Van driver is sacked by his firm after CCTV footage shows him swerving into a cyclist.

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BentMikey said:
It's not propaganda, it's fact. London is cycling paradise.

That's exactly why I had a black cab driver (on Blackfriars Bridge) actually overtake me on that dodgy right hand turn lane because he couldn't be bothered to wait or hang behind.I think I may have caught it on my new camera.So I pushed up to stop being bullied out of position.
 

BentMikey

Rider of Seolferwulf
Location
South London
Dodgy incidents have always happened, but they don't mean that overall cycling is more or less safe. Anecdote is not data, surely? Cycling has gone up massively, and the rate of incidents has gone down.

Just look at the huge change in the way bus drivers treat cyclists for one example. They are waaaay better now than they were in the first half of the noughties.
 
Dunno bus drivers wern't too much of a problem whereas cab drivers were as far as I remember.Yes get the odd bad bus driver now and again.I have been driven at twice in the last five years by motons though?

Attitudes are changing for the worse...I have noticed twice recently van drivers looking at me agressively...one of them being last week when he passed too close.I upset him somehow even though I didn't say anything.The second one I could see he was upset about something.Had a cab driver stop and "discuss" why I blew the horn at him and when I explained I thought he passed too close he didn't want to listen.A lot of this stuff is because of close passes or the motorist being held up.That incident at Bank being a prime example with the cabbie and also the boy racers.The BMW coming after me at Whitechapel.He passed too close as well.

Then when we get onto mobile phones...they cause lack of concentration and bad positioning from moton.That was the other incident at Blackfriars when that van came after me and he almost ran me off the road...because I wasn't happy he was using his phone and he was definetly a danger at the time because he was in the wrong lane.
 
Location
Midlands
BentMikey said:
Dodgy incidents have always happened, but they don't mean that overall cycling is more or less safe. Anecdote is not data, surely? Cycling has gone up massively, and the rate of incidents has gone down.

Just look at the huge change in the way bus drivers treat cyclists for one example. They are waaaay better now than they were in the first half of the noughties.
i have always liked cycling in London - In the early 80s I lived in Fulham and cycled to work in Blackfriars - often would take a longer route home if there was something on - since then I have only been a visitor but I always bring a bike with me to get about
 
psmiffy said:
i have always liked cycling in London - In the early 80s I lived in Fulham and cycled to work in Blackfriars - often would take a longer route home if there was something on - since then I have only been a visitor but I always bring a bike with me to get about


I think attitudes to cyclists are worse now...in fact I have noticed it quite a bit.Also RLJing is getting out of control with cars.I never agreed with BM beforehand on this but I have noiticed it more and more on my early morning commutes.Even had a bus at Stratford recently which was stopped at a red just suddenly go.

Tinuts is right...It seems some people think this is a computer game.
 
Location
Midlands
hackbike 666 said:
I think attitudes to cyclists are worse now...in fact I have noticed it quite a bit.Also RLJing is getting out of control with cars.I never agreed with BM beforehand on this but I have noiticed it more and more on my early morning commutes.Even had a bus at Stratford recently which was stopped at a red just suddenly go.

Tinuts is right...It seems some people think this is a computer game.
I think that is hardly suprising - one of the things about cycling in London in the 80s was there was not a huge number of cyclists about - one of the things I have noticed on my visits over the last couple of the years is that there are more cyclists of which the vast majority are nice and predictable - however I find myself as a cyclist having to to keep a weather eye for the the nutters on bikes
 
The biggest city I've cycled regularly in is Dublin followed by Edinburgh (which isn't that big really), so its maybe not a valid observation. I found in general with more cyclists there is a critical mass and things are safer on average, I found folk were more aware in Dublin because of the larger numbers of cyclists. Unfortunately the small bunch of idiots who are liable to get fustrated, do so more with more traffic and you get more extreme incidents in the bigger city.
 
Location
Midlands
HLaB said:
The biggest city I've cycled regularly in is Dublin followed by Edinburgh (which isn't that big really), so its maybe not a valid observation. I found in general with more cyclists there is a critical mass and things are safer on average, I found folk were more aware in Dublin because of the larger numbers of cyclists. Unfortunately the small bunch of idiots who are liable to get fustrated, do so more with more traffic and you get more extreme incidents in the bigger city.

True to some extent - I have cycled in many of the biggest cities in Europe - but I find the thing that seperates them from what I have seen a significant minority getting up to in London is the disipline of the cyclists (not to say that there are no rljs etc in those countries but they are an insignificant minority) -

My first visit to Copenhagen was marred initially by me not understanding the unwritten rules - I soon learnt the signal for "I am stopping" after getting a few mouthfulls from the locals
 

Crankarm

Guru
Location
Nr Cambridge
BentMikey said:
Dodgy incidents have always happened, but they don't mean that overall cycling is more or less safe. Anecdote is not data, surely? Cycling has gone up massively, and the rate of incidents has gone down.

Just look at the huge change in the way bus drivers treat cyclists for one example. They are waaaay better now than they were in the first half of the noughties.

The London you cycle in must be in a parallel universe as it doesn't match mine or others' experiences.
 

Dan B

Disengaged member
hackbike 666 said:
Then when we get onto mobile phones...they cause lack of concentration and bad positioning from moton.That was the other incident at Blackfriars when that van came after me and he almost ran me off the road...because I wasn't happy he was using his phone and he was definetly a danger at the time because he was in the wrong lane.
How could he tell you weren't happy he was using his phone? Most phone-using drivers are not paying enough attention to pick up on such subtle cues as facial expression of other road users.
 

Origamist

Legendary Member
coruskate said:
How could he tell you weren't happy he was using his phone? Most phone-using drivers are not paying enough attention to pick up on such subtle cues as facial expression of other road users.

Yep, this morning I looked behind me at a car that was very close to my rear wheel and the driver was looking down at her phone which was in her lap and texting. She passed me pretty close. The same woman, 10m up the road then tailgated Gaz of this parish who signalled to her to back off!
 
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