle".


I am aware of this and all I've been 'Waffling on' about is reminding everyone of this fact and describing how I deal with it.
The last time I was rear-ended in my car, the idiot was reading a map.

It is the antagonistic element who turn my words. They simply can't cope with me having a different cycling style. They object to my 'cautious' ( and what appears to be polite ) attitude riding amongst HGVs and buses.

 

[brokenbetty]

Now can we agree on something?

"Motorists occasionally drive into the rear of another vehicle".

I'll agree with that. Can we also agree on

"Rear ending by a vehicle is a relatively rare cause of cycling injury"?

 

[Rhythm Thief]

And we could also agree on the fact that if someone is reading a map while driving, they're as likely to run into you if you're at the edge of the road, in the middle of the lane (in the roll path) or on the verge. Honestly Jimbo, if part of your philosophy is "never approach a junction", as you said earlier, I'm surprised you ever leave the house.

 

[jimboalee]

I'll agree with that. Can we also agree on

"Rear ending by a vehicle is a relatively rare cause of cycling injury"?

D'ya know Brokenbetty, small children being taken away from shopping centres and kicked to death is relatively rare, but when I went shopping with my kids in the year my youngest was three, do you think I let them out of my sight?
I don't let him out of my sight now and he's fourteen

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Oh, and the irony is that I don't have a problem with pulling over, slowing down and waving lorries past, if it's tricky for them to pass me safely. But neither do I have a problem with slowing my lorry down and waiting behind a cyclist until it's safe for me to pass, which is how it should be. After all, the onus is on me to overtake safely, not on the cyclist to get the hell out of my way before I flatten him.

 

[DrSquirrel]

Oh, and the irony is that I don't have a problem with pulling over, slowing down and waving lorries past, if it's tricky for them to pass me safely. But neither do I have a problem with slowing my lorry down and waiting behind a cyclist until it's safe for me to pass, which is how it should be. After all, the onus is on me to overtake safely, not on the cyclist to get the hell out of my way before I flatten him.

I am more likely to "wave" someone past that has already shown they need to wait for a safe opportunity to pass.

Usually I won't dive out of the way of a lorry/car that doesn't look like it's going to bother to slow. But if I have something behind me I will look for the best for both of us, even if that involves a little sprint to get around a corner or slowing at a passing point on a rural single lane.

 

[jimboalee]

And we could also agree on the fact that if someone is reading a map while driving, they're as likely to run into you if you're at the edge of the road, in the middle of the lane or on the verge. Honestly Jimbo, if part of your philosophy is "never approach a junction", as you said earlier, I'm surprised you ever leave the house.

You neglected to include "roll-path" in the statement. This is an example of 'turned words', or is it 'selective editing'?

 

[brokenbetty]

D'ya know Brokenbetty, small children being taken away from shopping centres and kicked to death is relatively rare, but when I went shopping with my kids in the year my youngest was three, do you think I let them out of my sight?
I don't let him out of my sight now and he's fourteen

I assume the reason you didn't let them out of your sight wasn't in fact due to any one risk but the total of the many risks that a 3 year old faces in a crowded shop. The risk of abduction is vanishingly small but the risk of a little person getting sideswiped by an unruly trolley isn't.

Ironically, the risk of a child being killed in a car accident is far far higher then the risk of being abducted and killed by a stranger but I bet you still let him go in cars.

Have you read Risk? It's a fascinating overview of how humans evaluate risk and the types of error they make.
http://www.amazon.co...88615909&sr=8-5 I think it should be required reading for anyone who - well, for everyone really.

 

[jimboalee]

[QUOTE 1232220"]
Agree.



Disagree.

You described what you would have done.

You pulled out a load of Landrover stats, then misinterpreted them.

You chuntered on about the "cyclecraft police", asked for proof that you haven't ridden 100,000 miles, argued against things that haven't been said, and claimed that you're victim of an inquisition.

You can work out what the waffly bits were.

You need to bear in mind as well that people are responding to your character on here, including other threads, and the reputation that you've built.
[/quote]

Congratulations Mr Paul, you've successfully filtered ( pun intended ) out the woffle. But in your desperation to find incriminating evidence against me, you've overlooked the whole point of the discussion.


