Just wanting to really bang home the point. If I had been riding slower, and hadn't been in primary, then I'm 99% sure that one of those cars lined up behind my bike (as seen in the video immediately after the collision) would've hit the lad instead of me, as they'd have overtaken me. They would've been travelling 20% faster, and whereas I travelled only a metre or so before I came to a rather inelegant stop on the road, a car would've travelled.....23 metres (that's thinking and braking distance). Maybe the kid would've been flung over the bonnet, maybe he'd have been thrown to the side, maybe he'd have gone under the car, who knows. All I know is that it's lucky I didn't set off from work 30 seconds later.
Hindsight has been mentioned (or implied) dozens of times in this thread, but I think the majority of posters have been honest to admit that this would have been very difficult (but I'm not saying impossible) to avoid. Maybe, just maybe on a different day, I wouldn't have had a line of cars behind me to watch, or a side road coming up on the right (where cars regularly pull out in front of me) and maybe I would've pre-empted the lad swerving out into the road at the last second, but I doubt it. My human brain is designed primarily to keep it's host safe, and therefore focuses on the most imminent danger. Drivers brains are the same, and that's why they're more likely to pull out on a cyclist.....we're just not a threat!
I'm not saying that the way the brain works is ideal in this day and age, but it's difficult to override millions of years of evolution. Of course, now that I've had this new experience knocked (almost literally) into my human brain, next time maybe I'll be focused on the very slight possibility of a rider suddenly swerving across me without any indication.......I just hope that me being focused on that doesn't mean that I miss the car pulling out of the side road......it's all a balancing act.
You might be right about how it might have happened had you been riding more slowly... but then you might be wrong. It's butterfly-flapping-its-wings-in-South-America stuff. Stowie thinks a 20mph limit wouldn't have made a difference, but I disagree. Not because I imagine that you're obliged to abide by it, but because lower traffic speeds overall would change the entire character of the road, including the speed you feel pressured to maintain whilst keeping would-be overtakers at bay.