Safe Speed Forums

I do this on occasion, but there are proponents of doing it all the time.

1. Driver doors are far less likely to be flung open than passenger doors
2. It's where people in cars expect motocycles to be so are more likely to check right before turning right across than checking left before truning left.
3. probably more reasons

However, I can't stand it when people on cycles/motorcycles come at me when I'm in my car, some of them really do come quite a way across because they like to do it at speed and therefore want to keep as far away from the offside traffic as possible (people on motorcycles generally the worst culprits).

So I'll generally only do it when there's nothing coming the other way, and won't do it if a cyclist is coming the other way because I might "force" the car into the path of the cyclist (depsite there being room for all three to progress).If I do do it when somebody is comign the other way I'll be very meek about it and pull back acros the line ASAP.

Worst of all is people in cars doing it, cutting down the right hand side of a line traffic to turn right (i've seen this done to turn left in my time), sometimes at very high speed in a low gear, and even higher speed if they've got to get to the turning before the oncoming traffic coming the other way reaches it. This is one of the most nutty manouvres I see regluary on the road.

And Tone, when you're on your bike take comfort that even if you filter down the left you're exposed to 1000s of percents less pollution than the people sitting in the cars themselves, who are basically soaked in it.

The opposite situation is the lights in a major dip, when it's quite galling when they change and you lose all your precious momentum.

in what way?
keeping up with urban traffic is almost always safer in my experience.

Not always in my experience, it gives you much less time to deal with somebody that sticks their nose out, or a ped that steps out, or a car door being flung open, or a car pulling out of space, or a large pothole, or series of potholes, or another bloke on a cycle who decides to skip some lights.

Also, a lot of people (mainly people in cars) who are joining the road you are on see a person on a bike coming down the road and obviously think, "ah, it's a push bike, it's can't be coming at me at 25mph, I'll just pull out" (peds and people on cycles do this too, gave a five minute ball out to somebody that did this to me once). Same applies for people turning right across my path.

Or somebody in a car overtakes a guy on a bike (me) and obviously thinks "I've just overtaken a cyclist they'll be miles behind by now, so I'll just turn left without bothering to look", not quite realising that I was going nearly as fast as they were and am not too far behind.

Several times in my cycling life I've had to execute the "turn left with the car" manoeuvre for people who obviously think cycles disappear just after they pass them (or maybe they just never saw me, which is quite scary because I'm a 6'4'' guy on a cycle normally riding about 1.5 meters into the road).

Well, yes, but a little resistance training never went amiss!

There is one light in dip that pretty much ALWAYS goes red on me, and I must say the light at the top of the hill is pretty much ALWAYS green for me, sods law at work.

all of which can be dealt with by assertive riding.. primary position.. and observation/anticipation.

But ya gotta admit ... 'tis fun!

Mind you - you might know of what happened to Krissi (WIldy's Big (and blimey - she's big.. tall ..slim just over six foot - and mostly legs ). Anyway .. we were all on a cycling jaunt in the Dales where she lives. We stopped to plan the shortest way from point A to B .. and the easiest route as it was getting a bit late and we were all a bit tired and hungry by then. She gives that "I know it all " shout she has - and she sets off. We (as in me and my brother, her husband and tthe Mad Cats and a couple of other Swiss look at aeach other and think "but er.. we think it;s a ruddy perpendicular gradien t - and even these mountain bikes (choice for the Dales and the riding we had been doing that day - as you know .. you can have bikes for each type of riding you plan to do and mountain bikes are the .. errr.. "4x4s to a cycling hoon .. like me! )

Anyway weepy .. forgive my little trek down memory lane. I hope the anecdote concerning Krissi (aka that "nice tame cat" _

("Tame" If anything .. that one's wilder than Wildy ) made you smile. (She's a nice lady really .. strong minded .. like Wildy. Big heart and cries gallon size buckets when she has to put an animal to sleep)


Anyway .. next thing we know .. she sets off with a "KOMM MIT!" "command... and then we hear the shriek as she hits a gradient of near 90 degree proportions .... How the hell she held on to it without falling over the bars .. we will never really know We all chickened out and wheeled the bikes down.. or rather "walk-ran down" as this slope was really . I would not like to attempt in anything other than a top class 4x4 to be honest.

Krissi should have known better. She can read maps and she is a downhill slalom expert who even made the podium in one of the "worlds" in the 80s. Thus a fairly experienced judge of a ruddy steep gradient and speed you can get up to on a bicycle and on skis I think it was the "competition" which exists amonsgst those Swiss relatives of mine.



She has since had to drive her 4x4 down there in her work as a vet/ She turns the "mistake" around as in "had I not ridden on a blinklin' bike ... I'd have come a cropper in the car." Wimmin You really cannot argue with them.. especially if they happen to be a blend of where "Swiss stubborn meets Yorkshire stubborn"


But seriously - if I am riding in the peak busy times when the traffic is flowing.. but not flowing that fast... I tend to try ot blend into that flow and become a "part of it".. communicating/liaising and blending with full harmony into this flow of traffic.

