New approach to careless motorists

[Blackandblue]

After two close calls in three days (which I guess is not bad going for commuting in central London), I am planning to refine my approach to discussions with errant motorists.

Something like this: "I'm not having a go mate, we all make mistakes, but you came very close to [causing me serious injury/killing me]. Apart from not getting out of bed today there was nothing I could have done to avoid that incident. Can you please reflect on what you did and whether you could have done anything different to avoid it and maybe the same thing won't happen again"

Isn't that really all we're after?

This follows:

Incident #1: red range rover turning right across my path. Driver admits seeing me but claimed I should have stopped as he had already committed to his manouevre. More carp about him being a cyclist, me being silly for taking on 4 tonnes of metal, him being older and wiser than me etc. And all of this notwithstanding 6 independent witnesses who joined in the discussion and agreed that I had done nothing wrong and that the motorist should not have turned across my path. Ultimately there was no arguing with this dude. He was very much of the type that knew it all and was always in the right.

Incident #2: van pulls out from side street across my path at point blank. (I actually thought I was going to slam into the side of him, gawd knows how I managed to stop in time.) He simply didn't look. Apparently it was my fault for wearing black. In daylight. With my lights on. Ultimately he apologised.

Both discussions were just that, discussions. Not heated. No swearing. But in each case the motorist's initial (and in the case of incident#1, unending) stance was that they were in the right and I was in the wrong. If unchallenged they might continue to hold that view and their behaviour may not change. I still believe that a sensible discussion is worthwhile if the opportunity presents itself in the hope that the motorist will think more carefully in the future. Sometimes it is clear this is simply not going to happen in which case cease the discussion and move on.

Sometimes I resort to the "Have you got kids? How would you feel going home to them today and explaining that you killed another human being?" That has worked in the past. Although I have also had the response "I'd f**king LOVE it!".

What thoughts on the above approach?

 

[mark barker]

Personally I don't get the having a chat thing.... If you've actually had an accident then thats a different matter, but if it was a near miss then just carry on. If every motorist stopped in the middle of the road to discuss their near misses then the country would grind to a halt!

 

[downfader]

I always try to balance it up, is it worth it and safe to stop and have a word..? Or am I better to leave it?

Often what I do is on the close overtakes shout "MORE SPACE/THREE FEET PLEASE!"

The last time I had a civil and proper word I was quite civil and the lady apologised, however I get the feeling she just did that to get rid of me. She'd overtaken me into oncoming traffic on a left bend in the road, meaning I had to lean at an angle and swing to the curb to avoid being side swiped. I couldnt safely speak to her at the junction 15-20 seconds on, but was able to at the next set of lights to dismount and chat through the window.

The last time I had an uncivil word with a driver who nearly took me out in the wet, he got mouthy. His van on overtaking took the line straight across my path in the wet and deisel and I barely missed being wiped out. I pull up to his window (this was all for a couple of feet behind a car already waiting at the lights) and shout "why overtake, you nearly hurt me!"

"F***ing w***!!" Etc from him. I then quote his licence plate and remind him of his house number and road he lives on. He went white as a ghost. You have to be pretty stupid to do it in an easily recognisable van with a very recognisable plate.

My advice. If you're in London - use Roadsafe. If its really serious go to the Police Station direct. Get a helmet cam, you dont need to post on youtube, just wipe the card if nothing happens. Always add close calls to the stopSMIDSY database too.

If you want roadsafe/Police to see the evidence you can upload to Youtube and mark it as private so that only those provided with the link can view.

 

[gb155]

I have used the line

"Have you got kids ? (Yes)...Ok, how would you feel if someone pulled the manoeuvre on them, that you just did on me and put them into hospital or worse ?"


No idea if it "Works" but sure as hell has the "shock tacit" onside

 

[fossyant]

I had a right turner this morning, and apparently 'keep clear' means I should give way and stop. I don't generally stop to chat but the cow was spoiling for a fight. D-lock from now on.........

