Regarding the 3 feet distance, the OP was riding along a country B road so there was probably no kerb, just a verge. The condition of such roads within a foot or so of the verge is often very variable and even dangerous: that is where the road surface is most likely to break up and potholes develop. Several years ago there was a court case where a cyclist claimed against the local authority for his injuries as a result of the poor surface at the edge of the road causing him to fall – the court held that the authority was not liable and had no duty to ensure that the edge of the road was not in a worse condition than the rest of the road. In other words, it not only put the onus on the cyclist obviously to look carefully where they were going, it also effectively implied that the cyclist should not ride close to the road edge, in order to use the better road surface closer to the middle of the lane. The case was covered by the cycling press at the time, which concluded that it effectively gave the green light to local authorities not to bother fixing potholes etc. at the edge of the road.

Lastly, I doubt most experienced riders would cycle any less than 2 feet from the edge or the kerb, and in practice that probably means that much of the time they will be nearer 3 feet away than 2 feet away.

Its stuff like this that does put me off road riding, you can’t do anything if someone is going to be a knob. I had similar happen to me on my commute last year, only a car actually undertook the suv that was overtaking me, grazing their wing and nearly hitting me. I caught up with the guy up the road, but he looked like a typical bag head, plus I had look cleats on so just gesticulated wildly at him, didn’t fancy a fight. Evidently neither did he and he pissed off sharpish.

I doubt most experienced riders would cycle any less than 2 feet from the edge or the kerb,

Really depends on the situation

Anyone who simply places their bike[ road vehicle of any description] in one place irrespective of the road/scenario/conditions is doing it wrong

TJ no position in the road protects you from the poor decisions of other road users

Exactly. I ride pretty much on the white line in the centre of the roads before many of the blind corners I ride around yet cars will still overtake me. There is nothing else I can do in those scenarios

Were you running a decent rear light (s) ?

Wont have stopped the SUV completing the overtake , but might have made the WVM aware of your postion sooner , enabling him to do a mirror , signal , manouvere before the SUV was next to him.

This is obviously dependant on the WVM looking up from his phone

Today ( sunday 11am ) Tesco understore car park . Dozy bitch in a convertable BMW 3 series driving along whilst dicking around on her phone . Possibly worse than doing it whilst driving past a school.

My point I guess was “reflective practice” ie although no doubt at all you were legally in the right is there anything you could have done to avoid the situation? Maybe no / maybe yes but IME (and most of my riding is in town or on quiet roads) but I find the only times I have had close passes is when I have not been paying attention and ridden too close to the kerb. Riding out from the kerb / road edge I find helps enourmously

Exactly. I ride pretty much on the white line in the centre of the roads before many of the blind corners I ride around yet cars will still overtake me. There is nothing else I can do in those scenarios

On LH corners by hanging out in the outer half of the lane you enable drivers who do not comprehend line of sight to see alot further round the corner making their overtake safer. On RH bends you are shortening the VP making it way more dangerous for them , yet they still overtake anyway – using the force to see round the blind corner .
No hope. The ironing is if you asked them if they would let their kids ride to school , or wife cycle to work they would say ” no chance too many idiots out there ”

Riding out from the kerb / road edge I find helps enourmously

whereas I have found it makes little to no difference. The drivers that would overtake on a blind bend still overtake yet more aggressively as they somehow think you are trying to hold them up. They simply don’t get that it is a dangerous place to overtake. The few I have managed to ‘flag’ down confirm that and the argument starts with them saying “what the hell are you doing riding in the middle of the road, I could hardly get past”

Aye – but even if twonks still attempt dangerous overtakes it means if they clip you you have somewhere to go other than hitting roadside furniture. Even if it only prevents some dangerous overtakes then its worth it

Lots of good sense on here. BTW, it wasn’t a road ride, it’s just that part of my local XC loop uses this particular stretch of road.

The ironing is if you asked them if they would let their kids ride to school , or wife cycle to work they would say ” no chance too many idiots out there “

Never a truer word.

Bad, negligent, dangerous driving is so rife it’s almost the rule rather than the exception. I don’t think I can actually complete a car journey anywhere of more than 15 minutes and not witness several examples.

After my brush with death yesterday morning, I did my usual taxi service for my kids to and from their tennis lessons. This involves a drive through a long stretched out village that rightly has a 30 limit all the way through. On two of the three journeys through I was tailgated whilst driving at the speed limit. I was also forced to stop by someone barging through past parked cars, twice. I’m often overtaken in that village when I’m driving at the speed limit.

I would estimate that on 75% of my commutes I see at least one driver clearly using a phone or iPad. You can see the furtive glances up and down and the erratic last minute corrections as they crawl through the traffic.

I think a lot of people have basically cottoned on to the fact that there just aren’t any coppers around any more due to the austerity cuts and so behave just how they want.

I even see cars duck off the motorway to drive through the services and gain about five places in the queue in the morning. Sadly, it seems a lot of people are dickheads and getting behind the wheel makes them even more so as they perceive themselves as ‘immune’.

Can sympathise with you, i live in the sticks and had a large farm indicate and start to come around me on a country road and which time a lady in a BMX X5 decided it was a good time to overtake both, but as the tractor moved across she was forced ride and had to drive along a verge and scratched all of her paint in the hedge on the offside. At which point, and having wrecked the grass verge and the hedge, she stops gets out and proceeds to shout at everyone involved for the damage to her paintwork!! Thankfully the farmer jumped out of the tractor and in no uncertain terms told her she was lucky to be alive and she was an idiot