Nearly squashed by a lorry

[jimboalee]

A company I once worked for ( in central Birmingham. SAGEM UK ) performed a "Risk assessment" on their employees transport to work. They used information from West Midlands Police and RTA staistics.
What happens on the OP's vid was typical of what was included in the Risk assessment.

I was advised to stop riding my bicycle as transport to work.
There was too much chance of me suffering injury ( or worse ).

I performed a Risk assessment on 'Transporting development motorcycles to and from Workshop and test track', using the previous Risk assessment as 'prior art'.

From my published report, the company were forced to spend £3000 fitting a tow bar to the 'hack car' and buying a two bike trailer.

That aside, riding a bicycle involves a certain amount of "Risk".

A cyclist can either 'lump it or leave it'. I opted to 'lump it'.

 

[Parker-Knowall]

Hmm, based on the some of the opinions viewed I think I'll take primary all the home today (regardless of the width of the road) and then when the motorists overtake to close I'll blame it all on them regardless of my position at the time.

What an excellent attitude to have on the road.

Don't be a nuisance.

 

[4F]

I nearly got taken out by a lorry driver with poor spacial awareness skills and a poor general standard of driving. I say poor general standard of driving as he tailgated the poor driver who was in front of me at the time after he performed an ill advised overtake. After the silver rover had overtaken me I had started to move out to a primary position to discourage any overtaking as I tend to hit speeds of 25mph or more going down that hill, that stretch of road is a 30 limit, so anybody overtaking would have to do well over the speed limit to clear me safely. As I could see he was cutting in I had to get hard onto the brakes to avoid going under his wheels.

Anyway watch:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfk7Aba8dZk

Why did you feel you had to be in primary at that point as there there is no obvious pinch point ahead ? If you had taken a strong secondary then this incident would not have happened.

In my opinion you took the primary position too soon, hill or no hill.

 

[gaz]

So what you are saying is that you had adopting the primary position whilst doing only 66% of the speed limit - not exactly smart.

Are you saying that you should only adopt primary position whilst doing 100% of the speed limit?

If not, then what sort of percentage should you be doing?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I had a similar with a bus driver yesterday morning. Really got my blood boiling; there are roadwords on Oxford Road in Manchester restricting traffic to one lane each way (with cones everywhere and so on). I stick in the traffic and wait it out where the lane is too narrow; so I was behind a bus (stationary) and the bus behind nudges in next to me (not really enough space for this but OK mate...). Then, when traffic begins to move, I pull off first and then he insists on overtaking - in the middle of the roadworks!! not a safe environment! with not much space either! - only for us all to be stopped at the traffic light in the front again (as I knew we would have been, and so would he if he'd used a braincell or two). And then, he stopped at the next bus stop in any case (presume he was running early and waited to get back on time).

I never know with these things if it's a legitimate 'I don't like cyclists, get off the road' mindset, or if it's just not thinking and expecting that you can overtake a cyclist with very little space (combined with not looking ahead to see that the car/traffic light in front means it's a pointless overtake).

 

[gaz]

Depends

I think you summed up Primary in one word right there. It totaly depends on the road and traffic levels/speed as well as other things.

On occasions i know i need to take primary, but the traffic is much faster than me and it's best if i slow down /stop and wait for a gap and then go.
Primary is about being safer.

 

[4F]

I think you summed up Primary in one word right there. It totaly depends on the road and traffic levels/speed as well as other things.

On occasions i know i need to take primary, but the traffic is much faster than me and it's best if i slow down /stop and wait for a gap and then go.
Primary is about being safer.

I do think though that people have a bit of a hang up over primary and think that they should use it whatever the road just because they are on a bike and almost invite the situaition the OP found himself in.

imho

 

[Parker-Knowall]

A good cyclist knows when to take the lane and when to let the traffic behind pass. Having the confidence to block an unsafe overtake is one thing, being bloody-minded is another. Showing consideration for others, whether they are truck drivers, cyclists or pedestrians can cost you a few seconds sometimes but so what if it does? What goes around comes around.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I was left, because I had three sets of luggage on my bike and knew I was slow off the mark. Ok, fine, if I'd been in the middle of the road he wouldn't have been able to pull alongside. However, just past where we were there's a cycle lane on the left where I happily cycle every day, so the idea is for me to get out of the way of faster moving traffic as soon as possible, as it's only polite.

