How stressed?

Sailorchick

Sitting waiting at traffic lights this morning with a flat bed truck alongside both waiting to go straight over the junction. All seems fine, lots of room for both of us. Lights change to green and off we go. He doesn't overtake before the bend on the other side (plenty of time and room and usually have a least one car go past here) but no worries. Road is plenty wide afterwards so I stay left giving him lots of room to pass, he doesn't. Road narrows due to parked cars and there is a 90degree bend to the right. Its at this point he decides to overtake! Hmmm, strangely enough the oncoming traffic not best pleased. I end up on the outside of the bend keeping out of the way whilst the van sorts out the mess he has caused. He then revs off and takes a left. I go straight on, nodding to the cyclist who is waiting at the junction. All of a sudden just hear the van hitting the horn and shouting loudly f@@king cyclists!
Seriously, how stressed do you have to be to be venting that loudly afterwards!! Silly thing is if he had just waited another 10 seconds I'd have been out of the way anyway due to going different routes.

Was a tad nervous carrying on as I know I'll be overtaking him again soon as he'll be stuck further on where my road joins his. Sure enough he was sat in the traffic jam but not a peep out of him as I went past

jedster

It's bad isn't it? Seems to me quite a lot of people on the road are in a state which makes them tempramentally incompetent to be charge of a lethal object.

Just as an aside. The position you describe - waiting at lights with a flatbed truck aongside you - is one that I would be at pains to avoid. I'd either take the whole lane and keep the truck behind or drop behind the truck. Don't mean to be preachy but lots of really bad accidents start with cyclists in that position.

J

sarajoy

Stressy indeed!

Aye I have found myself being very nervous with overtaking trucks and flat-beds (often with lots of big pokey things sticking out of the bed and off the end). Indeed at lights I tend to let them go first - but sometimes they were some way behind you or turned onto your road after you'd passed, so you can hardly stop them overtaking.

When they pass, their cab gives you loads of room, no problem - but as the rest of the truck comes by they seem to get closer and closer and I'm squeezed tighter and tighter into the kerb - once or twice I've had to swerve or duck to avoid something lumpy on the end of the truck.

Now I tend to just go rigid with fear and almost come to a standstill until they go by. Scary scary scary.

biondino

The thing to remember about cycling is you are never ever ever ever in enough of a hurry to justify risking your safety in a way that may save you seconds. If that means hanging behind a lorry, then no worries. If I was waiting on the left and a lorry pulled up next to me, I'd just let it overtake before setting off.

Sailorchick

I've never really worried about being alongside a vehicle at this junction. Its 2 lanes (left lane goes left, right lane goes left and straight over) and is quite a wide bit of road. It always has a long queue on here so stopping behind a vehicle for the lights would mean stopping a long way back and there is plenty of room to filter. When the queue has been small I've joined it. The junction would benefit from an ASL (coming from the opposite direction there is an ASL). The main issue is that traffic in the right hand lane has 3 options - left, straight over left, straight over right (2 roads). I take the straight over left option with 90% of traffic taking the straight over right option and I don't want to get stuck in the wrong place stopping me from taking my exit. Usually within a few seconds I'm well away from traffic with them taking the other road.

The truck wasn't a problem moving over the junction and I initially thought he was just giving me lots of room and being really patient, until the bend and the outburst.

Porgy

biondino wrote:

The thing to remember about cycling is you are never ever ever ever in enough of a hurry to justify risking your safety in a way that may save you seconds. .

I beg to differ.

The time I was being chased by a murderous chav in Lewisham I was in so much of a hurry I ran a red light on a busy junction without even looking. That was becasue I was pretty sure that the murderous chav was going to kill me. ..so I took my chances.

The gamble paid off and I remain alive to this day. 8)

Eau Rouge

Sounds like one of those situations where the driver has done something silly and now needs to find someone else to blaim, anyone at all will do, just not them. There is a deeply ingrained fear of admitting ever doing something silly when driving a car it seems.

He realised he was at afault, and the cyclists were just the first other people he could blame for it. The fact he ignored you later on just confirms it.

owenlars

I think there is one golden rule, never wait alongside a lorry or van of any sort, get in front or wait behind. If you are alongside it is 90% certain they can't see you, if they can't see you you cannot expect them to take you into account. If you find yourself stuck alongside, get the hell out of it onto the pavement.

Headhuunter

owenlars wrote:

I think there is one golden rule, never wait alongside a lorry or van of any sort, get in front or wait behind. If you are alongside it is 90% certain they can't see you, if they can't see you you cannot expect them to take you into account. If you find yourself stuck alongside, get the hell out of it onto the pavement.

+1 to that. I hate it when I'm filtering up a line of queuing traffic behind another cyclist and as soon as they get to the front vehicle, they stop next to it rather than getting ahead of it, it means that I'm trapped behind and both of us are in the most dangerous position on the road fo a cyclist - stuck alongside a vehicle which may chuck a left without warning as the lights change...

biondino

Porgy wrote:

biondino wrote:

The thing to remember about cycling is you are never ever ever ever in enough of a hurry to justify risking your safety in a way that may save you seconds. .

I beg to differ.

The time I was being chased by a murderous chav in Lewisham I was in so much of a hurry I ran a red light on a busy junction without even looking. That was becasue I was pretty sure that the murderous chav was going to kill me. ..so I took my chances.

The gamble paid off and I remain alive to this day. 8)

I was that chav. Curse you!