heart in mouth moment as a ped near Vauxhall London

[scouserinlondon]

My non cycling friends often look in horror when I tell them of my London commuting experiences; when you’re on the road you are engaged in ongoing communication with other road users, asserting your position, anticipating things which may go wrong and keeping moving. When you’re in the thick of it I think it’s not as scary because you’re concentrating and being part of the melee.

Last night I had one of those ‘OMG’ moments as a ped watching a cyclist/HGV interaction and thinking ‘he’s going to farking die’. It was in the evening rush approaching evil Vauxhall from the Oval approach road. As the one way system opens up there’s a three lane road with a right spur for vehicles to do a hard right down Kennington lane. There was an HGV approaching this right hand spur very slowly, he’d indicated before moving and started the right hand turn manoeuvre. When a plucky cyclist decided to dive up his right after the HGV had already decided to move.
Fortunatley the guy hit the brakes and the cyclist had a right old shout. But for a second I honestly thought the cyclist was toast and it scared the hell out of me. The cyclist had a quick shout and got on his way, although in my opinion he was in the wrong totally (whether legally or not, from a pure self preservation point of view the HGV was indicating right before the cyclist decided to come up the right hand side).

The HGV guy looked a bit non-plussed as I’m sure the cyclist was in his blind spot most of the time. But it really gave me a shock and made me re-double my efforts to stay out of the way of wagons.

 

[ianrauk]

Wasn't this idiot was it? (Also in Vauxhall)
(I never get tired of posting this vid, thanks Mike)

 

[Tynan]

I imagine it'll depend on where the cyclist was when the HGV started his manouvre, given the length of an HGV the cyclist may already have been alongside when the hgv started to move over

No, I wouldn't ever put myself anywhere near one either, they're so bloody long for starters that you're committing yourself for too long if something does change

 

[scouserinlondon]

He was deffo behind it, as I was trying to cross the road and saw him a way back.

 

[swampyseifer]

reminds me of a time (non bike-related, of course) when I was on holiday in Cornwall somewhere...I was walking along a tiny road that had no path and the road stopped at the wall of the houses either side. Admitedly I was walking with the traffic, instead of against.

A big tourist bus went past me and started to pull over. He pulled the nose in close to the side of the road/house wall and then straightened out...so the rest of the bus was slowly coming in to be in line with the nose. I dont know if he hadnt noticed me or whatever because I was about half way down the bus when he did this...and of course all I could see in front was the bus slowly closing the gap between itself and the wall.

I had this rabbit-headlights thing where I stopped walking and thought...I'm gunna get squished! Then thankfully my sensible side reasserted itself and I had to turn and jog back along the bus toward the back of it. I probably made it out the way several seconds before the bus stopped, leaving a gap of an inch or two from a solid wall...but it felt like I had just been in some kind of Indiana Jones situation!