Rare, horrible incident caught on vid (not me)..

jamesco

DonDaddyD wrote:

It's a roundabout you approach, you enter if nothing is coming from the right and things on the left should stop for you.

Yeah, the operative word is "should", but what if they don't stop for you? What're you gonna do, tough guy?

Magnatom: no dispute, you were the victim of the truckie's bad driving, but bad driving is something all riders should be prepared for. Assume everyone is out to get you, that you're invisible, all that stuff you've heard a million times..

OldSkoolKona

I would add, that in this situation, I doubt I would have done anything different that Mag, so I'm not having a go at him. If anything, though it was a close thing, the fact he was able to stop shows that he had given himself an out.

None of this excuses the actions of the tanker driver and I do hope the Police take the incident seriously and pursue the driver - someone else may not have been as observant as Mag and the result doesn't bear thinking about

magnatom

blorg wrote:

So who is the victim? Me? Or the poor driver late for his delivery?

I don't think I read a single post arguing that the HGV driver was right, just that as cyclists we have to take responsibility for our own safety. Many drivers seem to have a cyclist-sized blind spot.

There are a lot of posts suggesting that I haven't. I can assure you I was watching the HGV. It did appear to be slowing down on approach to the roundabout. So I proceeded at slower than normal. Then he appeared to take his foot off the brake and kept going. I start reacting before he is on the roundabout. Also earlier on I made what I thought, was eye contact with the driver. I am sure he saw me. I'd bet most cyclists, and for that matter, most decent cyclists would have gone onto the roundabout as I did.

beverick

I suffered the same fate on the roundabout outside our offices a couple of weeks ago only it was a bus and not a tanker.

The feeling is indescribable.

Bob

blorg

magnatom wrote:

There are a lot of posts suggesting that I haven't. I can assure you I was watching the HGV. It did appear to be slowing down on approach to the roundabout. So I proceeded at slower than normal. Then he appeared to take his foot off the brake and kept going. I start reacting before he is on the roundabout. Also earlier on I made what I thought, was eye contact with the driver. I am sure he saw me. I'd bet most cyclists, and for that matter, most decent cyclists would have gone onto the roundabout as I did.

Fair enough, the fact you are posting here at all indicates that you had an out

DonDaddyD

jamesco wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

It's a roundabout you approach, you enter if nothing is coming from the right and things on the left should stop for you.

Yeah, the operative word is "should", but what if they don't stop for you? What're you gonna do, tough guy?

That's not really a point though is it.

Its about as relevant as what would happen if you were bitten by a radioactive spider?

You trying to anticpate or create a overarching general rule for everyone should the original road rule be broken. You cannot account for it. The Lorry cut him up.

blorg

DonDaddyD wrote:

That's not really a point though is it.

Its about as relevant as what would happen if you were bitten by a radioactive spider?

You trying to anticpate or create a overarching general rule for everyone should the original road rule be broken. You cannot account for it. The Lorry cut him up.

Drivers disregard my right of way substantially more frequently than I am bitten by a radioactive spider. From experience I know there are situations where the likelihood of them doing this is higher. The "rule" is simply that you are aware of situations where this is likely to happen and you are prepared to take responsibility for your own safety when it does.

cee

I do think its a dangerous game to start putting the responsibility onto the victim, in this case magnatom.

in other news...women who dress in sexy outfits for a night and are attacked shouldve worn a dufflecoat, or to quote the chap above...take some responsibility for the attack if it happens! no way

ok, extreme example but its the same victim blaming game. ridiculous.
:evil:

jamesco

DonDaddyD wrote:

That's not really a point though is it.

Its about as relevant as what would happen if you were bitten by a radioactive spider?

You trying to anticpate or create a overarching general rule for everyone should the original road rule be broken. You cannot account for it. The Lorry cut him up.

Not much of that made sense, except maybe 'anticipate'. That's the point, that we should anticipate alternative outcomes (drivers not giving way, pedestrians stepping out, rain on a sunny day) and plan for them. C'mon, you know you do it..

OldSkoolKona

cee wrote:

I do think its a dangerous game to start putting the responsibility onto the victim, in this case magnatom.

in other news...women who dress in sexy outfits for a night and are attacked shouldve worn a dufflecoat, or to quote the chap above...take some responsibility for the attack if it happens! no way

ok, extreme example but its the same victim blaming game. ridiculous.
:evil:

But on the flip side, would you walk around certain areas of London (or any major city) after dark with an expensive camera around your neck and other expensive items on show? Its your right, you're not doing anything wrong, but would you do it?

