What Chance Do Cyclists Have Of Being Seen When...

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BSRU

A Human Being
Location
Swindon
idiots like the one I saw yesterday are in control of a metal box.

A stopped car pulls onto a RAB causing the driver of a car on the RAB to perform an emergency stop.
The car which had to perform the emergency stop was a police car with headlights flashing, blue lights on and siren wailing.
 

Scilly Suffolk

Über Member
You wouldn't credit the number of times I've pulled over to allow "blues & twos" to pass, only for the vehicles behind to take the opportunity to overtake...
 
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BSRU

BSRU

A Human Being
Location
Swindon
You wouldn't credit the number of times I've pulled over to allow "blues & twos" to pass, only for the vehicles behind to take the opportunity to overtake...
I've also seen drivers tailgate ambulances/fire engines to bypass the traffic that has stopped and moved out of the way.
 

Bicycle

Guest
You wouldn't credit the number of times I've pulled over to allow "blues & twos" to pass, only for the vehicles behind to take the opportunity to overtake...

I wear two hats on this one (to my shame).

When I see a car do this, I get a little huffy. It is rude, selfish, inconsiderate and can be dangerous.

When a bicycle or motorcycle does it in heavy traffic, I can see why they do and I find it hard to condemn.

It is risky, because road users often pull quickly back into the traffic as soon as an emergency vehicle has passed, so anything on two wheels is taking something of a risk - and almost certainly for close to zero net gain in journey time. You can't follow EVs across red lights.

Why the shame? Because when I was a motorcycle courier in the 80s I used to whip into the slipstream of passing emergency vehicles on a regular basis. In those days the greatest danger in doing so was the likelihood that other couriers would do likewise without checking who was already there.

I do not do it now and would never have done it on four wheels. Even in my youth I had a modicum of common sense and decency.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
idiots like the one I saw yesterday are in control of a metal box.

A stopped car pulls onto a RAB causing the driver of a car on the RAB to perform an emergency stop.
The car which had to perform the emergency stop was a police car with headlights flashing, blue lights on and siren wailing.

I once pulled over to the kerb (on my bike) because I had heard a siren, and could tell, even though I couldn't see yet, that the vehicle (a paramedic first responce car it turned out) was coming the other way, and would be overtaking the line of traffic on the other side of the road. I was promptly overtaken by the car behind, whose driver was clearly too coccooned to hear the siren. She ended up more or less face to face with the paramedic car (which was doing just what I predicted), which had to slow while she carried on past it.

I caught her at the lights (about 10 yards further on, and on red), and asked through her open passenger window, why she'd overtaken me when I'd pulled over for the ambulance. "What ambulance?" she said. "That once that just had to slow down for you". "I didn't see it". I suggested she get her eyes tested, and she told me to "F*** off".

I'm a great believer in karma. I hope she has to wait extra long for an ambulance some day, because some other dozy idiot couldn't be arsed to get out the way. Probably when her pent up rage causes her ulcer to burst.
 
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