To think in many cases the problem is that Motorists don't look for cyclists, rather than not seeing them?

[BoysofMelody]

Went out for a bike ride and with crushing predictably, I had a near miss thanks to errant motorists.

First one, reversed from a parking space at high speed onto the road I was traveling along missing me by a fraction. Similarly about 15 miles into the ride another, motorist swung across my path to get into their drive way, without indicating or looking around them.

At the time, conditions were clear and not overly sunny, I was wearing a hi Viz orange jersey and had flashing auxilary lights front and rear.

Given that I was riding at a sensible speed and in a defensive manner and there was little else I could reasonably do to make myself more visible to motorists, that the problem more often than not is that Motorists don't look for, rather than not seeing cyclists? Bike lights after dark are a legal requirement and absolutely essential, but why are cyclists and cyclists alone held expected to dress up in all sorts of garish shades to protect themselves from motorists' inattention? If a cyclist gets runs over, the all too predictable cry of 'why weren't they wearing hi Viz and a helmet goesup'' in a similar case where a HGV totals a car, no one would castigate the driver for having a dark grey car that was difficult to see at dusk would they?

[ShotsFired]

Iwasjustabouttosaythat that doesn't mean the cyclist is never at fault.

• Nobody has said that?
  
  A few weeks ago I was driving at night on very dark streets and just as I was turning on to a new road a cyclist suddenly appeared. He was wearing all black on a dark street on a dark night
  

• that makes him a dick (just as it would make an unlit car driver a dick too)
  

Suddenly a cyclist pulled out right in front from a side street.

• Also a dick and a dangerous thing to do (just as it would make an non signalling rushing car driver a dick too)
  

It scares me to see the way some people rush past them.

• Yes. Until I was a cyclist, I never realised how terrifying that backdraft from a close pass is, how that invisible wind can make your bike shake and shudder. I would love it if that sort of vulnerability/experience could be illustrated to all drivers.
  

BUT if there's a cycle path only one block over that takes you all the way into town but adds 10 mins to your trip could you just use it?

• What if it stops and starts suddenly though? Or is strewn with tree roots and glass and other crap? Or is a shared path that means other users will be ambling about with children or dogs who don't notice the shared signs? Or you are going too fast for that surface? Or simply doesn't go where you want to do?
  

(Said as someone who does deliberately choose quiet roads)

I have (and am) been a car driver for longer in time and miles than a cyclist but I see massive amounts more bad driving than I do bad cycling. You have highlighted two instances above, but how many cars, vans, lorries, buses, taxis ran an amber, went over a speed limit, didn't slow down, merge or otherwise driver 100% to the law in that same time. Why are there no posts clamoring for cars to be removed because of the huge # of deaths they cause?

[Mulledwine1]

I see many idiots on the road, walking, cycling, driving.

The difference is that the drivers will probably hurt someone else. The others will only hurt themselves. The drivers, therefore, have a duty of care.

I find that most drivers are courteous to me when I am out on my bike, maybe because I am not a MAMIL. I've never been abused by anyone when I've been out on my own.

you cannot drive whilst spending your whole time looking in your rear view and wing mirrors. Cyclists weaving about, very fast, undertaking, cutting in, etc make it hard to keep track of where they are

I agree with this. I also use cycle paths when they are decent and available. The only problem where I am is that you constantly have to give way to cars at side roads. In the Netherlands, the cars have to give way to cyclists on the cycle paths at junctions, in the same way that ahem cars are MEANT to give way to pedestrians here. But anyway, I can kind of understand why you might give up and use the road, because it is really frustrating having to stop all the time.

[LucyTheLocalBike]

Where I live we have a cycle path stretching for 5 miles alongside the main (60mph) road. Yet still the cyclists insist on using the road, this is a rural road with many blind bends. Why on earth would you put your self at such risk? And when I have wound down my window to point out to them they shouldn't be on the road I am met with a mouthful of abuse. There is no doubt that some cyclists are complete tossers

[savagehk]

Lucy have you tried riding a bike on that cycle path? Often, although not always, they're shit.

I'm still an optimist, so I use cycle facilities where available more often than not, but the number of times the path does something stupid, ends in the middle of nowhere, or is so rutted it's painful to ride in is astounding. And some paths are shared pedestrian/cycle paths and it's equally unfair to make pedestrians share with fast cyclists.

The problem with these threads is everyone comes to them with a particular area / type of street / situation in mind, and there are vast differences between different locations as to what is reasonable behaviour from all road users.

[mumonashoestring]

Where I live we have a cycle path stretching for 5 miles alongside the main (60mph) road. Yet still the cyclists insist on using the road

Have you ever cycled along it? Just wondering as we have a similar situation nearby and the 'cycle path' is a hideous rutted tarmac track with potholes, cracks and road sign poles in the middle of it. In winter it's icy and in summer it's overgrown - sometimes cycle paths are an absolute liability rather than a safe option.

