[Closed] "Sorry, I didn't see you... You're not a car!"

[i][b]VENGEANCE AND FURIOUS ANGER?[/b][/i]

Mike: Fully agree, but I read a few of the posts as bordering on victim blaming, and not helpful advice.

As a side note I've been reading the cyclecraft book (1p from Amazon 🙂 ) and it does pass on some very helpful advice about how to approach different situations. It has made me think more about where I am on the road, and how I ride in general.
Also a roady friend has highly recommended the advanced bikeability training for anyone who commutes.

cyclecraft book (1p from Amazon )

Link please 🙂

Fair point about the stats Mike, I hadn't considered that. In the past I've not reported hits or near misses because it has been a genuine accident and the driver has been genuinely apologetic.

gfs: I picked mine up for 1p + £2.80 postage, but now comes up as 43p + £2.80 postage used 🙁
Just search Amazon for Cyclecraft and pick the paperback version of the first result.
(Link won't work for some reason)
Well worth it at that price.

Ta lad.

gerti, first thing when you read any indecent/accident report you get all the near misses that were never reported, or the yeah that's been broken for ages stuff. You know all the H&S madness that actually make a difference.

used to live opposite a T junction and drivers would regularly turn left after only looking right for a gap in the traffic - they would accelerate into the back of a stationary bus - the council eventually moved the bus stop 10 metres or so - bus stop positioning to blame, not dumb drivers

Eye contact is balls.

It's not, it does help.

Eye contact is vastly over rated by some, it's not an indicator that they've seen you and can lead to inaccurate assumptions, the only way it [i]may[/i] assist is negatively, ie if you've clocked that they haven't once looked in your general direction on approach to the junction - in which case rider beware.

*someone will probably run into the back of you

Saccadic masking

Shall I get me balaclava on?

If you're a SadoSaccadic would it be a ball gag?

I assume that a car, driven safety and within the speed limit, would be travelling as fast, if not faster, than the OP in this situation.

That's not an assumption that I would be prepared to make.

Eye contact is vastly over rated by some, it's not an indicator that they've seen you and can lead to inaccurate assumptions, the only way it may assist is negatively, ie if you've clocked that they haven't once looked in your general direction on approach to the junction - in which case rider beware.

It's not just a glance to make sure that people have looked in your general direction, it's a full on "has this **** seen me" glare. It works.

It works.

*I've tried it a fair few times due to people banging on about it on here, still do use it but not for confirmation that they've seen but, as I said, so I can tell whether they've not even looked in my direction in which case it's emergency stop time.

I had exactly that, too- driver maintained constant eye contact right up til I stove in their door with 160 kilos of motorbike. Then said "you came out of nowhere", then "You were going too fast", of course.

At night, I find the atomic helmet light makes a massive difference- I think because people don't worry much about pulling out in front of pushbikes, but they think twice about UFOs.

I've looked people in the eye (or as close as you can judge, considering you're normally a fair distance from them) and have had them still pull out on me

I didn't say it was guaranteed to work - that would be stupid. I said it helps, and it does.

Eye contact is indicative of nothing other than whether or not they have looked in your general direction

Eye contact means they've seen you, by definition. What we are talking about is *seeking* eye contact. So you move your head to try and see the driver's face. Often, if someone's looking generally in my direction but not at me, I move my head to look them in the eye and they will then notice me.

I've been cycling on roads for 30 years, I've cycled in cities all over the country (and a few in other countries) including London quite a bit, I'm not making up bollocks. I do have experience here.

It's happened enough times* for me to decide either they have just looked straight through me or they have seen me and don't GAF

You may be doing something wrong then, because I try to make eye contact, and people very rarely pull in front of me, and I can't recall anyone pulling out in front of me whilst looking at me.

Oh here we go, the old STW "if you were as good a rider as me you wouldn't have got knocked off". Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.

That's not it. I'm posting to share tips with the forum and the internet in general. I'm trying not to criticise the OP directly, but to have a good discussion about cycle safety. If anyone feels insulted or threatened by my posts then I apologise unreservedly and I will strive to word my posts better in the future.

You know when you met your first partner where ever that may have been and you first gained eye contact with them - that's the kind of eye contact we're talking here. Not the random stranger who appears to be running towards you at the airport with their arms outstretched who then proceeds to run straight past you to the person they had eye contact with.

I had a very close miss a while ago and someone posted up a Fighter Jets perspective/how our eyes and brain take in and process information- our eyes take in a series of snap shots- its not continuous under certain circumstances. Anyone got a link?

Hora demonstrating Saccadic masking brilliantly there by asking for a link to something that was posted several messages before his but he failed to see...

I would get that Blur written off - I wouldn't want to be riding around on a carbon bike that had taken a sideswipe like that.