And about my character. I see myself as someone who dares to be different.

Which says that if a newbie or oldie wish to be 'liked' on CycleChat, the newbie or oldie must agree with the popular view, and shut up when told to do so.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

Have you read Risk? It's a fascinating overview of how humans evaluate risk and the types of error they make.
http://www.amazon.co...88615909&sr=8-5 I think it should be required reading for anyone who - well, for everyone really.

That looks good... can someone explain why the digital version is only slightly cheaper than the "proper" version though???? WTF???

 

[CopperBrompton]

Trying to drag the thread back to constructive discussion, I don't personally think this is an either/or.

I am an assertive cyclist who takes primary when that increases my safety. I am also a courteous cyclist, who will assist passing traffic when it would otherwise be held up for a significant amount of time. And I'm a cyclist who values my own safety who prefers idiots ahead of me than behind me.

Personally, faced with that moron behind me, I'd have taken the first left at the roundabout, let him past and then continued on without having to worry about what he might do next.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

And about my character. I see myself as someone who dares to be different.

...and yet is afraid of everything on the road and anxious to move out of its way, by the sound of it. How odd.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

You neglected to include "roll-path" in the statement. This is an example of 'turned words', or is it 'selective editing'?

Edited. Happy now?

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Trying to drag the thread back to constructive discussion, I don't personally think this is an either/or.

I am an assertive cyclist who takes primary when that increases my safety. I am also a courteous cyclist, who will assist passing traffic when it would otherwise be held up for a significant amount of time. And I'm a cyclist who values my own safety who prefers idiots ahead of me than behind me.

Personally, faced with that moron behind me, I'd have taken the first left at the roundabout, let him past and then continued on without having to worry about what he might do next.

To be honest, that might well be what I'd have done too. But the point is, the fact that the cyclist in the OP (how long ago that seems) didn't do that doesn't excuse the driver of a 44 tonne tanker with hazardous freight on board - or any driver, come to that - shouldering his way through. As I've said elsewhere, the onus is on the faster vehicle to overtake safely.

 

[JoysOfSight]

I'm not sure it's really worth arguing about, but here's an anecdote from my last (until I switched jobs) 17 mile commute. I would ride for about 5 miles in either direction on the A90. The road is a 40mph single carriageway but with two lanes in either direction and it carries a constant stream of traffic, including buses and lorries. Streetview here and here.

When I first started, I was relatively timid and rode, a-la Jimbo, in the gutter. My theory was that by minimising how much I was in the way of traffic, I would maximise the amount of room I got and have to worry less about being creamed by close-passing HGVs and buses or left-hooked into oblivion.

Safe to say this was a disaster. I wasn't ever actually knocked off but I was brushed past by 40mph traffic more times than I'd care to mention. Traffic streams passing me would just turn left at major junctions as if I wasn't there. The closest passes were rarely from the first vehicle, but quite often from the ones immediately behind, because the leading vehicle didn't obviously move around me so they had no idea I was there.

The big breakthrough came when I rode out with a more hardy cyclist who, although he had little experience of the road compared with me, immediately positioned himself in the left lane such that there was no way a vehicle could get past without hitting him. Not in the middle of the lane, just wide enough that there was no way to squeeze through. What a transformation!

Suddenly, traffic was changing lanes before it got to me, people about to turn left were waiting behind me, and the number of uncomfortable misses I suffered dropped basically to zero. Only the deliberate buzzes remained, but they were rare and, crucially, it's much nicer being buzzed when you have some road space on your left instead of already bumping over yellow lines and drains!

I strongly believe that it is dangerous to ride in the gutter and more to the point, that encouraging people to do so is to put them at unnecessary risk. Yes, you can be hit by someone who has a brake failure - but even if 1:10,000 cars had brake failures that is fantastically better odds than 1 out of every 1 car coming close to knocking you off because they just don't need to pay attention to this bottom-feeding, gutter-hugging figure approaching in the corner of their eye.

Sorry Jimbo, nothing personal but while I'm 100% behind ideas like, pull over to let people past and make everyone's day, I think riding outside vehicles' "roll path" is way more dangerous than riding in it.