Of course if it's in good repair then they're daft

[savagehk]

(worth noting I'd never cycle willingly on a 60mph road, 40mph is terrifying enough, but then my speed is only about 15mph on a good day....)

[MackerelOfFact]

With one or two cyclists wearing the requsitive hi-vis, there is no excuse for motorists not noticing them. I check my mirrors regularly and look for cyclists - not just 'noticing' them by chance, but specifically looking in my mirror to answer the question 'is there a cyclist?'

However I live in a part of London where a) cycling is extremely popular and b) the Borough-wide speed limit is 20mph. While on the face of it this seems safer for cyclists, there are often times when I have 5 or 6 cyclists surrounding me and I can't keep check on where they all are at once in addition to what's going on ahead, especially when there is usually at least one erratic weaver/undertaker. Furthermore, I can't overtake them because of the speed limit. It absolutely terrifies me. The only thing I can sensibly do is drop back and hope there aren't any more coming up behind me.

[ShatnersWig]

There are lots of poor motorists. There are lots of poor cyclists.

Twas ever thus and twill ever be thus.

[prettybird]

I always ride 1-1.5m out from parked cars precisely because of the risk of car doors opening. I also cycle 1-1.5m from the kerb.

At most, a car would be delayed 15 seconds if they have to wait until they can pass safely. I have a right to be on the road too. Riding in such a position means that a) I avoid the drain covers which your wheel can get caught in and make you fall over and the glass and crud that gets swept to the side of the road and b) if a car does try to pass too close, I have "space" to escape into.

Fortunately, having been cycling for 50 years (since I was very wee ), I am quite happy to ignore any irate drivers My life is precious to me

I do choose quieter roads/cycle routes where possible (I also always observe traffic lights and other rules of the road). But many of them have "cycle lanes" painted on the road but no double yellows, so they are completely covered by parked cars. But at least these "routes" add to the mileage that the city can claim as cycling infrastructure

There is one commuting road locally (busy but still a 30mph zone, 2 lanes each way) where technically the pavement on one side of the road is "shared use". I always stay on the road as it is safer : the shared use pavement is narrow - yet two directional; the shared use signs are 4m up the lampposts so that pedestrians don't realise that cyclists have a right to be on the pavement; even though it is narrow, it is full of street furniture (bus stops that take up the full width of the pavement, BT boxes, street signs; and the pavement itself is badly rutted with roots and encroached with vegetation (overgrown hedges, low hanging tree branches, nettles...)

[QuinionsRainbow]

Lose the flashing lights for a start.... they are fine as an additional light but are next to useless in terms of making you visible... you need a good solid light fixed front and back. As a cyclist I had always understood this to be the requirement and as a motorist I see why.

Amen to that! A half-hearted glow-worm that is only shining for 50% of the time, while technically legal, is worse than useless. Proper fixed lights front AND back, and forget about the fancy helmet/backpack-attached gizmos - they only serve to distract rather than provide information.

[JacquesHammer]

ALL road users should be aware of other people using the road.

That includes motorists not taking adequate precautions to be aware of cyclists and also cyclists not doing bloody stupid things.

[GnatsChuff]

I have just witnessed a car pull out in front of a cyclist, minor miracle that he wasn't taken out. Car pulled out of a side road that I was going a to turn left into. The​ cyclist was already in front of the junction, and the driver clearly glanced further down the road, saw me with my indicator on and didn't look in his near field. One of those awful heart stopping moments and would have been 100% the driver's fault if he had hit the bike.

[JaxingJump]

The problem is that they are often not that common to even see on an average drive somewhere (depends on where you are but very few people cycle in the city I live) and that they travel at a very strange pace compared to a car. So they can be hard to judge if you do see them.

It's about awareness and learning to drive as if there is always a cyclist potentially there.

[AwaywiththePixies27]

Iwasjustabouttosaythat Yep. I agree.

As a pedestrian you see some right dickhead moves. If anyone knows Nottingham well, I was crossing the tram line at Old Market Sq one day when a cyclist came bombing out of nowhere, nearly knocked me flying (I have a gammy leg so I walk/limp slower than most people), then he had the cheek to tell me to 'move out the effing way'. To this day I dont think he expected the telling off he got off me

Fast forward to last week, crossing a school road and I look, look again, no one indicates so I start to cross. Big fuck off range rover that never indicated she was turning into my path, turns into my path! Then she had the cheek to put her indicator on AFTER she'd turned, AND hsf the audacity to thank me after. I'm still smarting about that one. If she was five minutes later when that nearby school came out, she'd have knocked some poor kid flying. Oddly enough toddlers have about as little telepathic ability as I have to know you're about to turn without telling me. That's why some genius invented the indicator for motorists.

