VW Driver drove me off the road today!

ricky1980

http://youtu.be/lu8acgNskV4

:evil:

Flubsterunited

Watched the video but to be honest I felt that you should have overtaken the bus by dropping behind the vw as you where going in to his lane. You put yourself at risk by squeezing past the bus.

goonersi

I'm sorry, but IMO that was really quite avoidable.

Why put yourself in such a vulnerable position in the first place? As you approach the bus you should be thinking about holding back behind the car rather than trying to jump lanes and squeeze through a small gap - this would stop you getting squeezed by the car, or by the bus if it tries to pull away. What if a pedestrian inches out in front of the bus to cross the road - you've got nowhere to go other than the car, or the pedestrian. The cyclist in front has the right idea by following the BMW passed the bus.

You're only just at the back of the bus, and have not even made the rear wheels of the bus and the car is indicating left, and it looks like you're still behind the car, or at it's rear wheel. You travel the length of the bus (10m?) so plenty of time to slow and let the car turn.

My advice, next time, slow down, follow the car and proceed without the near miss.

pdw

I'm guessing the reason that you react so late is because you assumed that the Golf was just going to move into the left hand lane rather than turn left? Either way this was completely avoidable. Being on the left of a vehicle that is indicating left is never a good place to be, and as a general rule, when you put yourself somewhere that only a bike can be, assume that nobody knows that you are there.

If this had come to a collision, I suspect the best you'd get is a split apportioning of fault. If you look up the case law on motorcycle filtering accidents, the key factors are whether the driver gave enough warning of what they were going to do and how fast the vehicles involved were going. You wouldn't come out very well on either of those.

Ride a bit more defensively and you'll be much better placed when someone does something properly stupid in your direction.

danlikesbikes

I tend to agree with others that you put yourself in a bad position there. You could have just moved over a lane to the right and been behind the Golf, instead of trying to squeeze into a gap that was always going to be small at best. Then when the Golf moved over to the left I know its always hard to judge actual speed from a helmet cam but were you going so fast that you could not just stop, or were you thinking they were drifting into your lane & thats why you carried on.

Edit: I feel bad for saying the above as guess you are less than impressed with the car driver. Thinks to take away are that you are OK & no damage to the bike. Yes drivers who act recklessly scare us all & some people are far less fortunate in such outcomes.

Try to use this for good & look for the positives that you perhaps from now on will attempt to take a more positive road position & now allow yourself to get boxed in. Some road users might not be happy, but I'd rather you keep yourself safe & well on the road if it means that a car driver has to wait behind you. We all need to live together and use the roads together.

DCLane

They were signalling left as you came up to them = your fault I'm afraid.

Kieran_Burns

As above - I'm sorry, but the incident was of your own making. The driver of the golf was indicating and you failed to notice (due care and attention) plus you put yourself in a vulnerable position alongside a large vehicle and a moving car.

Personally I'd change the text in your video and use it as an example of making a mistake yourself, rather than call the driver a 'bellend'

daddy0

You tried to undertake a vehicle that was indicating to turn. I'd take the video down from YouTube if I were you, makes you look stupid.

jonomc4

bad cycling sorry - he indicated in plenty of time - I really would remove that vid off youtube you look bad in it. Once you saw the left indictor then go behind him.

goonz

I echo whats being said, I am a dangerous cyclist but I definitely know not to try any moves like that. A quick touch of your brakes and you could have manouvered behind the car and past it. There was no need to get near the bus and should have passed the car as soon as it begun indicating.

I'd also remove that vid, not doing you any favours.

pinkteapot

Not only was he indicating, you sat right in his blind spot by being just to the side of his back corner.

supersonic

Some very poor cycling there.

slowbike

Ricky - you've got loads of constructive criticism on your riding skills demonstrated in that video - Learn from it - we all cockup from time to time and sometimes we're so blinded we can't see it and it needs to be pointed out to us. Luckily for you on here, it's by some like-minded peers - a lot of comments on youtube are less than favourable - so do us all a favour and ditch the vid ... or change the comments and title!
Last thing we need is more "evidence" for the vitriolic drivers to throw at us ...

fossyant

So the OP posts this on another forum, gets slated there, posts it here and gets slated again.

Then doesn't come back. Fool !

Mr_Cellophane

Looks like he is trying to set up his own Silly Cyclists channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoJiWf1GpE8

steve6690

Sorry but your fault entirely. You put yourself in his blind spot after he'd already made it clear he was going to move left.