Definition of a safe pass

Eat My Dust

I made a merc driver slow down at a traffic/ped island this morning as I was in primary position. He was not happy. Further down the road he rolls down his window and acuses me of swerving in front of him. No, what happened was that I was in primary position approaching the traffic/ped island and he now had no road in which to overtake so he percieved somehow that I had moved out. He asked how was he meant to get past. I told him he was meant to wait until it was safe to pass. To which he answered "I did pass you safely, I didn't knock you off did I?" So according to this guy, not knocking someone off their bike is a safe pass, well I never.

BTW the strange thing was I never accused him of passing unsafely!! in fact I never accused him of anything.

mrchrispy

I had some blokes mirror pass UNDER my arm once only for him to stop in traffic just up the road. I remained calm and pointed out to him that he was waaaay too close and I and other cyclists would appreciate more in the future (I was honestly very nice about it despite fuming)

his reply was ""I wasn’t too close....I didn't knock you off did I?"

I started to see the red mist so started to cycle off but the beast got the better of me and I went back and started gave him both barrels, probably scared the crap outta him as he got very apologetic very quickly. If there is one thing that send me over the edge is someone saying it okay cause your not dead….I’d rather make a fuss while I’m alive than not make a fuss when I’m dead.

Gussio

Annoying isn't it? An old BMW came within a cat's whisker of clipping my bars last week. When I caught up with him and asked, "how much room do you need to overtake?" through the open window, he responded with "how much room do *you* need?". More than two inches you knob, is the response that I kept in my head.

Gets my goat when a car comes dangerously close during overtaking and you can see the driver look in their rearview mirror to make sure that they didn't knock you off i.e. they knew that they were driving too close.

While I'm at it......cars overtaking when you are clearly signalling to turn right. This is dangerous and downright rude.

Enough moaning - off to pack the car for a weekend's family camping

graeme_s-2

I had a similar incident a year or so back where a car had accelerated to overtake me as I took primary while we passed through a ped island. He swerved onto other side of the road, and a car coming the other way had to come to a complete stop to avoid a head on collision.

When I caught him up a few metres later (he was at the back of a long queue of traffic) I asked him what he was playing at. He accused me of swerving, I explained that it wasn't safe to pass through the ped crossings as they were too narrow and started to get irate and verbally aggressive towards him. He said "Alright mate, no one died did they?" I left it at that. It's frustrating though, because he was never going to be killed in that encounter, it's me that would have ended up being scraped off the road by paramedics if he'd hit me when he'd tried to pass.

jedster

I'm intolerant of close passes, particularly when they are pointless (better spot just ahead, car just about to get to a queue or turn off, empty lane opposite etc). I tend to just shout "HEEEEEYYYY!!!!" as they pass and give a more room signal (pushing out with my palm.

I caught one minbus driver at some lights and was quite polite
"excuse me mate but you were very close to me there"
"I wasn't"
"you were, you know, it was inches"
"I wasn't"

Futile

J

CJ Bill

With extremely close calls I tend to signal my opinion of the gap they left with a cocked little finger then give my opinion on their driving skills as 0 by making a circle with the forefinger and thumb of my right hand and vigourously waving said sign at them...

NorwegianBlue

Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of entering into an argument with these pricks?

Sure, they were in the wrong, but do you really think they're going to admit the error of their ways? Nobody who enters into an argument like this will ever admit they are wrong. Think about it. When you enter into this discussion do you think there's any chance of your backing down? Course not and neither will they.

benborp

I'm having quite a few ridiculously close passes at the moment.
This morning I was pushed out of primary by a car overtaking and already on the brakes. He carried on pulling in. In the end I was up on my front wheel two inches from the kerb with my hand and brake lever caught between the handlebars and his nearside rear light cluster.
I've had a spate of motorbike riders getting very close while they filter. Though the two latest responses from the riders were quite breathtaking - "What's your problem? I hardly touched you." and another in response to me making a fairly quiet "whoa" noise as I pushed a pannier out from under my knee in slow traffic - "F*ck off you c*nt, I'm in the right f*cking lane. Get out of my f*cking way."
Not a lot I could do to avoid any of these incidents other than just not be there.

Drfabulous0

NorwegianBlue wrote:

Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of entering into an argument with these pricks?

Sure, they were in the wrong, but do you really think they're going to admit the error of their ways? Nobody who enters into an argument like this will ever admit they are wrong. Think about it. When you enter into this discussion do you think there's any chance of your backing down? Course not and neither will they.

The point is not to win an argument, but to make them think about their driving. Hopefully they will give more room to the next cyclist they pass.

NorwegianBlue

Except of course it won't. As stated above they won't admit they are wrong no matter what you say to them. Tell somebody they are driving badly and you may as well be telling them they are inadequate, in whatever terms they view inadequacy. Like telling a macho man he has a small pr*ck. And so as a result they will be insulted and will not only argue, but in all probability drive agressively for the rest of their journey and probably give even less room to the next few cyclists they see.

Exactly why this should be I don't know, but I think it may be because in this country at least we seem to view driving as a right rather than a priveledge. Or maybe it goes deeper into the human psyche than that.

