As the title says, riding down a road in south west London, near Richmond Park. Cars parked on both sides, a car pulls over to let me through, as I approach the pulled over car, just beyond there is a road on the left that joins the one I’m on, I see some bloke in a W*nker Tank(4×4) arriving at the end of this road.

I’ve got a flashing helmet light(amongst others), so I turn my head towards the approaching car so when he turns his head in my direction he will see me…he didn’t turn his head, he didn’t even slow down at the junction, he pulled out and blitzed past me with a few inches to spare. If I had been a few inches toward the middle of the road, I imagine I would have been landing on his windscreen, I still don’t know how his wing mirror missed me it happened so fast.

The pulled over car hit his horn, but the speeding car wasn’t stopping. The driver of the pulled over car then wound down his window and asked if I was ok. I think my first words rhymed with clucking bell.

The actual reason for starting this post is about vehicles approaching junctions/roundabouts etc. I noticed it when I’m driving that an awful lot of drivers these days are not slowing down on approach, almost as if they are hedging their bets to there not being any traffic there, so they can shoot out into the road without them having to use that horrible joy killer called the brakes, and the horror of having to change gear. Of course if there is traffic, they slam their anchors on last second.

This of course does illicit a response from me by thinking “this person isn’t going to stop” so you end up braking yourself. Is it just me?

Apologies for the ramble.

I don’t know how there are not more accidents. It scares me the amount of times I’m waiting at a roundabout or T junction in a large van and people turning left will check its clear as they come up behind me, drive down my left side and pull straight out with no though whatsoever for cyclists riding in front of me (or peds), and no time for a second look.

There are another couple of junctions near me onto high speed roads where drivers seem to be able to pull out without stopping, I’ve tried it I cannot see how anyone can even manage a quick look in both directions without coming to a full stop, let alone my rule of two proper looks each way and another check as I’m moving forward. I’ve had one very very close call years ago with an elderly pedestrian that crossed in front of me (literally using the grill as support) as I was flashed out so I’ve learnt to never rush a junction! (I only avoided running over the lady as I noticed she had disappeared from the pavement jumped back on the brake, checked my mirrors expecting her to walk out from behind the van, then saw her head right in front of my bonnet) Sobering moment…I think everyone needs a close call to realise how quick it can go wrong. The car that flashed me out drove slowly past with their hand over their mouth looking white as a sheet.

The majority of accidents are at junctions. People just aren’t careful/patient enough.

don’t call them accidents 🙂

Yes I’ve noticed this happening a lot. I got bumped off my bike in March at a roundabout when a driver didn’t give way. He said he was distracted but I think he was looking for cars/vans only and blind to cyclists. It’s the old speed reading phenomena too much information so your brain only processes snapshots looking for certain triggers that are the normal hazards you encounter at junctions. Anything unusual is blanked out.

Personally I can’t wait for autonomous vehicles to become the norm as the standard of driving by folk is dire.

be careful out there. glad you are unhurt OP.

I had a bus pull out on me on Monday, he was turning left out of a side road, it was dark but I had lights on. No reason he shouldn’t have seen me.

I caught up with shortly after and asked him what the he’ll he thought he was doing, and he started waving his arms around and mouthing something, I couldn’t really tell what it was but it didn’t seem like sorry….

Traffic started moving so I set off, he then pull out to over take and then forced me into the kerb!!

I caught up with him again, (bus drivers must be stupid, do they not know that their job is to stop every few hundred metres….) and remonstrated with him and he just drove off. ****!

I was near home then so went home and reported him to the bus company. I know bugger all will happen though.

Canal tow path from now on for me, can’t be doing with traffic this time of year.

I commuted for 6-8 weeks last year. Fluro jackets & gloves (diff colours), top end flashing lights, fluro bike, white helmet…

I reckoned about every other day, my life would be out of my control and in someone else’s hands. People sometimes pulled out after seeing me, because I’m on a bike and not in a car, and obviously more expendible. I’m experienced riding and ride proactively to keep safe and really concentrate on what’s around me.

My ride time co-incided with mothers dropping off kids at school, which doesn’t help with traffic and frankly they’re all in a rush late for school, as are everyone else. I’m just in the way of their deadline. I found it safer on the main roads than backroads. On the main roads, junction visibility is better and fewer parked cars. People seem to be concentrating more, despite or because of the greater passing speed.

I reckoned if I kept riding, eventually, by sheer mathmatical probability I’d be in an accident after 1-2 years. It’s a big retirement area where I live, and frankly it’s bad enough in a car somedays.

