My life flashed before my eyes!!

pete236

Well, closest shave I've ever had happened tonight!!

Nice smooth slightly downhill road, so doing an easy 20mph. Row of parked cars on the right (always there) with me in Primary, just under 2feet from the kerb.
Car coming the other way and sees a cyclist, keeps coming - nothing wrong with that, plenty of room for us, just not for two cars.
Girl in the car behind pulls round me, gets alongside then realises theres a car there already. Panics, pulls hard over to the left and neatly kerbs her left front wheel, leaving me no-where to go! Thank God I can bunnyhop fairly high so hopped onto the pavement - luckily no pedestrians! She obviously thought she had knocked me off as she was looking all round behind her. Caught her eye and shouted, with a middle finger up. Chased her up the road but sped limits don't apply to her so no way I could keep up :evil: Next time I see that dark red VW Golf around here I'll have a little word. Nice and polite , but would like to point out the error of her ways.
Pity really, she was quite pretty! (Trust me to notice that!)

Apart from that it was a good ride - Maidenhead - Langley, both ways in under 40 mins!

redddraggon

Pete236 wrote:

with me in Primary, just under 2feet from the kerb.

That's not primary, no where near, more like riding in the gutter.

pete236

Really? :oops: Ok, guess I was in the gutter then! Its a good foor to the right of the double yellows there - in the centre of the left-hand wheel track of a car. Guess I got my ideas of primary mixed up then!

redddraggon

Primary is dead centre of the lane, as if you are car. Makes other vehicles move into the other lane to pass you.

I think if you are in the tyres tracks, that's secondary?

skyway

sounds like in this instance it wouldn't have made any diff where you were on the road.

This type of impatient inconsiderate driving makes my blood boil......make me pres and I'll ensure all women are limited to bond bugs in daylight hours only

prj45

Pete236 wrote:

Pity really, she was quite pretty! (Trust me to notice that!)

I know it's heat of the moment stuff and all that, but I find refraining from immeadiate abuse is always the best policy.

I've even chatted to drivers before who have gone away promising to slow down after scares.

prj45

Pete236 wrote:

Really? :oops: Ok, guess I was in the gutter then! Its a good foor to the right of the double yellows there - in the centre of the left-hand wheel track of a car. Guess I got my ideas of primary mixed up then!

I thought that too.

Not according to this though, primary is center of lane: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling

pete236

Ah well, we live and learn! I guess I spend most of the time in Secondary - there are a few stretches of road where the limit is 50 and its fairly wide, so to take the real primary would hold drivers up. In slow traffic I stick to the middle. In this case I plain wasn't expecting anything and I guess I got complacent! Its said that we learn something new everyday - guess I just have!
Cheers

nwallace

skyway wrote:

sounds like in this instance it wouldn't have made any diff where you were on the road.

This type of impatient inconsiderate driving makes my blood boil......make me pres and I'll ensure all women are limited to bond bugs in daylight hours only

They only work as ramps when they are coming head on and you can get a good hop in before it though.

In case anyone is wondering what either of us are on about

pete236

There was one bloke in a Porsche something or other - I did think that it had a rather nice shaped back end for a launch ramp!

spen666

skyway wrote:

sounds like in this instance it wouldn't have made any diff where you were on the road.
This type of impatient inconsiderate driving makes my blood boil......make me pres and I'll ensure all women are limited to bond bugs in daylight hours only

nonsense

If OP had been in primary position, then female would not have been able to pull out so easily and the incident would have probably been avoided

il_principe

I had a close call last night, filtering on the far right of the road approaching a T junction and turning right. I was alongside a large silver SUV who was also indicating right but stuck in a queue of traffic turning left. Evidently he couldn't be bothered to wait so he just pulled out onto the wrongside of the road with me alongside him! I managed to stay upright and banged furiously on his window, the to$$er clearly had not looked at all. If I had been approaching him and not been alongside it could have been very nasty, luckily as he turned into me i was able to use his car as support and stay on. Anyway to make things worse I was so busy looking over my shoulder and screaming at him that I sailed straight through the red light and across 4 lanes of very busy London road, luckily the lights had only just changed so it was traffic free, but that scared me more than the bloke driving into me did. Lesson learnt though, if you do need to remonstrate with idiots, make sure you stop moving before you do!

TheFoolio888

Must have been something about yesterday that bought all the tossers out.

I was on my normal route home...on a quiet side street, just left of the white line signalling to turn right into an even quieter side street. Looked behind me just before turning and saw some c*** overtaking me on the right at about 30mph! :shock:

Even more rediculous than the speed, and that fact he was attempting the maneuvour at all, was that there was plenty of room on my left for him to pass me!!!

If I hadn't looked I'd have been dead now... :evil: :evil: :evil:



ps...sorry for the swearing.... :oops:

DavidTQ

Yesterday I met a driver of the worst type Ive got him on camera but so far still too angry to look back and see how well it caught his voice as he told me how I should have been cycling in the cycle lane (there wasnt one) that I was too far over - there was two lanes I was in primary in the first, That it was illegal to drive that slowly in a car so why did I do it on a bike 25mph in a 30 limit... and allsorts of other goodness, muppet first class. I think I know where he works as well, but really want too cool down before I do anything silly. I hate being angry and every time I think about the pillock I get angry... :evil:

BentMikey

redddraggon wrote:

Primary is dead centre of the lane, as if you are car. Makes other vehicles move into the other lane to pass you.

I think if you are in the tyres tracks, that's secondary?

Rather than just centre of the lane, it's centre of the flow of traffic, as that doesn't always correspond with the lane.

orv

These days I just let it all wash by.... and I'm soo much more happy and relaxed. although recently I *did* have a minor altercation with a taxi driver...

cycling along the cycle lane.. a black cab pulls in just up ahead of me in the lane to pick up a fare, I glance over my shoulder to check there's nothing right on me, there was another cab further back but plenty of room all around so I pull out and pass the cab. as I pull back in other cab has pulled along side and with his window down shouts a torrent of verbal abuse including that I should use hand signals?? tres bizarre.

1. in the situation it would have been more dangerous for me to take my hands off the bar to do as suggested.
2. he would have clearly been able to see the cab pull in ahead and work out what was happening
3. given the gap around me and width of the road he wouldn't have had to slow down or break anyway, and he only came up along side just as I was pulling back in.

anyway. I proceeded to give him a hand signal as requested. although this didn't seem to cool matters and I rode on.

one of those really odd incidents that happens that you just can't figure out afterwards.

pete236

Know what you mean! Theres no point for the driver to be annoyed, you've done nothing wrong but it still gets the driver steamed up! I guess he must have missed his coffee!
Thankfully fairly trouble free trips today. Strong headwind this morning that had changed direction through 180 degrees by this evening! One lorry which didn't know how long he was but apart from that not bad at all!

gtvlusso

Hi all,

As a motorcyclist from 16 years old (1991), I was always taught to command the road on mopeds and scooters - basically ride near or past the middle of the road in situations where you have double parked cars or obstructions to stop people behind trying to make dodgy overtakes and squeeze by. Other thing is that you avoid car doors opening onto you - some Polish guy opened a door on me last year, roll on broken ribs and smashed up bike......of course, he was not insured.

On a bike It is always a toss up between annoying people and looking after yourself, but in your situation Pete, I would have commanded the road and not let her even contemplate an overtake. Maybe I am wrong from the driver behinds point of view, but I would rather have someone beeping a horn at me from behind and acknowledging my existence than squeezing by and then cutting me off when they screw up.

Glad you were not injured though.

Cheers

G