I'm not quite sure how you can object on the one hand to not being in strong enough primary to prevent the overtake and then on the other hand object to the OP's being in a semi-primary when only doing '66%' of the speed limit.

For clarity, I was already IN the roadworks (and stationary) when the bus pulled alongside.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Pedestrian crossing? Intimidate them back. It's horrible.

I've had this as well, on my route home there's a bike & pedestrian crossing. It takes an age to change green to let you cross, even when there's not oncoming traffic. Anyway, I've had a car come up to it, slow down as it's already changed red for them, look at me waiting on the bike, and then accelerate through the red.

Or the ones who are stuck in the traffic jam who roll forward over the crossing to get a car length further forward and then block it most effectively for you once it has changed green!

 

[Ticktockmy]

I nearly got taken out by a lorry driver with poor spacial awareness skills and a poor general standard of driving. I say poor general standard of driving as he tailgated the poor driver who was in front of me at the time after he performed an ill advised overtake. After the silver rover had overtaken me I had started to move out to a primary position to discourage any overtaking as I tend to hit speeds of 25mph or more going down that hill, that stretch of road is a 30 limit, so anybody overtaking would have to do well over the speed limit to clear me safely. As I could see he was cutting in I had to get hard onto the brakes to avoid going under his wheels.

As i see it, if he had hit the approaching car, I think you would have been trying to explain why, you had positioned yourself in such a way that the driver of the vehicle had been forced to move futher over into the other lane to overtake more than he needed too allowing for the width of the carrageway, thus forcing him to adopt the incorrect line of approach. I guess your only excuse could be that you adopted the position on the carrageway because you wanted to avoid the drain cover and the giveway markings on the road. B)

 

[Matthames]

There are a lot of people making the assumption that there was enough room to my left. The truth is there wasn't. The driver of the lorry overtaking me would of had to cross the lane markings whether I was in primary, secondary or on the moon.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&l...d=cMANgbzzvGimJJu0PUCPsA&cbp=12,48.53,,0,16.4

That link is for the view of that exact point from google maps. Does the road look wide enough for a truck to pass a cyclist safely without crossing the lane and interfering with oncoming traffic?

I choose the line I did to try and prevent an overtake when I was catching the car ahead. The driver was aggressive and impatient and would of barrelled through no matter what. Picking primary had given me room to take evasive action, had I been a bit more left I would of been under the wheels of that truck. Good defensive riding is about leaving as many options open as possible.

 

[4F]

If you stop the video at 14 seconds there does appear to be a lot of road between you and the pavement, the lorry overtakes you at 16 seconds.

I am sure all who have commented are fully aware of the benefit of primary at pinch points but I still don't think you needed to be in this position at that point.

 

[Matthames]

If you stop the video at 14 seconds there does appear to be a lot of road between you and the pavement, the lorry overtakes you at 16 seconds.

I am sure all who have commented are fully aware of the benefit of primary at pinch points but I still don't think you needed to be in this position at that point.

I have a lot more detailed picture of what went on than you will ever gather from the video. At 14 seconds the truck was right besides me. At 16 seconds I am taking evasive action by the means of heavy braking, if you look carefully you can see at 16 seconds I am in line with the storm drain and in danger of tripping on the kerb.

It is not just at pinch points that you get the benefit of being in primary. If you are catching up with a vehicle ahead, such as in this instance then it is usually a good idea to get into primary to protect the space in front. This driver once he had taken the space in front of me of which I had to brake hard had to brake hard himself and then continued to tailgate the silver rover up in front. It would of been a lot more prudent of him to have hung back and then overtake me once off the roundabout, 9 times out of 10 that is what most drivers tend to do on that section of road.

 

[just jim]

You did what you thought was appropriate in that instance to protect yourself from harm. You've also gone out of your way to make that clear, but that won't cut it with everyone so you may have to draw upon hitherto untapped reserves of patience. Interesting reactions as ever!