Taking sensible precautions doesn't amount to the same as blaming the victim.

waddlie

I can't for the life of my figure out why so many people are on magnatom's case on this one. Yes, you should always anticipate the shit hitting the fan and have a get out of jail free card in your pocket just in case, but there's some shit you just can't plan for. I ride defensively so I don't get squeezed, left-hooked or otherwise flattened. You couldn't really ask magnatom to do anything differently - he wasn't riding hugely fast, slowing down could have increased other dangers (eg getting rear-ended or causing confusion with other road users regarding his intentions.)

acidstrato

he was quite innocent but he doesnt control traffic behind him at all, as a cyclist you are vulnerable so you need to take responsibility for your own safety and control nearby traffic, by which I mean be in the correct position and stop others from blocking you in.
had he moved over to the left before the lorry had pulled out he could have been well out of the way of the lorry which would have gone up the inside and well away from danger

works pretty well for me

Clever Pun

_Brun_ wrote:

When did roundabouts become RBTs and RABs?

F@#king internet. :evil:

WAC

antfly

Waddlie wrote:

You couldn't really ask magnatom to do anything differently - he wasn't riding hugely fast, slowing down could have increased other dangers (eg getting rear-ended or causing confusion with other road users regarding his intentions.)

There aren`t many things that are more dangerous than being squashed by a big lorry.

waddlie

acidstrato wrote:

he was quite innocent but he doesnt control traffic behind him at all, as a cyclist you are vulnerable so you need to take responsibility for your own safety and control nearby traffic, by which I mean be in the correct position and stop others from blocking you in.
had he moved over to the left before the lorry had pulled out he could have been well out of the way of the lorry which would have gone up the inside and well away from danger

works pretty well for me

Uh... what? To control traffic behind him (which wasn't an issue here), he would have been riding in primary - which he was. Had he been further over to the left he would have i) doing a worse job of controlling the potential traffic behind him ii) been at risk of a left hook from following traffic and iii) ended up under the truck's wheels. Pause the video at 30 seconds - he's halfway round the roundabout and almost alongside the cab of a "long vehicle." Being further left would have been no help at all.

waddlie

antfly wrote:

Waddlie wrote:

You couldn't really ask magnatom to do anything differently - he wasn't riding hugely fast, slowing down could have increased other dangers (eg getting rear-ended or causing confusion with other road users regarding his intentions.)

There aren`t many things that are more dangerous than being squashed by a big lorry.

Indeed, but if the lorry driver had seem him riding slowly, he might hae assumed he had sufficient time to pull out or that magnatom was slowing to let him enter the roundabout and the situation would have remained the same...

antfly

Except that he wouldn`t have been so close to getting killed.

waddlie

antfly wrote:

Except that he wouldn`t have been so close to getting killed.

I don't think we're in a position to make that distinction. Slowing down might have changed the proximate cause of the potential impact (lorry driver sees cylist and wrongly thinks he has time to pull out vs lorry driver doesn't see cyclist at all) or the point of the impact (hitting the side of the truck by the trailer wheels rather than just behind the cab) but wouldn't necessarily mean he'd be further from getting killed. Riding more slowly would have changed the nature of the potential impact, but we cannot be sure it would have lessened the seriousness of the possible outcome.

antfly

The point of slowing is not to enter the lorry`s path until he is sure that it has stopped, that way there is no chance of being hit.

holybinch

Antfly: following that you'd never go anywhere.
We take on the road, in cars or bikes, assuming other people respect the law.
Take a motorbike for instance and someone going out of a junction without checking.
Biker dead, end of story. But you don't see motorbikes slowing down at every junction, do you?
That's because you have to assume that the other drivers will follow the rules, and not kill you.
That's why the driver of the truck needs to be taken to court.

downfader

blorg wrote:

I don't think anyone is doubting that the HGV driver was in the wrong but you have to be prepared for these things, similar (failure to respect a cyclists' right of way) has no doubt happened to anyone who has cycled for more than a few weeks. I had a virtually identical experience on a roundabout only last weekend albeit with a car rather than HGV. Even less excuse as the entry roads were not so close together. There was swearing but I was able to stop. Some drivers honestly just have a mental block about yielding to a cyclist and don't do it. You have to ride with the presumption that the occasional other road user will do something stupid that puts you in danger...

Its no good having ninja skills if someone fires a long range missle at you.

:roll:

acidstrato

Waddlie wrote:

Uh... what? To control traffic behind him (which wasn't an issue here), he would have been riding in primary - which he was. Had he been further over to the left he would have i) doing a worse job of controlling the potential traffic behind him ii) been at risk of a left hook from following traffic and iii) ended up under the truck's wheels. Pause the video at 30 seconds - he's halfway round the roundabout and almost alongside the cab of a "long vehicle." Being further left would have been no help at all.

watching it again and i admit there isnt enough time but had he been 2-3 seconds earlier he could have positioned himself infront of the lorry before it pulled on to the roundabout although it does seem like the lorry doesnt even break approaching the roundabout., being futher left IMO would have prevented the lorry from pulling along side and cutting him up. your not gonna get left hooked moving over once your passing the exit. he stays on the inside which allows the lorry to swing around his outside. A roundabout by my work has very similar exits as the one in the video and I've never had a real trouble and I work on an industrial estate full of artics coming back and forth, but they do stop or atleast slowdown before joining the roundabout!