Yes .. I agree some muppets are unaware as to how bicycles have developed since their childhood. It's part of the education we should be addressing. Part of the COAST I keep trying to tell you about is about reading the other person's mind by observing their behaviour.. facial expression.. road position. This extends to reading the behaviour of other cyclists if in a "bunch"

I am not wrong with COAST. Honestly. Teaching this to everyone.. making them comprehensively aware to the COAST system so how a person chooses to travel.. ultimately keeps them as safe as realistically and foreseeably possible.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

This is very true!

I will confess to making this error myself on occasion

It is very easy to treat cyclists as "Obsticles to be avoided" rather than "Vehicles to be accomodated" IYSWIM (As a motorist, a pedestrian and even as another cyclist. I do all three! )

As Weep says, it is the "Fast" cyclists who catch you out!

In much the same way one might get caught out by a guy in a car doing 60 in a 30! or by a peculiar vehicle that surprised me the other day which I "Recognised" as being an invalid trike (IE 8 MPH Max) but was actually a rather intrguing looking motorcyle with a sort of double front wheel (side by side) that was actually doing abut 25! (Anybody know anything about this???)

I have been driving for thirty years and over 300,000 miles (mostly in the same vehicle and Without serious incedent) but I am still learning!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

15 years of London cycling and I've only come off once (own fault, hit a ped that had run into the road, tried to go avoid when I should've tried to stop), so I must be doing something right.

All the assertiveness in the world is not going to help you out when you are simply driven into though.

then keep on going at 14mph then

assertiveness will help you not get driven into to start with.

Well, I regulary tackle Hyde Park Corner on the road in primary, so I don't think I've got a problem there!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en ... 8&t=h&z=18

This bit of Trafalger Square is quite fun though, coming up from the Mall and going down Northumberland Avenue, I've actually been struck from behind there once whilst riding in primary position by a guy in a van who obviously thought I shouldn't have been in front of him (I had had to slow down for a car that shot the red light coming up from whitehall), just a tap though, no harm done, well, apart from to his pride after the policeman behind him came round to find out why he had stopped.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en ... iwloc=addr



Like I said, I cruise at 20-25 in open space, and regulary hit 28 along the embankment, now that is fun, closet thing to flying I think a human can get aside from jumping out of a plane; my ride in or home is more often that not the best part of my day.

I agree with everything there except the 1.5 Meters

Where I live in Bournville, (based around the horse & cart), the roads are too narrow. I've said it before but if I'm any more than about 18" from the curb, they will put me in A&E! I'm usually less than a foot away.

I've had my elbow knocked by a wing mirror on two occasions and numerous near misses I managed to aviod because I'm spatially aware.

In fact, (and here's proof that I cycle in heavy traffic a lot I think), I have had to adopt a style of holding the right handlebar with my thumb over the top so that if/when they hit my elbow, my arm comes away from the bar without moving the handlebar and potentially fetching me off my bike!

How pathetic is that?

But I still don't hate cars, I just hate bad drivers. This is why I maintain that the most dangerous thing I do is cycle! I'm stupid for doing it really but I love it just the same

Sounds like you guys in London have a lot more room on the road.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

raced yesterday....

got flashed by a VAS sign saying slow down

No it isn't.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

How long do you spend stopped at each red light, and how long would it take to hop off, hoike the bike over the line and get back on again?

Does your positioning affect the lights, ie. your position vs. the radar or road sensors?

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Andrew.

Not long, I appreciate the rest normally, a bit of time to look around, catch my breath, make some adjustements, check out other people's kit. What's more mounting and dismounting a pushbike is about the most dangerous thing you can do with one even if there isn't anybody else around.

Some lights can be problematical when there aren't any cars to activate the sensors though.

Which reminds me of being parked in a pay & display space in Southampton, right next to some sensor-activated traffic lights; close enough to not be able to pull out of the space.

I couldn't back up as I had my back end up close to another vehicle, so I sat there for a minute or two, realised the light wasn't going to change, and had to drive forwards through the red light enough to get out of the space, then reverse back to the white line. Sure enough the lights quickly changed...

If there'd been a red light camera there I would've been stuck until someone else had come along this quiet side street.

Mmm, yesterday I had a quick cycle around the village and they have put a radar speed readout on a hill. In the car it goes off a long way back, then again once or twice as you get closer and seems strangely accurate, at least when there's only one vehicle around.
Anyway, I was cycling down this hill peddling "briskly" and it didn't even notice me!
Unless of course I managed to exceed 45mph which is the highest speed it seems to display. But I rather doubt that.

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Andrew.