Near miss - Moan

peat

Yes, this is another thread about nearly getting squashed by less than adequate car drivers. I've no-one to tell at work today, so i'm venting here. I don't expect the world to change, nor you to care....

So - Out on a beautiful 30 mile loop yesterday. I'd picked very quiet & sceneic roads as per usual. The only potentially unpleasant bits were crossing 2 A roads, the second of which involved doing a short 0.2 mile dog leg to get to the opposing junction I wanted.

The 1st passed without incident, didn't even need to break my stride. Lovely.

The second, well.............

I turned right onto the A4, which was surprisingly clear. Now, the junction I was taking wouldn't win many road-planning awards, it's a bit of a mish mash of the old and new. Here: http://goo.gl/maps/Vx5sn

As I neared the traffic island (heading East), i heard a car approaching from behind. No problem, the road was plenty wide enough for them to pass safely before the island. The driver hesitated and came off the throttle/perhaps braked. Then decided they'd try and beat me to the island. Meanwhile, a car on the parallel sideroad to the left saw me and decided they wanted to beat me to the junction too. Woe betide being caught behind a cyclist!

The end result was: the car behind came flying in between me and the traffic island. It wasn't the closest shave ever, but so very unecessery. And at the same time, the car coming from the left had bottled it and came to a stop with his front right wheel and bonnet on the main carriageway (despite there being stacks of room to the left).

I was effectively pincer'ed by 2 car. I had to slam on the brakes and came to a stop at the driver's door of the car on the left.

A few expletives later, the stopped driver had the 'rabbit in the headlights' eyes on and hurriedly pulled away. I took my left turn just a few yards later.

So, on a 32 mile ride that contained all of 0.2miles of an A road, I was nearly wiped out by 2 cars in the space of a few seconds.

Great, innit?

rolf_f

It's annoying but try to look at it differently. If you commute by bike, you get stuff like this all the time. My approach is that if something hasn't genuinely come close to killing me (which hasn't really happened to me) then I can reasonably fume about it for thirty seconds but any longer than that and I've kind of lost! It's a case of don't let the bastards grind you down. By the time I get home, I'm generally well past the point that I want to rant about it on the forum. There was a crap driver and he annoyed me for a few seconds but I'm not going to let that even spoil the next 10 minutes of the ride let alone dwell on it for hours.

lancew

I do the same thing with my commute. I told myself that if it stops being fun I will stop commuting so I look at my near accidents as "oh well, at least I'm safe" and move on.

Bad drivers are everywhere, as are bad cyclists, walkers, annoying dogs and traffic lights, but there's nothing like the feeling of the wind in you hair (helmet) and the freedom of the downhill.

DavidJB

I don't normally venture up the A4 past Hungerford but it's very wide and straight...those 'traffic islands' are a bit lethal though. Drivers often race you too them...I just let off the pedals normally and let them go through...but as you say there's more than enough space for car + bike through them.

I ride the A4 from Hungerford to Newbury almost daily although not at high traffic times...it's normally OK...I hate it during the weekday's if I happen to go up early far to busy and way too many lorries.

peat

It's not a nice road, hence why I only ever try and cross it with minimum fuss. I was just taken aback by the 'sod's law' nature of the incident, I was there for less than a minute and 2 of them managed to want to be on the same bit of tarmac.

I can usually let these things go easily, but this just stuck in my craw.