I remember a news story locally where a police officer pulled somebody over and the driver attacked the police officer for criticizing his driving.

richardast

NorwegianBlue wrote:

Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of entering into an argument with these pricks?

Sure, they were in the wrong, but do you really think they're going to admit the error of their ways? Nobody who enters into an argument like this will ever admit they are wrong. Think about it. When you enter into this discussion do you think there's any chance of your backing down? Course not and neither will they.

I don't have many near-misses, but I was recently cycling towards a mini-roundabout in primary (at just under the 30 mph limit) when a mini-cab pulled alongside thinking he would overtake me on the approach. As he realised he wasn't going to make it past me in time to pull across in front of me before the roundabout, he started to move across anyway while he was alongside. As he got to within about a foot I banged on the passenger window and gave him a few words of advice. After the roundabout he overtook then pulled over in front of me.
I stopped, readying myself for a bit of self-defence only to discover that he had stopped to apologise for his misjudgement.

They aren't all morons.

always_tyred

I do agree that well chosen tyrades can influence future driver behaviour. I have, on several occasions, shocked drivers into apologies. I've also found that knocking anywhere on the bodywork of a car jolts the average dimwitted motorist out of their slumber. We drive in comfortable bubbles these days and if you momentarily burst that bubble, make a driver's heart skip a beat when they wonder if they have just driven into or over someone, I personally think that gives them pause for thought for a while.

God - there are times when I have thought I've driven over a squirrel and its given me palpatations, so hopefully the fear of driving over a person would have a similar effect, even to Mr. Clarkson (who I am sure hates squirrels).

All that said, I also think that being calm is important. Cycling around on a crusade against idiot drivers isn't helpful for you (because I can't imagine its enjoyable and because you are more likely to have an incident).

So its personal - if conflict is really not something you deal with well, shouting at motorists isn't worthwhile. If you can brush it off and get on with your day, in some cases it is worthwhile.

meanwhile

Always Tyred wrote:

I do agree that well chosen tyrades can influence future driver behaviour. I have, on several occasions, shocked drivers into apologies. I've also found that knocking anywhere on the bodywork of a car jolts the average dimwitted motorist out of their slumber.

Four finger brake levers on MTBs were great for this. I remember this idiot pulling out at right angles in front of me while I was doing courier work... The car was a really nice XJS, too. Probably took thousands off the value.

Of course, back then I was an idiot by defintion, or I wouldn't have been doing the job. These days I'd suggest reporting someone for dangerous driving instead. Avoid confrontation at the time, but try to get the police to at least contact at him - should have more of an effect on his driving than a personal chat.

NorwegianBlue

There is a common belief that the police do nothing if you report an incident, but it isn't generally true. They are required to follow up every report, they're generally not happy about it because there is usuallly nothing they can do in a "your word against theirs" situation.

A few years ago I answered the door to find a traffic policeman standing their. He informed me that I'd been reported for dangerous driving. I realised that at the time in question I had overtaken some old git doing about 30mph on the crown of the road in aa 60mph limit. Plod informed me that after questioning the old git who'd made the report he had informed the old fart that I'd probably done nothing wrong. However he still had to come and question me because the law required it.

So if you do report an incident of bad dangerous driving the police will probably drop in on the driver concerned. This will probably scare them a lot more than a few words from you.

Eat My Dust

NorwegianBlue wrote:

Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of entering into an argument with these pricks?

I try not to get into arguments with drivers but I couldn't help it as he rolled down his window and started mouthing off, I just couldn't resist. The funny thing was I didn't/hadn't accused him of anything.........oh, I had shaken my head. It's funny how sensitive drivers can be.

Eat My Dust

NorwegianBlue wrote:

Excuse me, but what exactly is the point of entering into an argument with these pricks?

I try not to get into arguments with drivers but I couldn't help it as he rolled down his window and started mouthing off, I just couldn't resist. The funny thing was I didn't/hadn't accused him of anything.........oh, I had shaken my head. It's funny how sensitive drivers can be.

NorwegianBlue

I find the shaken head to be the one thing that really riles drivers. Gawd knows why.

I think the oddest thing is when a driver does something dangerous and you don't react at all but they still make threatening gestures.

meanwhile

NorwegianBlue wrote:

There is a common belief that the police do nothing if you report an incident, but it isn't generally true. They are required to follow up every report, they're generally not happy about it because there is usuallly nothing they can do in a "your word against theirs" situation.

A few years ago I answered the door to find a traffic policeman standing their. He informed me that I'd been reported for dangerous driving. I realised that at the time in question I had overtaken some old git doing about 30mph on the crown of the road in aa 60mph limit. Plod informed me that after questioning the old git who'd made the report he had informed the old fart that I'd probably done nothing wrong. However he still had to come and question me because the law required it.

So if you do report an incident of bad dangerous driving the police will probably drop in on the driver concerned. This will probably scare them a lot more than a few words from you.

Exactly. And if everyone reported every incident, the real idiots would soon get known to the police.

Mike Healey

I am resisting the temptation to answer "One that doesn't get your face slapped".