How many incidents in a mile??

[BentMikey]

I'm far from a mileage monster, but I do a decent distance each year, and even I've done 40,000 miles in mostly London traffic mostly on a recumbent in perhaps 1/5th of that time. Look to someone like Clarion for a real mileage monster. He seriously impresses me.

 

[GrasB]

I'm far from a mileage monster, but I do a decent distance each year, and even I've done 40,000 miles in mostly London traffic mostly on a recumbent in perhaps 1/5th of that time. Look to someone like Clarion for a real mileage monster. He seriously impresses me.

14k5 miles last year & just over 7k5 miles this year... I did two years of >8k miles preceeding that. So in less than 4 years I've done twice that mileage!

 

[Hip Priest]

Depends how you define an incident. I had a must pass cyclist person cut me up this morning, which made me go 'Woah!' but it'll quickly be forgotten.

The only reason I relay it here was that it was an X-reg Toyota Corrolla with Pruis & Hybrid badges on the back. The mind boggles.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I can't find the quote button?????
So Hippo - famous? moi? In my own lunchtime maybe.
And yes maybe I am prone to a wee bit dramatisation of these incidents, but in general I don't worry about drivers overtaking me or turning in front of me unless it causes me to slam on the brakes or feel that I'm inches away from being thrown off the bike.
The four incidents on the carpark were 1 - just before the carpark a pedestrian stepped off the kerb right in front of me and I had to swerve to avoid him -he then proceeded to shout at me how it was my fault for being there.
2 - Reversing car resulting in my emergency stop -I knew they were going to do it though so it wasn't too dramatic.
3 - This was the one that got me seeing red, a motorist driving into the carpark (there are 3 entry points and one road right through the middle which is where I was) pulled in front of me and slammed on his brakes so my front wheel touched his bumper. I then followed him and shouted at him a lot until he apologised.
4 - two pedestrians who decided to walk down the road straight at me - not exactly a life threatening incident, well not for me anyway, although I did tell them if they didn't move I would ride right over them.
I ride all over the place, to get to places and just because I can. I use country lanes, cyclepaths and main roads - I rarely have any incidents apart from on the one mile trip to and from work.

how fast and on what bit of the lane were you riding in this car park to need to be swerving and emergency stopping right left and centre?

pedestrian 1. Predictable, they do it all the time, you didn't thintk to give him a quick hello or ring of the bell( if you uses such a thing) before he stepped out, just to let him know you were there already? OR simply ride a bit more primary to mitigate his inattention. problem 1 happily solved 2 different way with a second's thought on your part. You don't seem to think he had a right to rant and rave at you, interesting given 2 of your other examples.

reversing car: again the question is how fast were you and the car each going? On their part, backing out in a car park isn't going to be breaking any speed records yet you still needed to emergency stop???? You knew it was going to do it yet still didn't think to pull a wider line to get round them or slow down a bit in advance to either let tjhem clear the space or avoid requiring an emergency stop. It's a car park, cars reverse all the time, visibility invariably isn't brilliant & bikes are not as commonplace as other vehicles in that context.

You got pulled up in front of: not a nice thing to happen but again hardly unexpected in a car park. Why did he 'slam on his brakes'? just for the hell of it or was there something in front that forced him to stop that would have done the same to you? (no doubt with much squealing of your brakes and abuse at them)
Also gotta say you hardly did the reputation of us all a world of good by chasing and yelling at him (big and clever?). Why not catch him up and have a polite word explaining what (you decided) he'd done wrong and how it affected you rather than shouting a lot at him? you do seem to have a heightened sense of entitlement coupled to a very low boiling point - be careful, one day you'll have a rant at the next Kenneth Noye not someone that'll apologise just to get safely away from a raging harpie.

2 peds in the middle of the road - even by your own definition this isn't an incident, rather than simply ride around the silly people and carry merrily on your way, you choose to see it as some sort of insult to your honour and again you meet them with threats. Way to go you.

Seriously have you considered a course in anger management - you're doing far more chasing and shouting than you're getting and one day it'll backfire on you. Or not automatically expecting the world to bow to your will? life is about a bit of compromise cycling often moreso than most cos we're seen as both non threatening by peds and easy to ignore from inside a couple of tons of metal. not right but not going to change by you refusing to budge and ranting a lot.
Peds don't always pay attention or understand the danger that we+they can pose to one another and (just like you appear to) cars think they have a divine right of way. hardly earth shattering news.

 

[Hector]

I'm sorry to keep returning to this thread if it seems like goading, however you invited me to your blog on another thread and I have been reading it.
You state in the blog
"Yet in 40 years and over 20,000 miles of cycling in 15 countries (all of it on the road with traffic and most of it in big cities), I've never been hit by another vehicle."
By my reckoning this works out at around 500 miles per year or just under 10 miles per week, this may be the reason you have so few incidents.

Or that could well be a high mean of miles over a short period of time and the rest has been low milage due to a change of job or what not.

What amazes me is the guy offers his OPINION, you lot for some reason take it as fact and almost gang up on him. Having a pop where ever possible without no real basis.

