yashicamat
New Member
- Location
- Macclesfield, Cheshire
Picture the scene: 7:15am in a medium-sized town on a residential A-road (there is a bypass now so it's mostly local traffic on that road these days). As you would expect, quiet at that time of day apart from the odd car.
The road travels into a large dip (near a school) and then up a fairly steep hill the other side. There is a normal on-road cycle lane as you begin to go down the hill, but this leaves the carriageway and goes onto one of those dreaded shared surface cycleways as the road goes through the dip (the cycleway stops abruptly at a side road junction which is blind, so you HAVE to stop there), under a lot of trees. Of course, being a footpath essentially and therefore free from the action of passing vehicles, this path is pretty greasy and covered with leaves from the trees.
As a result of this (and in order to keep my momentum through the dip and into the climb), I usually rejoin traffic where the lane splits and then merge back into the on-road cycle lane where it rejoins the road as the road starts to climb the hill on the other side. Due to the speed of descent I am always doing at least 20mph, if not 25/30mph, plus with it being a 30mph road with a speed camera there, the traffic doesn't really get held up by a cyclist travelling at speed down this section.
Anyhow, this morning at 7:15am, I signalled and moved out past where the cycle lane leaves the road and pedalled down into the dip (where a few cars passed me), as I climbed out the other side, I immediately merged into the cycle lane again and began to work hard to climb the hill. The next thing I know, a (public) bus is overtaking me and as he (she?) is along side, swerves into me and then back out into the lane again and accelerates off!
Thankfully I was aware of the vehicle so I managed to squeeze up to the kerb and stop as it pushed into me, but I very nearly came off the bike . . . this is on a straight section of road too, so there's no reason why he should be entering the (marked) cycle lane.
I managed to get the reg number and I'll be writing to the bus operator explaining the situation and demanding to hear the disciplinary action taken against the driver. I did speak to the police too, but they said they couldn't do anything without any hard evidence.
Unbelievable that a professional driver would behave like this . . . I mean it's pretty appalling if a car driver did that, but a 12T (at least) Dennis Dart would be a lot less pleasant to fall underneath.
I'm just thankful I didn't fall off . . it could have been a lot worse.
Phew, had to get that off my chest!
The road travels into a large dip (near a school) and then up a fairly steep hill the other side. There is a normal on-road cycle lane as you begin to go down the hill, but this leaves the carriageway and goes onto one of those dreaded shared surface cycleways as the road goes through the dip (the cycleway stops abruptly at a side road junction which is blind, so you HAVE to stop there), under a lot of trees. Of course, being a footpath essentially and therefore free from the action of passing vehicles, this path is pretty greasy and covered with leaves from the trees.
As a result of this (and in order to keep my momentum through the dip and into the climb), I usually rejoin traffic where the lane splits and then merge back into the on-road cycle lane where it rejoins the road as the road starts to climb the hill on the other side. Due to the speed of descent I am always doing at least 20mph, if not 25/30mph, plus with it being a 30mph road with a speed camera there, the traffic doesn't really get held up by a cyclist travelling at speed down this section.
Anyhow, this morning at 7:15am, I signalled and moved out past where the cycle lane leaves the road and pedalled down into the dip (where a few cars passed me), as I climbed out the other side, I immediately merged into the cycle lane again and began to work hard to climb the hill. The next thing I know, a (public) bus is overtaking me and as he (she?) is along side, swerves into me and then back out into the lane again and accelerates off!
Thankfully I was aware of the vehicle so I managed to squeeze up to the kerb and stop as it pushed into me, but I very nearly came off the bike . . . this is on a straight section of road too, so there's no reason why he should be entering the (marked) cycle lane.I managed to get the reg number and I'll be writing to the bus operator explaining the situation and demanding to hear the disciplinary action taken against the driver. I did speak to the police too, but they said they couldn't do anything without any hard evidence.
Unbelievable that a professional driver would behave like this . . . I mean it's pretty appalling if a car driver did that, but a 12T (at least) Dennis Dart would be a lot less pleasant to fall underneath.
I'm just thankful I didn't fall off . . it could have been a lot worse.
Phew, had to get that off my chest!