You may be doing something wrong then,

You know when you met your first partner where ever that may have been and you first gained eye contact with them

that's the kind of eye contact we're talking here. Not the random stranger who...

From the perspective of a (bad) driver, making eye contact with a cyclist may mean to them that they've been seen by the cyclist, so can pull out because it's only a soft squishy human who will yield to my two tons of steel and they won't be going very fast and I don't want to get stuck behind them. So while eye contact is important, it's not really an indicator of a driver's intention.

Maybe we should all carry a lance?

(no, not that sort of Lance)

Eye contact, police advanced driver/motorcyclist told me to watch the front wheel, its the only real indicator.

Oof, that looked like a hard knock.

Hope you're OK and not getting too depressed by the internet fusspots telling you how bad a rider you are.

It's not, it does help. Clearly as you say there are times it won't, but there are times it will.

Well, IME there are so many times that it wont, whether because it gives a false sense of security or because it's simply impossible, that it's basically useless.

There is one time I use it (well, sort of, as I'll come to in a bit): there's a junction I negotiate frequently, a crossroads where I am turning right and both I and a driver opposite are stopped at give way lines. For most combinations of events, their opportunity to move off will arise at the same time as mine, but clearly if we move off at the same time I get hit. So I need to either let them go first, or be sure that they have signalled for me to go. For this, I need eye contact. But actually I need more. I need to see them gesture with their had, or nod their head, or similar. It's not enough to see them look at me.

Even then, as I mentioned, much of the time I simply can't see them because their windscreen is just reflecting sky in the summer or street lighting in the winter.

In that scenario, both I and the driver are stationary and we have time to conduct some sort of protocol. If one or both of us are moving, such an involved two-way process takes too much time and requires too narrow a focus of attention, and the chances of it being completed successfully (still leaving the risk of a false positive) are slim. When there's movement involved, I'm usually glancing at the front wheelarches. They tell me what inputs the driver's applying to the vehicle.

YMMV, natch, but over the years I've found eye contact to be of negligible use in almost all situations.

Well, IME there are so many times that it wont, whether because it gives a false sense of security or because it's simply impossible, that it's basically useless

Not IME so we'll disagree.

Scenario is as follows. Someone waiting at say a mini roundabout (a bit like the OP). I'm riding along and there's a car on the exit to my left they're stopped and waiting for a car approaching from their left to turn left. They look down the road to my right and start to move, but as I dip my head slighltly and look directly at the driver, they notice me and stop. This happens LOADS in Cardiff - maybe it's the particular configuration of junctions and mini roundabouts in the Cardiff suburbs, I dunno. If, as you say, I can't see their face at all due to reflection, I get unnerved and will slow right down expecting them to pull out. I rely quite heavily on seeing the driver's face, and will go into full cautious mode if I can't see it.

My theory is that people notice faces looking at them far more than faces looking elsewhere. As I sit here typing there are three people's faces in my peripheral vision - above and to the left, from the row of desks opposite mine. They are all moving slightly, here and there, moving eyes between monitors and so on. However if one of them looks directly at me for a second, my brain will notice it and alert me.

Hope you're OK and not getting too depressed by the internet fusspots telling you how bad a rider you are.

We're discussing defensive riding. The car driver is definitely at fault, of course, but blaming her and carrying on the same is going to result in the same thing happening again eventually.

As above if a car looks like it's not slowing down when it should be giving way then slowing as you near it is a good thing - tough to say how easy/possible this was for the OP.

Bez - Member
YMMV, natch, but over the years I've found eye contact to be of negligible use in almost all situations.

It's pretty helpful for me, or at least it feels that way.

My theory is that people notice faces looking at them far more than faces looking elsewhere.

but as I dip my head slighltly and look directly at the driver, they notice me [b]and stop[/b].

the important bit is bold the rest is unreliable info.

What do you mean?

I don't think making eye contact is what [i]makes[/i] it safe; being able to make eye contact is an indicator [i]that[/i] it's safe

Someone who's not registered you as they make their quick glance along the road can't meet your gaze. I think that's the point.

I don't think making eye contact is what makes it safe

It does sometimes, trust me.

Someone gazing further down the road, you're in their peripheral vision. Seeing a face looking at them catches their attention in a way that a steadily moving bicycle (amazingly) sometimes doens't.

The other side of it is that *having* made eye contact you are significantly safer (but not, as mentioned above, completely safe, you never are). Experience has taught me when a driver looks like pulling out or not based on their body language.

I always go for checking the front wheel, if that's moving they've probably not seen me or they're not fussed, and if it's not moving they've hopefully seen me, or they're just simply staying still (for now) and shall see me as I approach.

I go for watching the front wheel as I get closer and then ideally try and establish eye contact too.

I'd stop using a carbon frame after that kind of impact, or I'd try and get it Xrayed to see for cracks inside it.