Cyclist gesticulating wildly at me

And sometimes even the closest school needs driving to, ours is two miles away down national speed limit lanes and a main road, none of which have paths or verges. Try walking that with a toddler and reception age child!

I suspect you frightened him terribly and he thought he might die or be badly injured.

You cut him up, should have hung back, and what do his clothes have to do with anything?

Pulling straight in in front of a cyclist? I’m not surprised. As a user of the road with horses i can confidently say that most motorists are clueless.

A motorist did exactly this to my brother many years ago. Overtook and pulled straight back in front of him and then had to do an emergency stop because of a car coming the other way on little more wide than a single track road. Brother went straight into the back of him, through the back windscreen and ended up in hospital for three months with a broken femur and other broken bones and concussion.

Even if it was 1.5 metres, it's not enough time for a cyclist to stop.

The OP is insanely dangerous and shouldn't be on the roads if she genuinely thinks what she did wasn't dangerous!

The irony that the person who has posted most on the thread is accusing others of 'mouth frothing'.

Yeah absolutely, the highway code guidance isn't to pull in with only 1.5m between you and the car in front, is it? That's the distance between the saddle and the front wheel. It's nuts to do it to a car and nuts to do it to a bike.

And I'm sorry, if someone pulls out of a side road in front of you and gives you no time to avoid their idiocy then it is, absolutely, their fault both in spirit and in law.

OP knows this, which is why she asked.

As a cyclist I will always take primary position on the road if there isn't space to safely overtake to stop cars pulling this nonsense. In London most of the roads are 20mph anyway so I'm usually moving as fast as them and they've thought it's OK to risk killing me to get to the lights 30s earlier. As a car driver I won't overtake either and I don't care if someone wants to lean on their horn. Just wait. More haste less speed etc.

"It's OK to drive on the pavement, because sometime pedestrians put themselves in danger by jaywalking when it suits them"

See how ridiculous that argument is?

I think contributing to a thread only 2 hours after the OP is perfectly fine. I also think my post was perfectly reasonable, not "twittering"

And yes, I do "froth" if I get cut up by a car.

Bike path or shared path but also doesn't matter either way.

Interesting to note that the rule of the most vulnerable user (in this case pedestrians) goes out of the window when the other party is a cyclist.

1.5 m is an insane distance to leave in front of a cyclist. OP, do you really not see the difference between leaving 1.5 m to the side when overtaking a cyclist Vs pulling in in front of them with only 1.5 m between you? Really? Imagine you're on a motorway, and a car (safely) drives past you to the side with 1.5m between you. Then darts straight in front of you leaving 1.5m between you. Can you see the difference now? absolutely irresponsible and dangerous driving - you shouldn't be on the road.

Gotta love the mouth frothing cyclists still twittering on hours later.

All the people talking about roads that aren’t safe for walking. What makes them unsafe then? People driving cars. Funny that. Needs to be far more penalties for poor driving. we can’t keep normalising that people don’t belong on roads and it’s just for motor vehicles. Apart from motorways obviously

Also it’s irrelevant what the cyclist was wearing - serious cycling gear or not, let’s be considerate around other people when driving however they are choosing to get around.

OP also didn’t indicate so would have been a huge shock. Thinking about what could easily have happened cyclist thrown from the bike, perhaps on OPs car, perhaps over the car and onto the road either in front of OP or oncoming car. Either way it was probably terrifying. Yeah, I’d have been yelling too.

I’m feeling sensitive about this today as a colleague came off his bike at the weekend, no cars involved but pedestrians on the bike path and he oversteered to avoid them, clipping a wall with his handlebar, coming off the bike in the process. He’s broken both elbows, a toe, several ribs and lots of bruising. No head injury thankfully. But he’s very shaken up and that was a minor accident.

Well don't you think it was likely he was going to work? Is he not allowed to cycle to work in case a car on the school run decides to try to crush him?

I think Asdada means that the cyclist did not need to adjust their behaviour IN THIS SITUATION. It was not up to the cyclist to suddenly have to brake or slow down to allow OP to cut back in because she did not anticipate that a car might be coming the other way before they finished their overtaking manoeuvre.

Hi OP. You are getting rinsed here. I don't want to join in the pile on, but gently, if someone feels that their life has been put in danger by the recklessness of another, I can forgive them reacting as the 'Chimp' (those who have read the book will know what I mean).

At the end of the day, cyclists don't have the protection of airbags, seat belts, crumple zones and a metal framed protective cage, and as motorists we must err on the side of caution when meeting them on the roads, however slow and frustrating they may be.

I am sure this experience was unpleasant for you. It is never ok to feel threatened as a woman encountering a man. But maybe some introspection on your driving style and priorities might help some good come of this encounter.

Tbh it sounds like you didn’t give enough space. If a car appeared midway through your overtake and you had to nip back in it very much suggests you didn’t have enough visibility to overtake!

Lots of people drive to the local town for schools though. We don’t know where OP lives.

Hi Op, it sounds like you know you both recklessly overtook and cut the cyclist up when you ‘nipped back in’.
I’m not sure what you can expect to happen if he does report you and I guess it depends also on whether he was filming or not. I’m a cyclist (and occasional driver) and no longer cycle roads like the ones you describe because it’s lethal. Far too many drivers behave exactly as you describe, 1.5 metres is the minimum recommended and absolutely no distance especially when the cyclist themselves could well have been doing twenty. Please take more care in the future.

I was thinking this too!

Umm, loads of people don’t have any schools within walking distance.
Or roads that are safe for walking on the journey to school.

lets hope he had one then! I wondered if OP was alluring to lycra and a helmet (and no doubt would have complained too if he wouldn't have worn one).

I think it's rather telling that the OP is more concerned about being reported, than she is about putting a cyclist in danger

Many forces / local authorities have online schemes for the public to report anti social driving, and allow the upload of footage. They do prosecute if the standard of driving is bad enoug. The chances of that happening in the OPs case are low I expect, but if the cyclist had a camera then I wouldn’t rule it out completely!

https://unitedkingdom1cpp-portal.digital-policing.co.uk/serip/appeal/operation-crackdown-report-anti-social-driving-road-traffic-offences-2025

serious looking cycling gear

These days an integral part of serious cycling gear is a helmet cam.