Had a few errands in Preston town the other day & went in my little van.
I am waiting to turn left out of a narrow one way side street into an urban dual carriageway.
There is a traffic light controlled cross roads less than 100 metres to my left.
The lights have just gone red.
An artic comes along correctly & early positioned (as he should be) for the sharp left turn. He has the white lane divider line right under his centre and is clearly indicating left.
His driving actually stood out to me that he was well positioned & clear with his intention.
He stops at the lights. Female cyclist comes along and rides up his inside. The lights change & he sets off. By this time someone has let me out, I’m about 2 cars behind the artic & can see clearly the situation developing but can do beggar about it.
Just as she levels with the cab he starts to turn. I guess she then appeared within his vision in the corner of his windscreen, he jumped on the brakes bouncing the cab hard.
She pedalled on her merry way whilst it took the guy some seconds to sort himself out - presumably being rather shocked & having to sort his gears to move off from rest at an angle.
It was VERY CLOSE!!!
Make sure those top mirrors are correctly adjusted, clean, & use them.
I read a report about an accident like this that happened in London.The cyclist was MURDERED by a truck.That was in the Sunday Times.The militant brigade of cyclists have started hanging white bikes up at the scenes of crashes.As a cycling driver we all have a resposibility to take care of our selves.Well done to the artic. driver no one wants to see a pulped person, cyclist or otherwise.
The cyclist is clearly wrong - in all this blaming each other society we live in, we must read and take note of the highway code - in doing this I have come to realise that if it is softer than you, you give way to it.
The cyclist is wrong but in a perfect world if the driver had checked his near side mirror form time to time looking out for some idiot to do this, it may not have been an issue.
Ive only been driving class 1 for 6 months but I have to say, the single biggest thing which has come to my attention is how bad (and dangerous) other road users are!
Especially the car drivers who race full pelt to the very end of a slip road then squeeze in right on your front bumper causing you to brake hard If i was to ■■■■ into the back of him I’m sure ‘they’ would find a way of blaming me.
Night driving is cool
Rob K:
I won’t win any friends by saying it but cyclists like her deserve to get killed. No sympathy whatsoever to her but masses of sympathy to the trucker.
Rob K:
I won’t win any friends by saying it but cyclists like her deserve to get killed. No sympathy whatsoever to her but masses of sympathy to the trucker.
I wouldn’t say she deserved it but she was asking for it if that’s different, but how much would the driver have been blamed had something bad occurred? At least the driver would have had a witness. She was entirely in the wrong - I hope she learnt from it quickly.
For the last couple of years there appears to have been a spate of women cyclists being killed by lorries in London, often in this sort of situation, and people have asked why so many women? - some theorize they are not so aware of the dangers or so alert (which I tend to believe) but supposedly the statistics are not relevant (even given the majority of cyclists are male). Male cyclists tend to go over the line at lights and are more likely to be seen/be out of the way whilst women might timidly creep up the side of the vehicle and not break the law in this way. It’s similar on another recent thread with cars in the blind spot - you can’t afford to switch off even when stopped.
A test has been produced at Iowa State University by professor of psychology Dr Camilla Benbow. She scanned the brains of more than a million boys and girls to study their spatial ability and reported that differences between the sexes were already significant by the age of four. She found that while girls were excellent at seeing two dimensions in the brain, boys had the ability to see a third dimension, giving depth. On three-dimensional video tests, boys outstripped girls in spatial ability by a ratio of 4: 1 and the best girls were often outclassed by the lowest scoring boys.
Incontrovertible scientific evidence - from a woman! (if true). It’s even worse - we live in a 4D world and largely through experience do we learn what will probably be where in such-a-such a time and largely due to testosterone, males’ reactions are better!
I had a similar blood pressure rising experience last week.
Junction with traffic lights, cycle lane on my left, railing that forces pedestrains to use zebra, two cars in front of me, green light on, first car turning right, giving way to oncoming traffic, the other car driver must have been sooo late somewhere really important that he/she tried to squeeze throug the gap on the left - just big enough for a car - did not look into the mirror so did not see the cyclist coming from behind in cycle lane… seeing the massacre my hand instinctively went onto horn - no avail, car keeps going and crushes the cyclist against the railing, cyclist bangs on the car’s roof, driver take no bloody notice and just drives away…
I could not believe my eyes, lady cyclist white in face as dead, but OK, took few deep breathes and carried on.
If i was to ■■■■ into the back of him I’m sure ‘they’ would find a way of blaming me.
