Safe Speed Forums

I had rather a poor day last Thursday, managed to hit a dog and a Micra in separate incidents.

The dog came out from a driveway onto the footpath, paused, then dashed across the road. Fortunately I was off the accelerator, slowing and covering the brake when it started across the road. At some point during braking I realised hitting it was inevitable, a pretty nasty feeling, the dog bounced off the front driver's side, barrel rolled onto the opposite grass verge, yelped once and ran off. I think my car only travelled 5-10 feet after impact and this was on a wet down slope so I must have been down to 10mph maybe at the point of collision. I went after the dog and found it with the owner, she had been walking it in a field and called it back after she realised it had gotten through a gap in the fence. Sky was shaken but not showing any signs of injury, I hope you will be as pleased to hear as I was that a check over by a vet gave her a clean bill of health. The owner had seen what happened and actually thanked me for slowing then braking hard enough to avoid hurting her dog. I got the text telling me Sky was fine later in the day and after the next incident so possibly worrying about it may have provided a distraction.

The Micra incident happened on a roundabout and was my failure to observe correctly, at the time the car just seemed to come from nowhere as I had thought my entry was clear. On reflection I think I had seen the car and dismissed it as a hazard as it was probably in the right hand lane and indicating right, I then checked behind and found there was space for me to enter the roundabout. The driver of the Micra was in fact taking the exit immediately after my entrance and so slowed and swept across just as I pulled out, I looked forward before I moved out but possibly lost the Micra in the windscreen pillar, it being silver probably did not help. The result was I tapped the rear left corner of its bumper with the front right of mine and almost provided a textbook example of how to make another car spin. This is the Google map of the roundabout. I was entering from the A223 and she was leaving on Maidstone Road, the Micra mounted the kerb narrowly missing a couple of sign posts and finished up just the right of a large conifer.

Again fortunately no injuries were sustained and the visible damage to the cars was minor, she was happy to dismiss the incident as there were already a few scrapes on her car, but I insisted she should have the front suspension etc. on her car checked as it had mounted a kerb and gave her my details.

Both incidents could have been far worse, the first I doubt I could do anything different to reduce the chance of a repeat, the second I find more disturbing as I really do not remember seeing the Micra until immediately prior to hitting it. I had been stopped waiting to join the roundabout for 10-15 seconds and a number of cars had already passed, some from around the far side and two from the entrance directly to the right, in fact it was a car (silver Mercedes) turning left from Sandy Lane rather than coming past me that gave me the gap to proceed (or so I thought).

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Wotcher mate

Well done for posting these. Well done for preempting with the dog, and well done also for your aftercare in both cases

Taking them in turn: The dog. There are many many signs a dog will make of its likely manouevres. When you first eyeballed it, had you braked hard, would you have pulled up in time? If so, and I suspect it is so, next time, you probably will A classic example of a change of gait is the tail going either still or upright. It going still often means change of direction, bolt upright often means a dash is about to happen. I am always very wary of docked dogs!

Now to the roundabout. Been so nearly there so very often... though not recently. I have trained myself to look forward and refocus before moving. This quite often means I miss the smaller gaps. So be it. The real culprit is the enormous A pillars - secondary safety wrongly taking a front seat to primary safety.

The dog wandered out doing the usual pavement sniffing thing so my initial reaction was to drop my speed down towards 20ish and give myself a bit more room by moving out to the right. Before I had actually pressed the brake or steered its head shot up to look across the road and I hit the brake hard just as it started to move. The extra half second might have made the difference if only by a few inches, but at the point I first saw the dog it appeared as a potential rather than immediate hazard.

Good point about the eyes forward, I do try to do that, it does seem like small gaps are all you get around here though and if you spend too much time before you move another car will have rounded from the right while you look away. I think I missed the car as I switched from looking over my right shoulder to ahead. The dog incident may have been on my mind, that I did not remember seeing the Micra prior to the incident points towards having let my subconscious handle keeping track of it. I know I was waiting at the entrance for much longer than it would have taken for it to pass in front of me, couple of other cars did so in the time I was stationary. It has been some time since I have even had a near miss from doing something like this which is why I find it so worrying.

It looks like it is going to cost me a few hundred quid to get my car sorted out and no one was hurt so I got off lightly. If anyone had asked I would have said I was seldom surprised by other road users, perhaps lack of any real near misses for the last few years has made me complacent. Until last week I might have even said I was aware of not becoming complacent!

I wonder if we should try to go out for drives with other Safespeeders from time to time.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May