however if there werent enough time, then why not slow down and allow the reckless lorry to pass by, road awareness is just as important as correct lane and lane changing procedures and its a fact of life that cars and lorries get priority simply because they are bigger than us. After viewing a few of his videos I'm in agreement with some of the others that he doesnt help himself and the videos make it look worse than in reality. Or maybe its Scottish drivers? :shock:

antfly

holybinch wrote:

Antfly: following that you'd never go anywhere.
We take on the road, in cars or bikes, assuming other people respect the law.
Take a motorbike for instance and someone going out of a junction without checking.
Biker dead, end of story. But you don't see motorbikes slowing down at every junction, do you?
That's because you have to assume that the other drivers will follow the rules, and not kill you.
That's why the driver of the truck needs to be taken to court.

Obviously you have to weigh up the situation as you see it but if you want to live a long time it makes more sense in certain situations, such as roundabouts, to assume a driver isn`t going to stop when you are on a bike because it does happen quite a lot in the real world, people do break the rules. I did 40 miles at lunchtime and I don`t think taking that approach slowed me down at all.

blorg

holybinch wrote:

Antfly: following that you'd never go anywhere.

Eh, no, you just take a little extra care in circumstances where you know from experience that drivers often don't respect your right of way. This does not equate to stopping at every junction, etc. etc. but just being ready to if necessary.

That's because you have to assume that the other drivers will follow the rules, and not kill you.

That is a very foolish thing to assume and is not an outlook compatible with your long term survival. I can only imagine you don't cycle much if you honestly assume that. I see other road users breaking the law on a daily basis.

gaz545

Waddlie wrote:

I can't for the life of my figure out why so many people are on magnatom's case on this one.

Because people think they are an expert on how to ride a bicycle, we each ride differently and handle situations differently.

downfader

As I've said elsewhere - how about a little damn solidarity on this? And actually stick up for the guy.

You people want to know why we get a raw deal at times, its because we dont stick together when it matters. :roll:

acidstrato

i think eveyone agrees the lorry was in the wrong so solidarity isn't lacking, but magnatom was lucky not to get hit and at the end of the day what is more important, riding in a manor that slows you down and accepting that you HAVE to let go of your right of way in order to protect yourself or playing it by the book only to have some nonse who aint concentrating put you in hospital

magnatom

What is all this talk of right of way. People are talking as if I saw the HGV coming and thought, 'bu@@er it, I'm damned if I will let him bully me!'

What actually happened, and folks I was there and I was actually in my head, was,

'tum, te tum te, tum, ah here is the roundabout, pretty quiet, oh there is a HGV in the next entrance, oh looks like the driver has seen me and looks like he is slowing down, I'll proceed with caution (i.e. slower than normal), onto the roundabout....oh sh*t............!!!!'

I'm an honest guy. If I make a mistake I don't shy away from posting it. Look at my videos you'll see a good few where I admit fault up front. I could just not post them and no-one would be any the wiser. So please beleive me, I was being more cautious on that roundabout, he just caught me out by coming off the brakes and saying F**k it. There (IMO) was no way I could have seen that coming.

And remember, I did stop in time, and that is despite some pretty horrific driving (we all agree about that surely!), so maybe, just maybe, I was riding appropriately......

Eau Rouge

acidstrato wrote:

i think eveyone agrees the lorry was in the wrong so solidarity isn't lacking, but magnatom was lucky not to get hit and at the end of the day what is more important, riding in a manor that slows you down and accepting that you HAVE to let go of your right of way in order to protect yourself or playing it by the book only to have some nonse who aint concentrating put you in hospital

There has to be a limit to how far you go in giving up your right of way to protect yourself, or you'd end up stopping the bike every time a car approached you, which would be madness. You should expect drivers to be muppets, but you still need to trust them to some degree or you'd never ride (or drive or walk) anywhere.
Watching the video, Magnatom is long on the roundabout before the truck ever gets to it. If he was further back then you might anticipate the truck cutting him up, but not from where they both were. Anyway, Magnatom did stay aware of the truck, did react to him driving that badly and did stop in time to prevent an accident, which kinda renders the whole argument mute. He wasn't in a silly place on the road, nor doing anything silly, nor unaware of the dangers around him. There was nothing else he could reasonably have done, or would you have cyclists stop on roundabouts to let vehicles enter it in front of them in contravention of the rules of the road? Of course you wouldn't.

Kieran_Burns

Although it is human nature to do so, I think the deep analysis of the actions in the video long after the event, and over a MUCH longer period than the event are (literally) academic

There was very little time to react, the reactions used saved his life, he is here to tell us (and show us) the incident.

The ONLY issue I have is that I thought he was a little far out into the road at the start of the video when I first viewed it. Subsequent viewings show a poor gutter area and the time to the roundabout made the primary the safest place.