Bikes have brakes on them. Could have slowed down and not been in the same place as the van.

Well, only everyone who is convicted by a court of careless driving – sadly, that tends only to be investigated after a fatality.

I think you are wrong. 90,000 convictions in 2007 for “careless driving” – less than 3000 fatalities in the same period.

Agree with Poly. The more miles you drive for a living the more your risk (or at least probability) goes up. It only takes one mistake doesn’t it?

I’d also like to add that I am an appalling driver. No one on here (including the folk with plastic shiny badges) are 100% on it. Everyone is prone to making a mistake.

Surrounded By Zulus – Member

Yes you do have a penchant for opinions with NO basis in fact.
He rode up to a junction a van pulled out and hit him. Do eleaborate on why based on your gazillion miles driving and cycling what he did wrong ?

If the van driver had 5 seconds where he could have seen the cyclist then the cyclist had a similar amount of time in which to see that the van driver and take evasive action.

This junction is like a mini slip road onto the fast moving A370, however it isn’t very long but you can drive your vehicle so it is almost parallel with the main road, before you either stop or merge.

It his highly likely the van drove along the slip area and merged, without properly looking, in those circumstances the cyclist IMO could not have avoided it.

Bikes have brakes on them. Could have slowed down and not been in the same place as the van.

The van was passing him. Slowing down would have lead to him being hit in a slightly different location.

Should cyclists brake every time something overtakes them?

You’re either a troll or a ****.

What would you do in a car if you were in the position the cyclist was in? I would slow down so as to avoid a crash. Same as what I would do on a bike.

You know that vehicles use slip roads,
You know that vehicles have blindspots,
You know that drivers makes mistakes,

So why dont you know to look for vehicles coming off sliproads where the drivers make a mistake or you’re in their blindspot and take the appropriate action?

Everyone is prone to making a mistake.

Ain’t that the truth (from another appalling driver)

It does raise the question of how many mistakes we are willing to accept, and what level of consequences we’re willing to accept though.

Personally, I don’t think a mistake like this, from a professional driver, resulting in a fatality is acceptable. I also don’t think the levels of KSIs on our roads at the moment are acceptable either. The only way to reduce the current levels is to change what we doing at the moment. If that means introducing stiffer penalties to ‘encourage’ motorists to stop killing and injuring each other and other roadusers then so be it. I should point out that I don’t believe for one minute that this is the only way to change the status quo, there’s a lot of other area that could be tackled too (training, engineering etc..).

I think you are wrong. 90,000 convictions in 2007 for “careless driving” – less than 3000 fatalities in the same period.

Aye, did think that after I posted 😳

Still, to quote Miketually “I can live with that”(number of disqualifications). esp as this geezer has done it twice, as I alluded earlier:

“The following are examples of driving which may amount to driving without due care and attention:
… using a hand held mobile telephone while the vehicle is moving; …”

I wonder how many drivers involved in fatal ‘accidents’ have, like this driver, a previous conviction for driving without due care and attention?

Anyway. RIP. My thoughts are with his family and children 🙁

You know that vehicles use slip roads,
You know that vehicles have blindspots (not in their front aspect they don’t),
You know that drivers makes mistakes,

So why dont you know to look for vehicles coming off sliproads where the drivers make a mistake or you’re in their blindspot and take the appropriate action?

OK, so the driver may or may not have seen me
He’s moving much faster than me (and hence those 5 seconds prior to impact are spent with him behind me)
He may be planning to get in front of me before pulling out, or pull out just behind me, or hasn’t seen me. How do I know which ?
I can’t realistically speed up enough to get out of his way
I could brake, but what if he has seen me and is joining behind me (and has judged my speed & now looking over his shoulder to check oncoming traffic behind us both) ? (I reckon more likely than his NOT having seen me)
surely braking without knowing his intentions is at least as likely to end up in a crash than if I keep a steady speed ?

It’s his job to look in front of him

(I don’t think I’d ride that road because of the above)

You are clearly intent on pursuing your own blind point of view, so who am i to try and change that. I’ll stick to doing it my way if that’s ok with you.

You are clearly intent on pursuing your own blind point of view

Not at all; convince me – you could start with what’s wrong with what I wrote above, or at least explain why I should brake when I hear a vehicle accelerating behind me

so who am i to try and change that

😉

Right, here’s my opinion. The van driver had been “driving or working for 13 hours” – yet he miraculously was not impaired. Really?

Van drivers go like f*ck because they are up against schedules. No, I don’t have any quotes from the internet to back this up, just 27 years of commuting and road riding experience.

Yesterday 3 blokes in a van drove past me and turned left in front of me. I caught them up and asked the driver if he had seen me. He said yes he had. I asked him why he had cut me up. He just shrugged his shoulders. Didn’t give a shit. I asked him how he would like it if someone did it to his daughter. He didn’t like that. SO WHY DO IT TO ME THEN?

If the van merged behind the cyclist, the cyclist could not have taken evasive action and could reasonably expect the van driver to miss him. I bet the van driver was trying to save time by not stopping at the give way, was moving forward looking over his shoulder (because visibility in vans is bad at that angle) and was not looking where he was going.

Pah, makes me mad. I see this every day.

yes nice popint Smee you are right everytime i get to a slip roa dI stop just in case the driver fails to see me and pulls out and then hits me from behind. I often just pull over if there is a vehcile behind me as I understand it the person hit is always at fault for any crash – give over you fool.