Trying to figure out a driver's logic

To build anticipation.

I'm trying to figure out the logic.

I won't ride without a camera any more. I started with a cheap second hand Apeman camera off ebay (£10-30). Spare batteries are available and they last around 90 mins. Not much good in low light for plates but in this situation you would have the reg any way and would just be using the camera for what happened from your point of view. I now have front and rear apemans on my sit up and beg every day shopper/pub bike which I leave on as they are relatively cheap to replace if they get nicked. The rear gives a differeent view and a second chance at getting the plate.

I now have a Drift Ghost XL, helmet mounted, for longer rides (£140). Helmet mounted means I don't need to faff about mounting cameras on different bikes and the battery lasts around 8 hours. Not sure how long it will be before I get problems with it, from comments on the internet, but so far so good.

To answer your question; without the video it's hard to say who is right in this situation but as far as trying to understand the driver's logic my guess would be "It's only a cyclist".

When he asked about "Why did you pull out with traffic coming down the hill?" then my response was "why did he?". Then I noticed you added that as one of your test questions at the bottom. Anyway surely that would only be an issue if you caused the right hand driver to brake / manouvre like he caused. And unless you were bombing it onto the road (it was downhill but conditions wise I'm guessing you were not) then you would have been on the road a good few seconds before his manouvre, but he was probably doing one final check his right without checking left conditions hadn't suddenly changed. 

However, I would have braked as soon as I saw his stupid ass coming across the lines and maintained space as possible rather then maintain momentum. 

Which car driver blamed you? The one coming down from the right or the one that suddenly appeared to stop him over taking the bus?

No bonus question on how many times they stated you should have been in the cycle lane?

hope all is ok though with yourself and your bike.

IanMSpencer wrote:

 

And at what point does a car pulling out of a side road establish priority over a road user on the main road?

Generally, it's considered the point at which the wheel crosses the line, but it's rarely clear-cut and other factors such as vehicle speeds etc. will be taken into consideration.

It looks like a difficult junction for a car to turn right from, you've got poor visibility to the right. I doubt many drivers would consider cyclists joining from the cycle path, which is also very poor visibility (any approaching cyclists would be obscured by a large bush).

I suspect the driver didn't see you until they were pulling out, then accelerated to try and get out of your way, before seeing they couldn't pass the bus and slamming on (maybe assuming you would be in the cycle lane).

Glad you're ok. I've done a similar thing before, following a turning car into a side road which is uphill. I got too close to the back of it trying not to lose momentum up the hill and expecting it to accelerate, then they decided to just stop suddenly. Ended up sprawled over their boot!

the fact that you came into conflict when he entered the road 30-40m downstream of you, proves he should have given way. if you had entered the road at the same time, there is no way there would have been an issue.

If you couldn't pull out safely neither could he. Drivers opinion of who is at fault is irrelevant. The only question is what do they think they saw? do they think you pulled after after the other car and then just rode into the back of it?

It is about 10-15 metres from the entry to the road. Downhill so cyclist could easily be close to being only visible for  second or two. Which to me is the other driver looking left (from his perspective) seeing the car coming down the hill in a distance, maybe seeing cyclist coming down the path and making incorrect assumption on speed and capability of cyclist, looking right, seeing it is clear and pulling out as left hand car is still far enough away in his judgement. He might have also seen the beginning of the right hand car coming around the bend so floored out as per Ians comments. 

I would suggest if it was cars, and two proper roads leading on main road staggered like that, then Ian had established his position on the road first even by only a split second. However it is such a tight margin for error that I expect anything official like police review or Insurance might take knock for knock. 

If it was a crossroads, people turning left (or going straight on) would have priority over people turning right. 

As they are two seperate junctions the cylist is clearly in the road first, assuming moving at 10mph (after all he has just turned into the road) the cyclist takes 4.5 seconds to cover 15m) so visible for more than a second or two, not including the time when he would be visible before pulling out.

Even at 20mph, he would be established in the road for 2 seconds prior to reacing the road the BMW emerges from. of course what is not described above is the speed. If the cyclist has come down the track and joined the road at 30mph then the driver has more oif a case.

Although re-reading it seems that once the cylist is aware of the car he then moves to the right, which is contributry to the collision when he could have moved left into the cycle lane. Fully aware of the bus he cannot expect the BMW to ignore it. Is he moving right assuming the BMW will just plow into the back of the bus?

As you say it might well be taken as knock for knock, it would certainly not be taken as all the left turning drivers fault.

I suspect it is like the roundabout arguments, in theory you give way to traffic on your right that is established on the island. But as some islands are smaller and some traffic is approaching faster then others two could enter at almostthe the same time but the one is travelling at twice the speed (still legal). The collision would have both questioning the other person as being in the wrong. 

As for the speed, I was assuming about 15mph as I suspect Ian would have been looking right mostly ready to brake if something was coming but conserving some momentum to come out if safe and it was. From drivers comments, I also expect he saw Ian on the slipway but thought "bike equals slow and car is coming down so they will stop, don't need to worry about him" and then looked the other direction for space and went.

Hence his complaint about why didn't you stop for the car coming down.

Main thing is Ian is ok though. The rest will probably need to be sorted by insurers if any claims are being made. After a near miss recently, my first instinct now is brake now when I see something unexpected ahead of me. (In my case it was several pedestrians on a central reservation that is not a crossing place). 

a BMW should have alerted my spidey senses

Yes, at any time there's a nutter driver in a BMW hammering through red lights at 50mph near YOU! BMW PJ14 LBE crossed the stop line over 1.5 seconds after the lights turned red. The first picture, for those who have difficulty with these things, is when they turned red

And hammering through