Oh. My. God! Who's to blame?

[jugglingphil]

I'm another who blames the cyclist.

I've watched it back after reading Marinyork's comments about bus and pickup. I do know what Marinyork is saying, positioning and lane discipline are important, but not sure I agree. Road positioning on pickup isn't bad. Perhaps the pickup is partly to blame for driving an unnecessarily large vehicle in town. The bus does move slightly to the right/middle of of lane, but as we can't see (and neither can fakenger) what is happening to the front-left of the bus. It looks to me that the bus is moving out slightly to avoid traveling in the cycle lane which starts again after the junction. Indicating for such small road positional change is likely to confuse other users at the junction.

The cyclist must take into account the road layout and traffic and can not expect to travel at full-speed. Why not cruise up behind the bus and taxi, stay in the bus/cycle lane, would have only been slowed down by a few seconds.

 

[BentMikey]

Heated trifle is only for crazy people, after all...

 

[Asprilla]

the link is not if he's indulging in SCR it's if he's indulging in risk taking to shorten his journey time, which I think he clearly is. I'm sure you are an exemplary example of playing SCR strictly by the rules and only indulging when it's safe to do so. But surely you can see there might be a link between the existence of SCR and increased risk taking?

Of course there might be a link between scr and increased risk taking, but (whisper it) there may also be a link between cycling and increased risk taking. Generally though, there isn't. SCR is more to do with stopping yourself from pootling when there is no need to; you see a cyclist in the distance and you try to cycle quicker than them in order to give yourself a target. Anyone who has any visions of anything akin to an actual race is deluding themselves; that's why it's called 'silly'.

That guy was just riding like a twonk. I'm willing to bet that if there hadn't been another cyclist for 100 miles the accident still would have taken place.

 

[Moodyman]

Nice bike, shame about the cyclist

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Nice bike, shame about the cyclist

Nah, it's knackered. Wants a new front wheel at least.

 

[HLaB]

Nah, it's knackered. Wants a new front wheel at least.

The brakes are good though

 

[Norm]

Might want a new saddle as well, or at least a thorough clean of the one which is on it.

 

[slowmotion]

Sorry, but what is this "SCR" of which you speak?

 

[LosingFocus]

Sorry, but what is this "SCR" of which you speak?

I think its "Silly Commuter Racing". I had to Google it earlier too.

 

[slowmotion]

I think its "Silly Commuter Racing". I had to Google it earlier too.

Aha! Thanks LF.

 

[Jezston]

It does make you think though, had it been a tragic outcome and had there been no video of the incident....what would people be saying?

There would have been witnesses stating some guy rode up between a moving bus and pickup truck. Details would have emerged that he was riding a brakeless fixie. Perhaps not immediately, but eventually the same conclusions would have been drawn I expect.

 

[Tynan]

is there anyone not blaming the cylclist, someone's been watching that London Calling vid too many time I suspect

what a bloody mong, I'd have said that about him cutting to the outside just prior too with no idea what was coming into that channel from either direction

see riders like that regular going at all sorts of speeds, he was just going quick enough to leave himself no margin of error at all

 

[marinyork]

I'm baffled as to why you think the pickup truck was positioned poorly. He was turning right, he'd positioned his vehicle in the right hand lane with the indicator on. What, incidentally, is the "problem ahead" that the pickup driver should be able to see? The only problem here comes charging in from behind, going for a gap which was too small to begin with and was only ever going to get smaller. I've explained why I think the bus was doing nothing wrong above, but I'd be interested to hear what this "virtual lane" is that you keep mentioning.
As for the bit I've put in bold ... well, no it isn't. And the only person doing that here was the cyclist.

We have a classic junction with a pinch point so it's important to be as far over to the right as is possible, it's not a very hard concept to understand. There are junctions up and down the land like this. People get it slightly wrong all the time and a lot of the time it amounts to nothing. Other times there are a lot of near misses (see it often enough). The pick up truck should have been slightly further forward and definitely slightly further to the right. It's difficult to get right, we don't know why he was positioned like that. He did have his indicator on, unlike the bus, which is why I gave him 10% blame. He obviously wasn't overtaking anything or undertaking anything. It seems a fair assessment of the portion. 10% is not very responsible.

The bus was both undertaking the taxi and cyclist who collided and trying to overtake other cyclists. I know why the bus driver did what he did, and he knew a cycle lane started on the other side of the junction and 2 standard lanes become one so he'd have to move further over to the right. It still counts as an overtaking manoeuvre and a change of course though and he is partially to blame. That he waited a few seconds and did it at low speed (sensible as a lot to take in at the junction) I have assigned 25% to the driver in contrast to the cyclist whose manoeuvre is technically nowhere near as bad as people are making out (was in lane going into the junction if you look carefully) was doing it at such a speed he had about 2s to assess whether some slightly daft bus driver pulling out rather shoddily in a junction was going to close in on the gap. If the cyclist had been where he was about the 12s mark for a few seconds, then obviously it would even more heavily be the bus driver's fault. I've given a bit of the benefit of the doubt to the bus driver as to his course and where the virtual lanes/lines would be.

You haven't explained why you think the bus did nothing wrong, you just said so by reference to the cyclist. Well yes that's fine, but I'm not very interested in trivial solutions, even more so when they are actively so disagreeing with someone else.

Petty jealousy about my not-very-secret mod status will get you nowhere.

It's not jealously (certainly not interested in being a moderator with the unpleasant cafe clique that runs this place), it's you being rumbled for your bad behaviour on a number of occasions. I know it's not secret, it's the way you flaunt it around, misbehave and then run for cover when your bad behaviour gets rumbled that irritates people. It's a double standard, as a moderator you should behave yourself and have posts of the highest intellectual standard and manners way above everyone else. It's normally in threads like this where you 'avoid conflict'. If you think I'm singling you out unfairly I've said exactly the same of TheDoctor and Td1nka when they've misbehaved and Arch and even User, it's you that tends to do it on commuting threads though (User used to be a naughty boy).

P.S. thank you for the strawman and colourful language.

 

[dellzeqq]

is there anyone not blaming the cylclist, someone's been watching that London Calling vid too many time I suspect

what a bloody mong, I'd have said that about him cutting to the outside just prior too with no idea what was coming into that channel from either direction

see riders like that regular going at all sorts of speeds, he was just going quick enough to leave himself no margin of error at all

and you've never done this? Never shot through between two buses as the light turned green?

I recall getting a tow from a bus on Brixton Road and using the speed to attempt an undertake on the truck to my right. Then, all of a sudden, the bus driver stopped at a bus stop! WTF was the man on - didn't he realise that he was serving a Higher Purpose? Abort undertake, brake like crazy, big, big skid, hit back of bus, rotate forward and give myself a heck of a bang on my (helmeted) head.

Now, all I'm saying is that I would rather have had that happen than not. I would rather have gone over the top of a cab travelling at right angles to me in Pimlico (the traffic light was out) than not. It's all part of that happy library of cycling memories, including sensational slaloming downhills, that will warm the cockles of my heart if I ever get to my old age. I might just miss out on the busted hip, but, then again, I was racing a man half my age and winning.....

Maybe, Tynan, you've never done this stuff and don't fancy giving it a try. Fair enough - you're a better, more sobersided man than I. But I don't intend changing........(other than when leading extremely respectable rides, of course)

 

[Red Light]

It does make you think though, had it been a tragic outcome and had there been no video of the incident....what would people be saying?
.

"A helmet would have saved his life" ?