Near Miss of the Day 45: Compilation - One cyclist's experience over three months

The scary thing is these are all too common 

I'm looking at that video and he's riding TOO close to the edge of the road therefore encouraging them to try and squeeze past.

The first really scary thing about this vid is that any of those incidents could have resulted in death or injury with just a tiny change in circs; a pothole, a gust of wind, a misjudgement by another driver.  The second is that we all see this regularly, if not every day, then still pretty frequently, but nothing seems to change.

I'm sure all these issues will be addressed in the government's forthcoming inquiry into road safety.  The one they postponed for three years until the Charlie Alliston case.

This is probably pretty typical of most commutes I would suggest. While not pleasant, with a bit of common sense and awareness, I think risk can be mitigated. In 5 years of commuting 20+ miles a day, my only accident was being doored at the weekend in a sleepy village.

I’m reading Derren Brown’s ‘Happy’ at the moment and his take on philosophy and how to live responsibly. There’s an interesting section on the causes of road rage and where anger comes from, even in mild mannered individuals: “Much is happening all the time that is beyond our control and as the Stoics have told us, it is from that realm that most of our anxieties originate. The result on the road is a power struggle…

“The real culprit here, though is our sense of entitlement. It is very hard to be our most compassionate when we are navigating such dangerous territory. When we are in cars, we cannot communicate with any of the subtlety of a normal social situation”

I think this alludes to one of the key issues as to why this happens, a lack of empathy for the cyclist and how a close pass feels to them. There’s definitely something in the way that attitudes to others change as soon as you start driving.

To illustrate the point of being ‘in a different world’ when driving, as I’m cycling along stationary drivers I make a point of letting drivers know if they have a blown brake light bulb, that’s not working. A gentle tap on the window or a wave and a point to the back of the vehicle. Frequently the initial look is one of surprise/irritation, sometimes confusion. The bubble has been burst, the state of mind has been changed, you’re back to having to interact with a real person. Then, nearly always, there’s gratitude when the driver realises you’re trying to help and not inconvenience them. “Better me than the Police”, I sometimes say. (Mind you, there was once one driver who steadfastly refused to even look at me and just gripped onto their steering wheel more tightly!)

No answers on this one, but the issue isn’t going to go away as long as there’s this disconnect between actions and effects on others.

 I think im going to give up cycling.

Do you ask for proof of age i.d.?!?

"madcarew [455 posts] 2 hours ago

I believe what we see on a day to day is down right rude, unsettling, but not in itself hugely dangerous.  

What I am thinking is that rather than these moves being demonstrations of incompetency or anti cyclist mentality, I'm starting to believe its just about being at the receiving end of the normal language of driving.

Bare with me...

When accountants talk to accountants, the language used is direct, uncompromising and in many ways damn right rude. This is because a good accountants job is to collect money owed to them quickly and resist paying bills due for as long as possible. All is fine with this as long as accountants talk to accountants. But, from bitter experience when accountants deals with non-accountants, offence is very quickly taken. 

Bascially its the same on the roads. The common language is power and dominance. My lane, my turn, my right of way. The mantra is to get from a - b as fast as is feasible and if squeezing a few margins makes that happen, that is fair game. As drivers we all play this game (to varying degrees) every day. In our boxes, this is all fine. We don't like being cut up, 'done' at lights etc., but its normal behaviour. 

Now, put us on our bikes and these little moves, acts of dominance, power, squeezing the margins, suddenly take on a different perspective, as its suddenly our lives, not our arrival time on the line. 

We are the non accountant being aggressively chased for money. 

Is there a point to this ramble? 

I suppose its about needing to identify why these things happen, so the right changes can be made. For me the biggest thing is about humanising cyclists to motorists, to publicise the vulnerability, and responsibility placed in the hands of drivers. 

What I don't necessarily like is all this talk of close passing. Of saying that close passing is common, normal behaviour that needs addressing. Rather than idenify horror on ourroads and generating a need for change, publicity simply normalises the behaviour to the majority. 

For example, would you still speed in a car if you didn't think everyone else speeded too? 

As the saying goes... "It's all killer, and no filler".

Some of those were sphincter clenchingly bad, but quite a few I wouldn't call remotely close, but wide angle cameras do make things a bit difficult to judge. 

Lorry at 0:25 needs sending down. What a bellend.

A couple of these show the very worse sort of idiot driver, the ones where a stream of cars pass you at  safe distance then the idiot comes along to prove a point and drives very close to you i.e following a car that is a safe distance but driving aboout 150cm closer to you than that.

One day I will get the chance to catch up and ask this person whether they are stupid or deliberately trying to unnerve me. If its the latter I'll punch them (if male and between 21 - 58).

Cheers

DrG82 wrote:

In so many of the clips above the drivers almost crash into oncoming vehicles, in those situations I fear the drivers will take the choice of self preservation and flatten me rather than hit the oncoming vehicle.

Yes they will: that's an instinctive reaction and there's very little that most people can do about it, once they're in that position. Split-second decision - choose between hard metal thing or squishy thing. Not many people will react quickly enough to properly weigh the risks and not just do a self-preservation knee-jerk, and I don't think they can be blamed for that.

What they can, and should, be blamed for, and have the book thrown at them for, is the stupid and risky driving that puts them in that situation in the first place, and which cyclists see all the time. I have no time for commenters on these articles shrugging and saying 'nothing happened, so what'. Often, the driver has already created a situation where if another vehicle appeared, they would be taking out the cyclist : their driving has already created a dangerous situation that's beyond their control.

There must be literally thousands upon thousands of recorded incidents of close passes, all of them have one primary feature, drivers dont want to slow for slower road users, so take the dangerous option.  If there was presumed liability, it would hit the driver in the pocket.  It works well in parts of Europe.

Wellll, technically, if he went the wrong side of the traffic island, it wasn't a close pass.

Dodgy passes once a week!

Last week in one 4 mile ride to work a bus pulled out of a stop on me, then about 100 m down the road a van drove out at me on a roundabout without even slowing down and then about 2 miles later a car attempted a pass where there was a traffic island and a zebra crossing and decided to squeeze me into the kerb before I smacked my fist into her rear passenger side window and she noticed I was there.

In so many of the clips above the drivers almost crash into oncoming vehicles, in those situations I fear the drivers will take the choice of self preservation and flatten me rather than hit the oncoming vehicle.

Blimey, I didn't know my commute was being filmed this evening

Whilst cyclists are allowed on dual carriageways and A roads, the closing speed of passing vehicles is horrendous. I avoid these types of road but of course, the fact still remains that the level of driving is absolutely atrocious. 

Yep, but we we all are fully behind promting sustantable transport and getting more people to more active.   

Why do UK resident keeps electing knobheads? 

looks like a typical 30 minute ride in essex

Sadly, NFN.

Jesus christ some of those were horrible. Some a bit close for comfort, some downright stupid, but there were some properly anus-rupturing scary ones too. Yeesh.