My appalling cycling tonight

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Banjo

Fuelled with Jelly Babies
Location
South Wales
Things like that happen to me if I am thinking about something else at the time. Approaching junctions my first action is to conciously switch off all other stuff taking up my limited brain power .
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19
What you’ve discovered there, is that the eyes look, but the brain sees. What you’ve described there is when your brain starts to ‘target select’ ( there is an official name for it, but I’ve forgotten what it is ). It’s basically the brain filtering out what it perceives to be erroneous information, because there’s only so much processing it can cope with. If you are approaching a junction ( for example ) and your relative speed to an object approaching from the side, is similar, effectively the object is stationary, so even though it’s in plain sight, your brain decides it’s no threat, so discards it. You effectively don’t see something in plain view. “It / they came out of nowhere” is the phrase that’s commonly heard, when this happens. Fighter pilots are trained to overcome this by constantly changing their head position, whilst engaging another aircraft. If you’re riding / driving, you can help it by deliberately altering your speed, or course, slightly, approaching junctions and / or roundabouts. That way, any approaching objects, aren’t effectively stationary, and you’ll be surprised how often something suddenly appears, which was always actually there. Look, look, and look again, near junctions and RABs.

Interesting you say that, my practice is to actively swivel my head to scan when approaching junctions
 
Interesting you say that, my practice is to actively swivel my head to scan when approaching junctions
Anything that changes the effective relative closing speeds works, you just need the object to not be sitting in the same position of your field of view, as you approach.
 

GilesM

Legendary Member
Location
East Lothian
I apologised and thanked her for her good driving but she didn't look to impressed ( and rightly so) I felt a right burk and shakened up.
I'm just going to put this down to experience and learn from my mistakes. 😔

She was probably just surprised that you did apologise, not many would. I understand that you will be a wee bit shaken up, these things are always worse when you think about them too much, we all have "stupid things we've done" stored somewhere in our heads.
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland
I recently read a thread on a motoring forum where a member started a discussion over a cyclist damaging his car. He was at home and unaware that the rider had struck the back of his car outside on the street. Cyclist had knocked on the door, apologised, informed the guy of what had happened and offered to pay for the repairs.

Sounds like a reasonable thread? No, the OP was pissed off at how 'smug' the cyclist was in his apology. Cue a pile on of other drivers and the bingo card was filled within a few sentences. Eco warriors, lycra-clad, no VED, no licence etc.

Fark me, the guy made a mistake and owned up but for the haters that just isn't enough.
 

C R

Guru
Location
Worcester
I recently read a thread on a motoring forum where a member started a discussion over a cyclist damaging his car. He was at home and unaware that the rider had struck the back of his car outside on the street. Cyclist had knocked on the door, apologised, informed the guy of what had happened and offered to pay for the repairs.

Sounds like a reasonable thread? No, the OP was pissed off at how 'smug' the cyclist was in his apology. Cue a pile on of other drivers and the bingo card was filled within a few sentences. Eco warriors, lycra-clad, no VED, no licence etc.

Fark me, the guy made a mistake and owned up but for the haters that just isn't enough.
Next time the cyclist will ride on without owning up to the damage.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
What you’ve discovered there, is that the eyes look, but the brain sees. What you’ve described there is when your brain starts to ‘target select’ ( there is an official name for it, but I’ve forgotten what it is ). It’s basically the brain filtering out what it perceives to be erroneous information, because there’s only so much processing it can cope with. If you are approaching a junction ( for example ) and your relative speed to an object approaching from the side, is similar, effectively the object is stationary, so even though it’s in plain sight, your brain decides it’s no threat, so discards it. You effectively don’t see something in plain view.
I had it happen to me when crossing a side street in Hebden Bridge. I looked to my side and saw that the road was clear as far back as the junction so I started to walk across and almost got flattened by a car coming straight at me. I had somehow failed to see it and I suspect that it WAS because it was moving quite slowly, having just turned onto the side street. Like Johnny, I was saved by the quick reactions of the driver. I slapped my head and shook it slowly while mouthing 'sorry' - the driver laughed and beckoned for me to carry on crossing...
 

CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
You birkhead, you could have scratched her car, do you realize how close that was^_^
 
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