It was a shame, as I was fitter & faster, happier and enjoyed my ride to work. So now I drive, and instead I’m slowly killing myself silently, by not getting the exercise of riding to work, never mind the planet. Its only 5 minutes faster over 20 min ride. I have to say I look forward to and enjoy my weekend rides more when not getting knackered commuting to work. But I’m slower.

I know that this is a Driver-bashing opportunity that most will enjoy, however…

I see a lot of cyclists people on bikes ridding like this at junctions

as if they are hedging their bets to there not being any traffic there, so they can shoot out into the road without them having to use that horrible joy killer called the brakes

Lack of patience and aggressiveness are the biggest problems for me – along with general not paying attention to e actual task of driving.

I try to make myself pretty visible with a highly reflective jacket / high vis yellow Lomo backpack with reflective strips on / 2 lights front and rear (one more solid, 1 flashing or pulsing at each end).

Generally I’ve had some close passes but other than that just 1 really dangerous moment where a car brushed me as it turned left across me with no warning just after it drew alongside me. I’ve been commuting to work on and off for probably 20 years or more by bike.

Sooner or later the probability is I’m going to have some kind of accident so I’m well insured to try and get myself back up and running as quickly as possible – in the meantime I try to anticipate car driver stupidity as much as I can and stay out of trouble.

Cover wise I’ve got BC membership for legal stuff, plus personal accident insurance and private healthcare.

I’m lucky that my commute is by car but on almost every one of my ten journies a week I see an example of bellendery and recklessness. Round the Lancashire mill towns (and I’m sure elsewhere) it has become normal for drivers emerging from side roads to fly up to the junction at speed in the hope of intimidating you to let them out then brake abruptly if you don’t. I won’t allow those drivers out but I do sometimes slow for others who are waiting patiently, as long as I’m in a line of traffic and I can see it would benefit them.

This week is absolutely the worst time to commute by bike, I normally avoid riding to work this week. I’m on my moped now, that’s bad enough, but I feel a bit better keeping up with traffic and being super cautious.

Drivers are having to relearn to drive in the dark all of a sudden and they’re crap at it.

ads678 – I’d be calling the police as well. Its become noticeable now when good bus driving is evident – they’re crap around here. The bus company will issue standard “he says he didn’t do it” response

You have to be super catious at junctions, see the link below for the reasons. If you don’t have time, its to do with our brains filling in the blanks when we scan the road. I’m sure somone else has posted it previously.

https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-to-surviving-on-the-roads/

I was going to report it to the police but didn’t think they’d do any as nothing actually happened.

There doesn’t seem to to be an online form for driver like a toss piece on the west Yorkshire police web site. I might ring them but probably left it too late now….

Fluro jackets & gloves (diff colours), top end flashing lights, fluro bike, white helmet

^ sadly all mostly pointless, it doesn’t matter* how brightly coloured you are if people aren’t looking, if they are they can see you just fine in normal clothes.

It’s always worse this week when the clocks have changed too, every year it’s the same, it catches people unawares suddenly having to deal with darkness at commute time, not to mention also catching cyclists out who forgot they’d need lights. Couple that with the increasing grump that also comes after the clock change and it’s horrible for a week or two. It’ll settle down a bit soon but in general the standard of observation and general not-giving-a-shit on the roads is getting worse in my opinion.

I was going to report it to the police but didn’t think they’d do any as nothing actually happened.

Does your local force run an operation Snap or equivalent? ours do and will accept footage of incidents (and act on them if needs be).

* my most memorable instance being when I was riding a bright orange bike, with two flouro panniers attached, wearing a flouro orange helmet, fluro yellow jacket, towing a trailer with a massive yellow drybag in it, with front and rear lights, AND lights on the trailer in broad **** daylight when someone pulled out in front of me with the classic “Sorry mate didn’t see you”!! No ‘mate’ you didn’t **** look!

as if they are hedging their bets to there not being any traffic there, so they can shoot out into the road without them having to use that horrible joy killer called the brakes

I absolutely don’t slow down more than I have to. Waste of fuel in the car, waste of effort on the bike, and it makes it hatder to slot into the traffic smoothly.

But (and this is a significant but) I only do this when I can be sure I don’t have to slow down. Coming up to the left of a high vehicle for example, I have to accept it’s not safe to plough on.

Since moving away from London, I’ve not fallen off due to a car (only due to optimistic speeds round icy corners and dogs, and MTBing which doesn’t count), and that was >10 years ago. Still scary though.

