Had my first SMIDSY- at 5mph!

Gweny

Going along a road for a short time, when a taxi realised he'd missed his address and breaked really suddenly. I was what i'd call a sufficient distance away from him, but obviously i couldn't stop as quickly as him so ended up close to his boot.
Before i had time to go round him etc he suddenly started reversing, not realising that i was behind him.

What resulted was me shouting at the top of my voice (probabally some sort of expletive mixed in) until he actually realised i was there.

I was deffinatly shunted back atleast 1 a metre or 2, felt completely helpless for a second. :shock:

As soon as i stopped i gathered myself and told him i wanted his details. At this point it was a mixture of shock and anger at what had just happened.

The old guy who was being picked up was standing by his gate and saw everything too.

Pulled over and the driver was profusley apologetic, (depite trying to put my chain back on wrongly before i'd had a chance to do it). He was very cooperative and gave me all his details, (checked against his licence) and said he'd pay for any damage. Kept reiterating how important it was i wasn't hurt, although i was worrying about the bike at this point! I think being a 16 year old girl kind of worked in my favour here!

Well, that was my first "accident" as such, can't say it was pleasant experience but atleast i've got a bit of experience dealing with something like this now.
Sorry for the essay, just wanted to write it down somewhere! I also wanted to know if there was anything else i should have done in this circumstance?

desweller

As you're only 16 I'm guessing you've never done any driving or only limited trundling around. It's worth sitting in a car and getting someone to walk round it so you can understand where drivers have good visibility...and where they don't. It's also worth having two lights on the front, one flashing and one not; the flashing gets drivers' attention. Hi vis clothing works well when you're in front of vehicles; not so well when you're behind them.

Your stopping distance seems like it was OK as you didn't hit him. If you ride a bit further out from the kerb then you have more options for going round vehicles instead of being forced to emergency brake yourself (obviously only if there's nothing coming the other way).

Good work on keeping your head and getting his details though! Is the bike OK (most important)?

sungod

nasty, but good thing you weren't hurt

i had a van back into me at the lights, i'd left about two metres gap, narrow road so he was right up to the kerb and he clearly didn't know i was there, it was a fast reverse which buckled the front wheel instantly, i was trying to get away but if i went sideways was sure he'd roll over me, so it was a desperate series of backward hops, scary

luckily a guy working on some scaffolding heard me shouting and screamed at the driver to "stop you're killing someone"

new wheel, new forks, cheque from his company

now if i can't position far enough to the side to see the mirrors and have an escape route i stay waaaaaaay back

heneghj

I got completely wiped out by a transit. I was going past a junction and a van passed me whilst a 2nd van went to go behind it into the side street. I think the driver was more scared than me when I appeared in front of him.

He stopped and checked I was ok then saw my wheel had been knocked off centre so stuck my bike in his van and give mea lift to work. Felt to sorry for the guy to take it any further, I see him most mornings now and he seems to take much more care now.

Glad your ok though