 

[Sandra6]

Shouldbeinbed - are you my husband???He says much the same as you!
I am easily irritated when cycling and you're right, I will come off the worst for it. I haven't shouted at a motorist for ages - until yesterday. I didn't even shout at the idiot the other week who thought it was funny to drive very very slowly alongside before deliberately blocking me at the turning, then come squealing after me when I did pass him. Although I think that had a lot to do with the very large male cyclist who stopped to ask if I was ok and kind of saw him off for me.
As for the pedestrian - I had no reason to think he would step off the pavement in front of me - why would he do that? I'm used to people looking before they cross. And the driver I yelled at on the car park slammed on because there is a very slight speed bump in the road - or I assume that's why because there really was no other reason. Then the following pedestrians just caught the brunt of my, by then, bad mood. I'm generally cycling at about 8mph but I'm not sure what that has to do with it. I shouldn't have to crawl along just so I can avoid mishaps with bad motorists.
As I've said it is only on that particular ride that I have incidents, whether thats the time of day or the nature of the roads - they do tend to be short cuts around things and back roads, lots of points for people to pull out from - I don't know.
Maybe I'll cycle on the pavement today and see how that goes.

 

[HLaB]

Shouldbeinbed - are you my husband???He says much the same as you!

As for the pedestrian - I had no reason to think he would step off the pavement in front of me - why would he do that?

Be cause he was a pedestrian and unconfined by boundaries, in my time I've seen peds do weird things (for example, one suddenly started to run on the pavement and jumped of in to the side of a double decker bus! ), all you can really do is expect the unexpected Good Luck

 

[gaz]

An example: in your video
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2-5l67tP6I&feature=plcp
(which I picked at random)...

At 0:17, you undertake - at unsafe speed - a potentially turning van whose driver probably has not seen you. At 0:40 you're concentrating on reading a license plate (of a car that wasn't really a serious threat) when you should be checking your right rear and/or watching for pedestrians. I understand you were stressed, but still. 0:48, slightly too far left for a curved road. Between 0:56 to 1:15, you're too far right. 1:55, too far left - not adequately controlling your lane. 2:09, too far right. 2:25, very good. 2:33, too far left - the lane is out of your control. 2:52, too far left...

The thing is, you are one of the best cyclists I've seen on the road, but you are still not controlling your lane properly and at times you go too fast in threatening situations. This is my opinion.

0:17 it's a two lane road, driver is just changing lanes.
0:40 reading out a numberplate is hardly a challenging task. I can read road signs whilst driving/cycling without loosing control of my vehicle or running someone over.
0:48 indeed, but I doubt that would have made much difference to the driver
0:56 was riding two up with someone else - 1:15 i'm in a bus lane throughout, lots of two wheeled vehicles, as a group we control the lane.
2:09 too far right?
2:33 nah, using the cycle lane again and shortly after you see I take a stronger position when I need to.
2:52 again, moving from one part of the cycle lane to the other (broken by the bus stop). Look how wide the road is, no need to control the lane.


If you had taken the following video and said my position was too far to the left. I would agree with you, but as I said initially, a stronger position would not have prevented such a stupid driver doing such a stupid overtake.

 

[Sandra6]

Slightly off topic Gaz - 29miles, 2 and however long hours - over 2000 calories???? How did you work that out??
By my calculations (using runkeeper) an hour's cycling at those speeds is only 500 cals. I wish it burned more.

 

[Tynan]

I ride central London rush hour and I think I ride well most times, as well as you can and still get on with it, there has to be a fair bit of dodgy riding unless you want to wait behind traffic

Nearly all my problems come from people turning in and out of side roads and I plan my route accordingly, also peds stepping through stopped traffic without looking at all, from behind high sided vehicles

And lately my general primary on roads that call for it has induced some silly overtakes with a cut back in when they realise there's an island etc ahead

I'm not sure you can do much about any of those ones other than control your speed and say alert, the road users that ignore you or the chance that you might be there will always be a hazard

To compare London rush hour traffic commuting with anything else is silly, whole different kettle of fish to riding anywhere else, with all respect

 

[Sandra6]

I don't think I would be a cyclist if I had to do it in London tbh.

 

[gaz]

Slightly off topic Gaz - 29miles, 2 and however long hours - over 2000 calories???? How did you work that out??
By my calculations (using runkeeper) an hour's cycling at those speeds is only 500 cals. I wish it burned more.

That would be continuous cycling at those speeds.
However in london it is very stop start, so to get an average of around 15mph you will be accelerating a lot at traffic lights and traveling above 20mph. As such you have a higher heart rate and are burning more energy.

 

[Sandra6]

Ah, never thought of that. Fair point.

 

[Boris Bajic]

I don't think I would be a cyclist if I had to do it in London tbh.

I used to be a frequent commuter in London and (after moving to the sticks) between Paddington and SW1.

I find London significantly safer than rural NSL A-Roads. Although there is the odd bump, it tends to be at low speed.

If you like your space, it's not the place. But if you saw Rollerball and regretted that nothing like it exists, then the A501 was made for your riding pleasure.

 

[Mugshot]

Or that could well be a high mean of miles over a short period of time and the rest has been low milage due to a change of job or what not.

What amazes me is the guy offers his OPINION, you lot for some reason take it as fact and almost gang up on him. Having a pop where ever possible without no real basis.

Correct, it may well be that Ian has done huge milage for a couple of weeks followed by nothing for a number of years, however, I will wait for Ian to tell me whether that is the case or not.
Which opinions not facts are you referring too. Ian has stated on his blog both milage and time frame. I would imagine that he's stating that as a fact, or may be an estimate, but certainly not an opinion.