Twice a week I’m doing a commute from Birmingham New street to Selly oak by bike – the options up until the segregated bike path (which is now awesome) opened were one of two busy A roads – I wear full hi-vis, bike is stickered up with hi vis, 2 bike mounted front light (one flash, one constant) plus a 1200 lumen head torch. I would find days my head torch was dead I was better off just lying under a bus the amount people tried to kill me, but with it I found just pointing the beam in the drivers window was normally enough to catch their attention and not pull out. I did have one idiot pull out anyway (taxi) and the excuse he gave was “I thought it was someone running”, which apparently you are fine to pull out in front of!

When I’m in my van, at a junction at night, head torch only bikers appear further away than they are. I know they aren’t and are wearing helmet lights, but non bikers might not, with a fleeting look.

Pretty sure car lights are a set height above the ground, which people get used to figuring distance. A head torch is much higher, and at a junction, you will appear to be further away, up the road in the dark. So you might get people pulling out infront of you.

Just saying, i think there is an optical affect with helmet lights, though everything is better than nothing and bike and helmet lights are a great option, and using it directly as Oliver does above clearly saves him having accidents.

A driver side on to the road, at a junction, I think having a front light low on the bike, visually makes you appear closer to the driver as he looks sideways, and so he’s less likely to pull out.

Im sure i’ve read that statistically , the week after clocks going back has the biggest increase of traffic incidents over the entire year – as daylight drives home become , in an instant , darkness journeys with no adjustment period for the reduced light levels.

Certainly glad i dont commute thats 4 sho….

When I’m in my van, at a junction at night, head torch only bikers appear further away than they are. I know they aren’t and are waring helmet lights, but non bikers might not, with a fleeting look.

I find in the car AND on the bike I have to look specifically for cyclists when I’m pulling out, it’s easy (though incorrect) to just look for cars. Not just lights but general shape and size can make you miss cyclists unless you’re looking for them. This is compounded by the fact we have more places we can move though traffic – bus lanes even can be massive blind spots to people pulling out of side roads. This is the person pulling out’s fault, but I always remain aware of it when I’m riding in traffic.

This week is absolutely the worst time to commute by bike, I normally avoid riding to work this week. I’m on my moped now, that’s bad enough, but I feel a bit better keeping up with traffic and being super cautious.

Drivers are having to relearn to drive in the dark all of a sudden and they’re crap at it.

This ^^.
For most “normal commuters” – the type of people driving the same few miles every day – it’ll be the first time they’ve driven in darkness since about March.

This week is invariably horrendous on the roads. It’s half term too so less traffic which means the traffic that is there tries to go faster.

The real problem here, as ever, is that this country has consistently failed to invest in cycling-friendly infrastructure. It would rather build more and more roads than create safe cycling routes that separate cyclists from other traffic.

People think this happened by some sort of cultural fluke in countries like Holland, but it was actually down to sustained investment in making cycling safe enough that it became a mainstream form of transport for ordinary people. That and legislation which makes it undesirable to collide with a cyclist while driving.

But no, let’s build more roads. See salvation in electric cars. And be surprised at the levels of obesity and unfitness in our population.

Glad in a lot of ways I don’t commute by bike (too far, too early) but as a car commuter that sets off for work at 6.30am it beggars belief the number of people on bikes I see with no lights at all – I am very aware of looking for bikes, but the guy this morning with no lights , dressed in black and wearing full ear covering headphones took some beating…

Lack of patience and aggressiveness are the biggest problems for me – along with general not paying attention to e actual task of driving.

Agreed. I don’t commute on my bike but often road ride at lunchtime if I work from home (in and around the Richmond park area too). Quite often bad driving is not due to not having seen the cyclist (usually myself), but seeing the cyclist and going for the stupid manoeuvre anyway as they think they’ll just get out of the way as a car/van is big and hurty.

Last week I was cycling up Richmond Hill, on a single file one way street, manoeuvred around one of those central speed bumps (had to go to the left of it as car was parked too close on the right) and the moron in the car behind decided that this was his chance to squeeze undertake me and pass. He was driving a convertible mini with his S**t music turned up so I knew it was the same idiot I’d passed in traffic beeping in a stationary line of cars and sensed the undertake (if I hadn’t he’d definitely have clipped me). Slammed on the brakes as soon as he heard me shout and started to get all aggressive telling me it was my fault – was definitely spoiling for a fight. Fortunately after a frank exchange of views he wheelspun off leaving the pedestrians who has stopped to watch shaking their heads. Caught up with the line of cars he was in part way round Richmond Park, thought better of passing as I suspect he’d have happily tried to run me off the road.

