Ah, I see you’ve already admitted your mistake. Look at the times here.
Not “well over a second” by any stretch.

dez – your second image there I would already be taking avoiding action as he has started the manoeuvre. Even in the first from the speed of the car I would be anticipating it

To me things like this the key thing afterwards is to look at the incident and to try to understand why it happened and what yo can do to avoid it.

Of course one difficulty here is that I would also want to be watching the car turning left from the side road which might split your attention but going thru a junction like that I would have both hands on the brakes and be doing my best to watch both cars closely – looking at the top of the front tyre is a good tip

You’re so money supermarket STW Graham.

I’m trying to be clear – not argumentative. Honest. 😳

Just don’t still be rolling up to junctions looking left when there’s traffic approaching from your right and we’ll all be happy

Hmm.. so what you and Imabigkidnow seem to be saying is that I should roll up to the junction looking right, not because I intend to do anything with that information straight away, but because it is a reassuring body language signal to the drivers on the main road that I have seen them?

Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that aspect. Makes sense I guess.

Doubt it makes much odds on the main Give Way I cross every day though. The main road there is a 60 so they don’t exactly get a lot of time to assess body language. Plus the roll up to the junction is uphill and hidden behind a wall.

But yeah, I see your general point.

Look at the time TJ that’s not even a second for the whole sequence

Ok – it was just a discussion point.

going thru a junction like that I would have both hands on the brakes and be doing my best to watch both cars closely

Hard to know what to do for best there though TJ. If he had braked harder then he could have been completely T-boned by the black car instead of just a back-wheel clip.

Also, what is the Highway Code reaction time? About a second isn’t it?

TJ, I’ve been in a similar incident – you don’t even have time to react never mind go through the whole thing of “oh look, he’s not stopping where he should do, he’s still turning, I’ll look this way to check it’s clear for my emergency manoeuvre, now I’ll brake, swerve, shout a pithy comment and ride happily on my way”.

It’s a case of FUUUUU-thump.

🙄

I have to say that my first thought when i watched the video was ‘that car is turning, why isn’t the cyclist reacting?’

But, I was looking for an incident as that was the point of the video being posted. Perhaps the rider was looking further down the road and hadn’t perceived the danger, perhaps he thought the car was positioning itself but not actually going to keep going.

reaction time is around 1/4 second

Stumpy – thats my point. what can be learnt?

Crazylegs – I have also been in that situation and a combination of alerting the driver, swerving and braking prevented a collision.

I would definitely have been mince in that situation. No way I could have avoided it. Videos like this put me right off the idea of commuting to work on my bike.

reaction time is around 1/4 second

Is it? That seems kinda short.

The official stopping distance is 40ft at 20mph with half of that being “thinking time”.

I make that about 0.68 seconds.

meh, loads of time. should of bunny-hopped it.

Guys – I am neither blaming the cyclist nor saying it could have been avoided – I am looking for the lessons to learn

Guys – I am neither blaming the cyclist nor saying it could have been avoided – I am looking for the lessons to learn

Only lesson here, is ‘pass on the left’. 99% of people expect that.

graham – thats including the time to get your foot from throttle to break – if you have your hands on the brakes already you should be able to get the brakes on in under 1/4 second

Ride in the gutter? He might’ve got through then 😉

I agree with TJ (ish)

In an ideal world you’d stop and not hit/be hit by the golf, but in the real world if there had been time to react to the golf turning 9there’s not really, theres only a second between it crosing it’s give way line and the cyclist hitting the floor) you’d probably compleltey infront of it, which in hindsight might not have been a bad thing as youd not end up under the focus!

So yes, TJ is completely right, but in reality, short of cycling at a fraction of the speed (which he shouldn’t have to do when it’s not his fault) there’s nothing the cyclist could do, the whole thing happened within his reaction time.

I am looking for the lessons to learn

Call me contrary if you like, but I can’t help thinking that, just possibly, the people who really need to learn lessons from that video are, perhaps, the ones in the cars…

graham – thats including the time to get your foot from throttle to break

Ah I see.

Still as you say the cyclist had two obvious potential hazards to consider, once he could see past the van that turned in front of him. Not unreasonable that he may have concentrated more on the silver car pulling out from the left as they had less visibility of him compared to the black car staring directly at his flashing front lights.

I think he did pretty well to manage any kind of brake or swerve in that situation.

If i prepared to avoid every car that did not obey the highway code it would be a very long journey to word done at about walking speed.
You cant react to that we all see cars do that [ prepare to turn right] – granted I try to make eye contact to make sure they have seen me but at that junction you also cant see behind the van to see whether the car there will pull out so I may not have done. Would have covered the brakes but am i meant to crawl through/past every junction just in case?
Braking late would not have helped the cyclist either IMHO

But yeah, I see your general point

You’re not that STW. I take it back.

graham – thats including the time to get your foot from throttle to break – if you have your hands on the brakes already you should be able to get the brakes on in under 1/4 second

Reaction time for an expected simple stimulus is around 0.25s.
You can have a go here – http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/reaction-time.html

HOWEVER this is for a very simple stimulus that you mind is totally focused on.
So if the problem is were to be made even slightly more complicated – say you had to click when the word red is displayed, the reactions times will increase markedly due to the extra cognitive processing. Add in the amount of visual processing required to detect real-world situations and the figures rise significantly.
For reference accident reconstructions use a figure of 1.5 seconds for reaction response time.

Cycling in India, the chances of anyone at the side of the road pulling out on you, or cutting across you is about 75% 🙄

I ride automatically expecting everyone to be trying to kill me, and for it to be perfectly accepted. If that scenario had cropped up I probably would have combined a bit of a swerve to the left and honking to cut between the van and the golf. However that would have meant the Focus would have T-boned me good and proper 😯

I think that the chances of the cyclist avoiding both vehicles even with reactions of a ninja are pretty slim, just glad he seemed to get away pretty much unscathed.

Cheers, Rich

Pretty easy to be an expert when the hazard is presented to you on video and in a series of freeze-frame images.

interesting ian.

If you are watching for them to move with your hands already on the brake I would have thought the 0.25 second nearer. as all you have to do is see the movement and grab the brake 1.5 seconds is a scarily long time. jeepers

1.5 seconds is a scarily long time. jeepers

This is why there’s pile-ups on motorways.

Yeah it does seem like a lot. My guess is that our internal perception of how time passes in these situations is quite often different to reality. I guess that internally we estimate a response time based on when we perceive an incident has started, but exclude the time it takes to recognise the incident.

There’s some details here –
http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/reactiontime.html

One interesting point is that your reaction time also increases if you have a variety of options to choose from. I.e steer or brake.

Pretty sure there was nothing that cyclist could have done differently other than be riding at half the speed (which isn’t really the answer either)

Brake or swerve though thats an interesting one. I’ve spent years mountain biking training my instinct away from braking when the shit hits the fan. As a result my first instinct on a bike is always to try and steer out of trouble. I wonder if it the wrong instinct for the road though

She was flashed by a car coming from her right and just pulled straight out in front of my mate

Happens a lot I’m sure some drivers who I’m keeping pace with, flash cars that are waiting in side streets just to try and get me T-boned.

Hmm.. so what you and Imabigkidnow seem to be saying is that I should roll up to the junction looking right, not because I intend to do anything with that information straight away, but because it is a reassuring body language signal to the drivers on the main road that I have seen them?

dead right, sacres the bejeesus out of me when someones flying up a side road towards the road I’m on, only looking left.
“look this way…look this way,lookthiswaylookthiswayLOOKTHISWAY!ohshiiiii…oh they stopped, phew”