 

[John the Monkey]

If every motorist stopped in the middle of the road to discuss their near misses then the country would grind to a halt!

Which graphically illustrates why "Having a word" is pointless. If even cyclists accept the inattention and lack of consideration of motorists as part and parcel of using roads in the uk, what chance have you of changing anyone's mind?

 

[Blackandblue]

Personally I don't get the having a chat thing.... If you've actually had an accident then thats a different matter, but if it was a near miss then just carry on. If every motorist stopped in the middle of the road to discuss their near misses then the country would grind to a halt!

But isn't that the point? Why shouldn't motorists stop to discuss poor road behaviour in a sensible and civil manner? Wouldn't that improve general road behaviour?

Rhetorical questions really as I appreciate that most people don't seem capable of civil discussions on the road.

However, I do think there is a difference with cyclists when the consequences of poor driving can have significantly more damaging consequences for cyclists than other motorists.

 

[downfader]

Which graphically illustrates why "Having a word" is pointless. If even cyclists accept the inattention and lack of consideration of motorists as part and parcel of using roads in the uk, what chance have you of changing anyone's mind?

Which is why we need a third party, the Police, to actually deal with this. This is why Roadsafe and \Crackdown should be extended to other parts of the country and improved. If several different people are saying the same thing then the drive can be sent warning that its not on, adapt or be removed. However the chances of this happening are slim right now.

 

[mark barker]

B&B you're right, in a perfect world everyone would behave nicely to each other and if a situation were to arise all parties would sit and discuss the causes and learn from it. In reality you're going to get a motorist who just wants to get to his/her destination as quickly as possible as they've been sat in traffic for hours already and the day is getting worse by the minute. They're now confronted by a well meaning cyclist (who knows nothing about the road, afterall the motorist had to pass a test to drive, what did the cyclist do, visit halfords?) telling them that they don't know how to drive. These bleating cyclists, a bunch of drama queens the lot of them. You ride away feeling either happy that you've educated a motorist or mad because you've had a mouthful of abuse. The motorist drives off feeling either threatened by the confrontational cyclist or mad because their driving standards have been questioned, and they haven't had an accident in years!

I just don't see how anyone benefits, and the argument that cyclists are vulnerable doesn't work... You make that choice when you get on the bike.

 

[mickle]

Guns.

 

[mickle]

B&B you're right, in a perfect world everyone would behave nicely to each other and if a situation were to arise all parties would sit and discuss the causes and learn from it. In reality you're going to get a motorist who just wants to get to his/her destination as quickly as possible as they've been sat in traffic for hours already and the day is getting worse by the minute. They're now confronted by a well meaning cyclist (who knows nothing about the road, afterall the motorist had to pass a test to drive, what did the cyclist do, visit halfords?) telling them that they don't know how to drive. These bleating cyclists, a bunch of drama queens the lot of them. You ride away feeling either happy that you've educated a motorist or mad because you've had a mouthful of abuse. The motorist drives off feeling either threatened by the confrontational cyclist or mad because their driving standards have been questioned, and they haven't had an accident in years!

I just don't see how anyone benefits, and the argument that cyclists are vulnerable doesn't work... You make that choice when you get on the bike.

So wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

 

[mickle]

Danger
Monday, December 13th, 2010 by Mick Allan

A recent cycle industry report by Allegra Strategies concluded among other things that: ‘Safety is still the main barrier to cycling, especially among women’.

No surprise there then.

The recent heavy snowfall had a big effect on driver’s attitudes to one another. There were widespread break-outs of tolerance, patience and community spirit as motorists let each other out of junctions and even jumped from their cars to push ice stricken wheel spinners. Unfortunately this new found friendliness to fellow man didn’t seem to cross the barrier to users of other modes of travel.