I found just pointing the beam in the drivers window was normally enough to catch their attention and not pull out

I think this was a reason I bounced off a car a few years ago. It was dark, raining, horrible. A car came up to a T junction and I looked at them briefly with my helmet light to ensure they saw me. I had a normal light on bike as well. The driver stopped, looked straight at me and then after a pause pulled out. I just had time to stick my foot out and kicked away from the wing, she stopped and I ended up in lane 2 of a dual carriageway before sliding round to face her in lane 1. Looking back, I suspect she saw a bright light and then it turned away, so she assumed I had turned left into her junction.

So careful where you look with a helmet light!

I’ve lost count of the near misses due to drivers looking the opposite way they’re turning, surely it’s a last glance to the left before turning right, not staring left then start pulling out before you’ve even turned your head to look straight, let alone glance right, at least give people a chance of being in your peripheral vision, it’s the same people who stare directly at the traffic lights then floor it the millisecond it turns green without even looking what’s in front of their bonnet. Its amazing that they haven’t killed anyone.

Visual saccade?

Drivers often don’t turn their head, they move their eyes and they really don’t see anything when the image is turned off.

I’m getting slower and more preventative as I get older.

Drivers are having to relearn to drive in the dark all of a sudden and they’re crap at it.

That makes the assumption that they aren’t crap at it in the daylight…

I reckoned if I kept riding, eventually, by sheer mathmatical probability I’d be in an accident after 1-2 years. It’s a big retirement area where I live, and frankly it’s bad enough in a car somedays.

Same. I’ve taken to night-riding when it’s quiet, you can see cars lights from miles away and footpath hopping is doable

So careful where you look with a helmet light!

Yeah, someone needs to get that message to a few of the commuters I see on the way home.
Don’t know if they always hear/understand my “FFS,POINT YOUR LIGHT DOWN “ .
Anyway, (IMO)head torches are for the trails.
I don’t use them on the road.

Anyway, (IMO)head torches are for the trails.
I don’t use them on the road.

This x1000. I seem to have far fewer near misses than many people from reading on here. Helmet lights are not helpful on the road – they’re in an odd place (high up), they move, so they’re not a fixed point of reference. They’re often dazzling too, which means drivers have very little ability to accurately identify where you are. Obviously in that instance the sensible thing is to wait until you’re more confident, but that’s not what anyone does.

This x1000. I seem to have far fewer near misses than many people from reading on here. Helmet lights are not helpful on the road – they’re in an odd place (high up), they move, so they’re not a fixed point of reference. They’re often dazzling too, which means drivers have very little ability to accurately identify where you are.

That’s understandable, but I do have a fixed light on the handlebars as well, the helmet light isn’t a dazzler.

Don’t know if they always hear/understand my “FFS,POINT YOUR LIGHT DOWN “ .

Try riding through Richmond Park at night, its like close encounters of the third kind where you face gets half burned do to the lights being on full blast.

Anyway, (IMO)head torches are for the trails.
I don’t use them on the road.

This x million. That and strobe effect flashing lights. I get that a flashing light can be a useful accompaniment to a steady light on the road, but on the cycle path I commute on its like a Ibiza disco some nights.

That and strobe effect flashing lights. I get that a flashing light can be a useful accompaniment to a steady light on the road, but on the cycle path I commute on its like a Ibiza disco some nights.

How people can use a flashing front light on dark roads, trails etc is beyond me. They’re fine on lit roads in traffic where a decent pulsing flash (but not an insane zzzt, zzzt, zzzt flicker) can be very useful in instantly shouting “BIKE!” to all other road users without being overly dazzling because of the existing light pollution from dozens of other sources like streetlights, headlights, shop windows etc.

But anywhere else like areas without streetlights, cycle paths etc they’re incredibly annoying both to the person riding the bike and anyone coming the other way.

Due to medical circumstances I drive my son to the station for him to catch the train to work. This morning I watched a cyclist sail through a red light, paying no attention to the traffic. He had no lights, no reflective clothing and no helmet. Suspect that if he continues, he will become a statistic

Riding on the cycle highway down the embankment tonight. Saw a cyclist come out in my lane ahead with no lights on. As he got closer I realised it was a chav pulling a manual. So he was riding the wrong way, with no lights and pulling a manual so he couldn’t see anything in front of him.
Had to shout in the end and he dropped the front wheel and missed me by millimetres.