Hawk
Veteran
- Location
- Glasgow Southside
Gained a wee bit of 'experience' today....
Was approaching this junction
I was initially in the left lane but when I spotted this was for turning left only (marked on the road about 8metres back from the lights' stop line) I did a quick shoulder check and moved out to the middle of the rightmost lane.
There was a van in the middle of the junction, waiting to turn right, across my path and the path of the vehicle in front of me. I was travelling around 15-18mph at the time.
The car that was in front of me passed the van and the van driver appeared to be waiting.
As I approached the stop line, the light changed to amber. I was about 1metre from the stop line when this happened. The van was still waiting. I decided to continue and to accelerate to clear the junction as quickly as possible. I pedalled forcefully, kinda hoping the van driver would clock that I was accelerating through. I expected he could see me - we were virtually eye-to-eye..?
Anyway, the van pulled out in front of me. I had somewhat anticipated this possibility so on to the brakes I went. Obviously no time to change gear though....
This was a fairly routine hook up to this point that I felt I had under control.
Only problem is there was a car behind the van too. I would guess that, in the time it took the van to slog across my path, the filter arrow for the car - also turning right - would have lit up. The car would have seen the van turning and also had a filter arrow suggesting it could turn right safely and I guess it had no chance of seeing me until the van had cleared his line of sight.
The car was attempting to follow the van closely.... nearly had a bit of a head-on with me but fortunately the driver clocked me just in time and swerved back from his turn to avoid me.
I'm wondering if anyone can offer any advice based on the above, particularly:
1) I definitely couldn't have stopped before the stop-line at the lights. I could have stopped inside the pedestrian crossing zone marked by the metal squares in the road. Might this have been a safer option?
2) If I had continued, where on the road would have been safest for me? I stayed exactly in the middle of the rightmost lane until the van driver pulled out, at which point I naturally turned right slightly as I braked, to go behind the van. This probably gave the car behind the worst possible chance, of reacting safely to my presence, when he did spot me?
Cheers
Was approaching this junction
http://g.co/maps/va9fn
, from the road on which that photo is taken. I was following about 10m behind a car, we were both going straight on. The car was in the rightmost lane.I was initially in the left lane but when I spotted this was for turning left only (marked on the road about 8metres back from the lights' stop line) I did a quick shoulder check and moved out to the middle of the rightmost lane.
There was a van in the middle of the junction, waiting to turn right, across my path and the path of the vehicle in front of me. I was travelling around 15-18mph at the time.
The car that was in front of me passed the van and the van driver appeared to be waiting.
As I approached the stop line, the light changed to amber. I was about 1metre from the stop line when this happened. The van was still waiting. I decided to continue and to accelerate to clear the junction as quickly as possible. I pedalled forcefully, kinda hoping the van driver would clock that I was accelerating through. I expected he could see me - we were virtually eye-to-eye..?
Anyway, the van pulled out in front of me. I had somewhat anticipated this possibility so on to the brakes I went. Obviously no time to change gear though....
This was a fairly routine hook up to this point that I felt I had under control.
Only problem is there was a car behind the van too. I would guess that, in the time it took the van to slog across my path, the filter arrow for the car - also turning right - would have lit up. The car would have seen the van turning and also had a filter arrow suggesting it could turn right safely and I guess it had no chance of seeing me until the van had cleared his line of sight.
The car was attempting to follow the van closely.... nearly had a bit of a head-on with me but fortunately the driver clocked me just in time and swerved back from his turn to avoid me.
I'm wondering if anyone can offer any advice based on the above, particularly:
1) I definitely couldn't have stopped before the stop-line at the lights. I could have stopped inside the pedestrian crossing zone marked by the metal squares in the road. Might this have been a safer option?
2) If I had continued, where on the road would have been safest for me? I stayed exactly in the middle of the rightmost lane until the van driver pulled out, at which point I naturally turned right slightly as I braked, to go behind the van. This probably gave the car behind the worst possible chance, of reacting safely to my presence, when he did spot me?
Cheers