Over the last couple of weeks ice and snow has been so thick on the ground that pavements have become unpassable. Pedestrians have been forced to walk in the street – as they are entitled to do. I’ve seen cars drive straight at pedestrians, forcing them to jump back on to the pavement! Not isolated incidents either, several times, and including elderly folk and children. We cyclists aren’t getting any extra seasonal goodwill from drivers either – Caz returns every day with tales of too-close passes by drivers, people zooming past with a roar of engine and cutting in too soon or tail-gating whilst revving their engines ! This to a woman towing a child trailer FFS.

I ‘get’ the idiocy of driving a car at sixty miles per hour with only an A4 sized view-hole on an icy motorway. I saw it with my own eyes the other night. I get that. It’s gross stupidity. I understand that people are stupid. What I don’t get is the punitive swerves, the ‘get off my road’ sheer aggression aimed at cyclists and peds when they ‘get in the way’ of drivers. It makes me want to take up arms against them, to chase them down and shoot the crap out of their car whilst they sit there cowering at the wheel. How [enter desired swearing word here] dare you treat me and mine like we don’t matter. How dare you make our roads a terrifying place to be. In your poxy Vauxhall Corsa. How dare you!

The simple fact that most drivers in the UK have forgotten – if they ever knew – is that cyclists (along with pedestrians and horse riders) are entitled to use the roads. Entitled. We don’t use the road with the permission of motorists (there’s the feeling sometimes that we’re only ‘allowed’ to use the roads when there are no cars around and by golly we better get out of the way when they arrive). Cyclist’s entitlement to use the road is enshrined in law. Motorists on the other hand require a driving licence which requires a test of competency and a knowledge of the laws pertaining to driving. But that’s not all, motorists must also be a certain age and be insured. Their car must conform to a set of rigourous safety standards, be registered and after a few years must undergo annual safety checks in the form of a MOT test. And motorists must pay Vehicle Excise Duty. It is this VED which confuses many. Motorists imagine that it is called Road Tax (it hasn’t been called Road Tax since the 1930s When Winston Churchill was minister for roads) and – crucially – that payment of this ‘tax’ gives them some kind of right to use the road along with the entitlement to lord it over more vulnerable road users.

It’s very simple: cyclists have a right to use the road, motorists have no such right. Motorists must obtain a licence. So we should be treated with the utmost repect then right? Sadly not. In many motorists eyes we are somewhere below dogs and above street furniture in the hierarchy of objects which should be steered clear of.

‘Safety is still the biggest barrier to cycling’. Actually as we are probably all aware – ‘The health benefits of cycling outweigh the dangers by a factor of twenty to one’, but how many more people would be pedalling if the roads were safer? There is only one source of danger to cyclists – aggressive or incompetent drivers of automotive carriages. Forget bike lanes and cycle paths, in fact forget cycling ‘infrastructure’ completely. We have a very well made and extensive network of cycling facilities; it’s called the roads. Removing the danger from our roads is a simple job and way cheaper than ghettoising cyclists into their own farcilities. Driver education combined with high quality punishments. Simple.

When I feel scared to let the kids walk to school because I see cars doing near twice the speed limit on an icy local road it’s clear that our car worshipping culture needs to be reined in. And reined in hard. 3000+ people are killed every year on our roads. It’s a massacre. An air crash every month.

No more Mr Nice Cyclist – We’ve waved bad drivers on with a cheery grimace for too long because we wanted an easy life and look where it got us. The next time a taxi cuts too close I’ll report the driver to the council department which issued his license to trade. The next time a suit in a Beemer swerves at aggressively me I will report the incident to the police. And the next time some twerp in a Range Rover threatens the safety of the people I love they’d better hope I haven’t gotten around to installing a Sidewinder heat-seeking missile to my bike.

They don’t have the right to scare us off the roads.

 

[mark barker]

So wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

Care to enlighten me?

 

[fossyant]

Guns.

Nah, heat seeking missile or bad a$$ Laser !!!

Ah, already mentioned in the article above. Or a big D-Lock.

 

[Ravenbait]

So wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

Possibly a sarcasm recognition failure?

Sam