What to do if rear ended?

[Dan B]

*Not strictly true, hand signals can be used but they may not be understood.

Well, and unless you have your brake levers the "wrong" way around, you're unlikely to achieve an abrupt stop anyway using only the back brake and with one hand on the bars

 

[Matthew_T]

I agree that when being tailgated, unless you have to, you shouldnt come to an abrupt stop.

I have seen your most recent vid of being agressively tailgated Gaz, and that is what would most likely happen. You didnt stop, you just carried on (with some words of advice to the driver). Swerving around would probably send the signal that you are not very confident of being tailgated to the driver.

 

[Gbola]

I have been thinking about this situation for a while. Imagine this:

You are approaching a set of traffic lights and they turn to amber. You believe you can stop before them so you apply your brakes and stop quite abruptly.
Unfortunately a vehicle behind you was too close/approaching you, and thought you were going to chance the lights. They cannot stop in time and gently bump your rear wheel.
You turn around and look at the driver. They are saying sorry/shouting at you.

What should you do in either situation? What is your first port of call?

Do you place your bike on the floor and try to reason with the driver and deal with the situation yourself? Or immediately call the police?

It is only a foolish driver that would assume a cyclist would be fast enough for both of them to beat the amber of tarffic light

 

[ianrauk]

 

[brokenflipflop]

like this...

Gaz. I just wasted 10 minutes of my life watching that. I was waiting for you to punch his lights out.....or some kind of aggro......or a £1500 insurance pay out in the final credits. You even apologised in text saying something along the lines "flippin' heck, I'm annoyed, I don't want to talk to you anymore". £30 to replace your SKS mudguard !! Dude, come on.

 

[gaz]

Gaz. I just wasted 10 minutes of my life watching that. I was waiting for you to punch his lights out.....or some kind of aggro......or a £1500 insurance pay out in the final credits. You even apologised in text saying something along the lines "flippin' heck, I'm annoyed, I don't want to talk to you anymore". £30 to replace your SKS mudguard !! Dude, come on.

It wasn't me :P

 

[Bicycle]

like this...

So there's the answer folks. How to deal with being rear-ended:
Show no grace, no charm and no understanding. Take no account of the age of the other road user and be verbally fairly aggressive throughout.
I love the motorist being told how many miles the cyclist rides every year. I think they do a Blue Peter Badge for that.
When he offers to pay for the damage (although quite clearly flustered and a little upset) he is told "You will be, whether you want to or not". He'd already said he would.
The counter-cry will be that he is in a metal box, protected from.. etc etc... Of which the flipside is, he is an aged man who was thrown by having a bicycle in front of him. He doesn't seem to have been much of a driver, but the rant was undignified and approaching the puerile.
It's a bicycle; it was a bump; life goes on. I'm still chortling at the unleashed rage in all this.

(I've edited out a comment: I'd thought this was Gaz's own video - most of which I rather like - and had written something questioning his attitude in this clip. Having read the thread properly, I see it wasn't him. I still like his stuff. Apologies Gaz if it was read before my edit.)

 

[CopperCyclist]

If you are really, really, really worried about it, there's an app for the iPhone (probably other phones too) that gives you a bicycle brake light. It uses your gps to sense when you are slowing down, and lights the brake reactively.

I've never tried it, don't want it, simply mention it purely as it seems relevant!

 

[gaz]

If you are really, really, really worried about it, there's an app for the iPhone (probably other phones too) that gives you a bicycle brake light. It uses your gps to sense when you are slowing down, and lights the brake reactively.

I've never tried it, don't want it, simply mention it purely as it seems relevant!

It probably doesn't use GPS to work out when you are slowing down. More than likely it uses the accelerometer to work out when you are slowing down. There are a few lights out there which do this already.

 

[Matthew_T]

There are a few lights out there which do this already.

Something like these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eurolight-Cycle-Indicator-Brakelight-Indicators/dp/B0017TNLZE ?

 

[Matthew_T]

Brake lights are always going to be useless. Look at indicators, there are a few out at the moment but we are unlikely to be using them on every bike in the country as they are relatively new to the market. Brake lights havent even got out of the experiments chamber yet.

Lights are not what I am looking for. We have enough of a problem slowing down normally with people behind us.

The guy in the video brought the rear end on himself as he stopped. He could see a car was right behind him, beeping agressively. He just encouraged a collision to happen.

 

[gaz]

Something like these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eurolight-Cycle-Indicator-Brakelight-Indicators/dp/B0017TNLZE ?

nah, that light is turned on and off by a button.

 

[Dan B]

I'm sure you could put an auto-activated brake light together relatively simply and cheaply using a mercury tilt switch. It might need some careful calibration so it doesn't activate on steep downhills, though,

 

[Mugshot]

[QUOTE 1644312, member: 3143"]Correct Fucking OAP driving c*** - get your eyes tested before you kill someone. (Good enough for you?)[/quote]

 

[classic33]

Brake lights are always going to be useless. Look at indicators, there are a few out at the moment but we are unlikely to be using them on every bike in the country as they are relatively new to the market. Brake lights havent even got out of the experiments chamber yet.

Lights are not what I am looking for. We have enough of a problem slowing down normally with people behind us.

The guy in the video brought the rear end on himself as he stopped. He could see a car was right behind him, beeping agressively. He just encouraged a collision to happen.

Saw my first set intended for a pedal cycle 25 years ago, hardly new to the market. Problem with them lies with the fact that they are both close together.