Was this bus driver bad?

[domtyler]

Dnftt

 

[col]

Dnftt

What does this mean?

Just clicked

 

[domtyler]

What does this mean?

Try Google col, you're being a lazy ****er!!

 

[magnatom]

Whether the bus driver saw the bicycle or not before moving is irrelevent; the fact is that the cyclist was there so the bus driver was in error. Its that simple. If the bus driver then, on spotting that she should not have been moving out was to acknowledge that then fine. If the bus driver was then to do the safe thing and stop, then fine. What the bus driver did was continue to try to out-accelerate a bike that was half way around when she spotted the cyclist.

None of us know why the bike went past the bus, we can't know, but we do know that there are valid reasons for doing so.

(I can't believe I am being drawn back in )

You are wrong here cab!! You cannot be looking everywhere all of the time. The driver checked that it was safe to pull out at the start of the manouver and then began the to move off. Only then did the cyclist appear.

It is possible that the driver missed the cyclist, yes. It is equally possible that the cyclist came from an unexpected angle. Doesn't matter at this stage. The driver has to react as best they determine to avoid an accident. There are numerous occasions where it is best to continue (or sometimes accelerate) out of the way to avoid an accident. It is entirely possible that this was such an occasion.

Can you Cab say that on this occasion that continuing on was not the best course of action? Can you? No you can't because you weren't there and so we will never know.

As a cyclist I have avoided collisions by accelerating away from cars who have started to pull out on me. In fact if memory serves me correctly this is suggested as an escape route in cyclecraft.

So for all you know this was the best course of action in this situation.

Now I can't tell you what to do (your a big boy I'm sure..... oo-er) but I'd suggest dropping it. You are no longer flogging a dead horse as the horse has now decomposed and been covered by several layers of sedement. In fact I am sure it is well on its way to becoming a fossil, which future cultures will find and wonder at why a horse would have some many flogging marks on it's bones.

 

[col]

Try Google col, you're being a lazy ****er!!

I edited while you sent,
And your right,im being a lazy loafer today,off work.

 

[Cab]

(I can't believe I am being drawn back in )

You are wrong here cab!! You cannot be looking everywhere all of the time. The driver checked that it was safe to pull out at the start of the manouver and then began the to move off. Only then did the cyclist appear.

Or, in other words, there was a cyclist approaching to pass the bus and the bus driver didn't see the cyclist. Simple mistake that anyone can make because, as you say, we're not perfect, we don't have all round vision especially in a big vehicle. I wouldn't rush to condemn anyone for making a mistake like that, its an innocent error, but I would ask that anyone out on the roads be willing to acknowledge such a mishap, and to at the very least not compound that error.

It is possible that the driver missed the cyclist, yes. It is equally possible that the cyclist came from an unexpected angle. Doesn't matter at this stage. The driver has to react as best they determine to avoid an accident. There are numerous occasions where it is best to continue (or sometimes accelerate) out of the way to avoid an accident. It is entirely possible that this was such an occasion.

The bus driver came out in such a way as to impede the traffic. Mistake. Genuine error, forgiveable, but you have to accept when you've made a mistake if you're going to learn from it.

According to Nethalus the cyclist continued, so the bike is now trying to overtake the bus. Presumably thats because the cyclist doesn't see where else to go, but we can't know whats happening. Now, if you check the highway code:
"168
Being overtaken. If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass. Speeding up or driving unpredictably while someone is overtaking you is dangerous. Drop back to maintain a two-second gap if someone overtakes and pulls into the gap in front of you."

Clearly the correct course of action is to allow the other guy past; its easy to get stubborn and decide that the other bloke shouldn't be going past you so you're not going to let them, and as a cyclist we can easily be tempted to do so. But make no mistake, if theres an accident caused by you accelerating to stop someone legally trying to overtake then you can't claim to be entirely without blame.

So whether or not the cyclist should have gone past the bus (we all agree that you should let a bus out where its safe and appropriate), we can say that the bus driver made two clear errors.

Can you Cab say that on this occasion that continuing on was not the best course of action? Can you? No you can't because you weren't there and so we will never know.

So, you're overtaking a bus and it has started to pull out. You do the right thing and alert the bus driver to your presence. Under what circumstances is it appropriate for the bus to continue to pull out into the road space you're occupying? I ask because, genuinely, I can't construct any set of circumstances where such behaviour is appropriate. In this scenario it no longer matters whether the cyclist was right or not to go past the bus (might have been, might not have been), because either way you've got a bus trying to out-accelrate a bike that has started to legally go past.

As a cyclist I have avoided collisions by accelerating away from cars who have started to pull out on me. In fact if memory serves me correctly this is suggested as an escape route in cyclecraft.

