don't wanna be road kill...

[Cosmick1]

Hello all,

I'm a newbie to this forum and my biking is limited to my 15 mile per day commuting. The last mile of this is on an open, maximum speed limit hill where the road narrows in it's approach to my village. I share the road with rabbit-running (avoiding delays on a local bypass) car drivers and worse - gravel lorries running in and out of local gravel pits.
The road is unlit and is fed by the bypass so drivers are still in drive fast mode.
My bike is well lit with LEDs but the problem is with the lorries in particular not slowing down/not going wide and hurtling by literally inches from my handlebars .
Does anyone know of an extendable led light that I can fit to my rack and extend out sideways into the road from my bike - this may coach the uckers into giving due care? Or any other ideas?
I am starting a campaign to extend a cycle path up this road into the village. Also taking note of signage on the lorries to give the companies a call and ask for better driving?

Many thanks

 

[jeltz]

Are you in primary road position i.e. well into the road or are you hugging the left hand gutter?

If you take primary position vehicles don't have the space to "squeeze" past and have to wait for an appropriate passing place, also if they do try to then you have some space to your left to escape into.

Oh and

 

[Sam Kennedy]

+1 for taking the lane, if you haven't already, read cyclecraft

Enjoy your stay!

 

[Cosmick1]

Taking the lane

Being further out in the lane would cause most to slow down and would give me more manoeuvering room. Trouble is after half a century of driving cars, I know there are car driving moments when you think " **it, I cannot remember driving the last couple of miles..". With a gravel lorry coming from behind at 60mph and the driver's mind not present would I rather be kerb hugging or the middle of the lane?

Maybe if I fitted a mirror I could stay out until the ucker got close and then move in. Or maybe I'll just keep up the campaign for a cycle lane!

Sorry if I'm a bit anal about this but a friend of mine, a cyclist, ended up as a smear under a lorry's tyre a few years ago under this sort of circumstance.

 

[jeltz]

I've come back to cycling this year after stopping when I passed my driving test over 20 years ago, so know where you are coming from. The fact is that if the drivers mind is vacant and they aren't going to stop then it won't matter where in the road you are, whether you have a mirror or not etc. When one has the "I don't remember the last xxx miles" its usually because nothing eventful happened so you just forgot them.

Really taking a more assertive line on the road is way to go. If use a mirror and you pull over as they approach they will take that as an invitation/request for them to squeeze past, really they should only be passing you if they have can give you 3' or more clearance so don't pull over unless they can give you that amount of space.

Over this year my attitude as a cyclist has changed from I must not get in the way of other vehicles to, the road belongs to all of us and at the moment this is my bit! The result, I feel safer on the road.

FWIW the gravel lorries that go to and from the quarries round here usually behave well and give me plenty of room.