Yep, as an emergency escape out accelerating trouble can help. But in an analogous situation, if you're pulling out in to traffic and make a car swerve, it isn't then appropriate to keep going to keep the car swerving outside you. If you're pulling out from a junction or a layby and you've missed a car, you don't keep accelerating out in front of it, you back off and let it go if you can. To do otherwise, as Nethalus did, is dangerous and directly against the advice in the highway code.

So for all you know this was the best course of action in this situation.

Now I can't tell you what to do (your a big boy I'm sure..... oo-er) but I'd suggest dropping it. You are no longer flogging a dead horse as the horse has now decomposed and been covered by several layers of sedement. In fact I am sure it is well on its way to becoming a fossil, which future cultures will find and wonder at why a horse would have some many flogging marks on it's bones.

As far as I can see, there are still a few people here who just don't get why Nethalus was in the wrong. I'd be happy to let this lie, but I'd rather let it lie when people demonstrably 'get' what happened here. It appears to me that some contributors do not.

 

[nethalus]

You're younger than I thought.

Well still a few years to go before I reach the big 40, but like I say it's only a few and getting fewer

 

[domtyler]

Can I suggest that everyone else puts Cab on their ignore list? He may get the message then.

 

[col]

Can I suggest that everyone else puts Cab on their ignore list? He may get the message then.

It wouldnt be much fun thenThe word hole,and digging,springs to mind

 

[magnatom]

Can I suggest that everyone else puts Cab on their ignore list? He may get the message then.

I won't do that, cab often does have valid points to make.

Cab I cannot be bothered replying any more. Not that I couldn't refute what you are saying, believe me I could, but there is just no point. You don't listen. You make a good act of listening but you don't. You have made your mind up: cyclist good, bus driver bad. You would continue to justify this until you went blue in the face. So there is no point arguing.

I'd tell you to chill, but you would tell me you were. Maybe you are just addicted to writing long posts. Who knows?

I'm out of this one for good now. Anyone else coming?

 

[nethalus]

I dunno, I guess I just feel that people who can't see that they've made a mistake that could endanger others and then deal with that reasonably have no business being in control of any vehicle. Admittedly that would mean that something like a third of all road users would be out of action...

Cab is just adding his own made up things really and then saying that I did this and I did that. He wasn't even there and is making assumptions like I pulled into the cyclist space, which I didn't as they were not there when I started rolling. Mind you he won't take a blind bit of notice of anything I say and will just carry on making up things and ranting about it. It's obvious he don't like me and and wants to make it sound like I'm a nasty horrible bus driver. Oh well that's his opinion and there's nowt I can do to change it.
Anyway since that event happened, and it was a while ago now, I can say that other meetings with cyclists have been a lot happier situations, where we have waved thanks at each other and shown each other respect. The only bad thing that happened was when we had some serious wind a few weeks back. Had a cyclist in front of me who was being seriously buffeted about. I was staying behind him because I wanted to turn left at an up comming junction. A woman in a car wanted to turn right out of the junction. She sees my bus, but she somehow misses the hiviz, day-glow lycra wearing cyclist who's bike has lights for and aft. She pulled out on the poor sod making him wobble!

 

[magnatom]

Cab is just adding his own made up things really and then saying that I did this and I did that. He wasn't even there and is making assumptions like I pulled into the cyclist space, which I didn't as they were not there when I started rolling. Mind you he won't take a blind bit of notice of anything I say and will just carry on making up things and ranting about it. It's obvious he don't like me and and wants to make it sound like I'm a nasty horrible bus driver. Oh well that's his opinion and there's nowt I can do to change it.
Anyway since that event happened, and it was a while ago now, I can say that other meetings with cyclists have been a lot happier situations, where we have waved thanks at each other and shown each other respect. The only bad thing that happened was when we had some serious wind a few weeks back. Had a cyclist in front of me who was being seriously buffeted about. I was staying behind him because I wanted to turn left at an up comming junction. A woman in a car wanted to turn right out of the junction. She sees my bus, but she somehow misses the hiviz, day-glow lycra wearing cyclist who's bike has lights for and aft. She pulled out on the poor sod making him wobble!

Nethalus,

It isn't personal. Cab just goes off on these little tirades every once in a while. It's not just you.

As for the cyclist in front of you..... that's outrageous. Don't you realise that by being in the same country as him you contributed to this incident. Shame on you....


(oops I added more to the thread! But I was replying to nethalus honest!!)

 

[BentMikey]

Let's be fair, quite a few of Cab's posts are rather good, but once in a while he gets drawn into a cycle of destructive behavior, and then you get topics like this one. Try and learn from it, Cab, if it were me I'd want someone telling me.

I'm with you Magnatom, outta here.

 

[tdr1nka]

I couldn't ig Cab,

*thinks*

'Noooobody expects the Cambridge Cycling Inquisition'

I won't get to see him dig himself down the molten core of the earth!

Who bets he puts model cars on the level crossing of his train set, just to watch them crash?

T x

 

[tdr1nka]

Forgive my last post, it was most unecessary.

T x