Another time, I was coming home from my Mums with the DCs. My Mum lives in an awkward corner so we were waiting across the road so the taxi could 'see' us. Cyclist with no lights on, no bright clothing on a dark winters evening, rode in between all of us and shouted at my DCs to 'fucking move!'. I went apoplectic at that sod!

Taxi to school one day and a motorist in front had parked smack bang in the middle of the road. All other motorists looking to see if she was okay and she emerged from the nearby corner shop clutching nothing but a bottle of washing up liquid! Why she couldn't have turned into the EMPTY free car park that said corner shop place provided and not held up a queue of traffic behind her I'll never know.

I see motorists on their phones all the time, and cyclists pulling out some dangerous manoeuvres, the worst is school kids who ride the wrong way down a road on to oncoming traffic.

If I was a traffic officer I'd be having a field day with the lot of them.

[TizzyDongue]

Yes I think the OP is right. I'm not a cyclist but there are certainly drivers that don't look enough (or at all!) in their mirrors.

Even if a cyclist is 'in the wrong' if a driver looks they should see them.

I've an example of that from this morning in fact. I knew there was a cyclist behind me (who kept swinging from kerbside to the middle of the road) came to do a left turn - where to the right there's only a short bit of a dead end road (enough for two cars) I checked my left mirror - cyclist not visable just see cars behind me - check right and cyclist has come around my right and cycles around me to turn left. So I wait to see if she's intending to keep to the right of me or swung in front of me on the new road (this is what she does).

Now I'm a newish driver - still have N plates - so I'm still very fresh on the whole rules of the road and mirror use etc I may possibly talk to myself like my instructor did but I know that a he'll of a lot of people don't look right at this junction, or even signal, as the short dead end road to the right causes them to treat it like it's just a turn in the road.

Yes some cyclist behave badly on the road - still need to look out for them. Just like you need to look out for ridiculous drivers who might pull out in front of you without warning or other such dangerous acts

[AwaywiththePixies27]

in a similar case where a HGV totals a car, no one would castigate the driver for having a dark grey car that was difficult to see at dusk would they?

In fairness. If an HGV manages to total a car. More often than not (but obviously not always) it's usually because said car was driving too close in the first place has took on said HGV, and lost.

I still remember to this day being on the coach on the way to uni and a BMW trying, and failing, to overtake him on a roundabout. If it wasn't for that drivers awareness training, both BMW & BMW driver would have been squashed like a fly.

[TizzyDongue]

There's a video doing the rounds at the moment of a small car being written off my a HGV.

Lots of people seem to think its the HGV drivers fault - but I'm not sure myself. It's at a single laned junction joining a fast road - the HGV is over to the right of the lane in order to have manovering space I imagine. Small car then, instead of waiting behind the HGV, drives up (very) close to the left side of the HGV and waits at the cab under the passenger window (a HGV blind spot). Both vehicles turn into the outside lane of the fast road at the same time. Small car gets crushed enough for back window to pop out.

[prettybird]

I try to look upon near misses - where both the car driver and I have got a fright as a fortunate in that no one got hurt reminder to the driver to remember to look out for cyclists in future

...there have been times when I have seriously considered not doing an emergency stop when I'm on a main road and a car pulls straight out across me and instead go into the side of the car. However, even though neither of us are going fast (in the place where I've thought about it), I've not been prepared to risk it, as I would be the one more vulnerable to serious damage.

There are cyclists (I'm not one of them), who have a one metre long thin pole sticking out from their wheel on the right hand side, with a nail on the end of it, so that if a car does try to pass too close, then their paintwork gets scratched

[brasty]

I agree OP to a certain extent. But I see so many cyclists where I live riding in the dark without lights, or with a tiny barely visible back light and wearing dark clothing. Some cyclists are really hard to see.

[Sirzy]

You get idiots using every form of transport, it's not limited to one!

Some motorists certainly don't pay enough attention.

Some cyclists seem to not care about their own safely - yesterday I witnessed one cutting a red light at a roundabout which leads onto the M62 from a major A road so the cars are generally not going that slowly so cutting lights possibly not a good way to keep yourself safe!

[LostMyDotBrain]

Some drivers are just shit and presumably would fail their hazard perception if they had to retake their tests today. There's no getting around that really, it's just a fact. On the flip side of the coin, there are some really shit cyclists too. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen cyclists disregarding traffic lights or swerving out with no hint that they were about to do so. I came across a bloke the other day (by no means representative of most cyclists as this was just idiotic) who was riding in the road, none handed with his phone to his ear and still didn't stop at the traffic lights. His bike had a panier on though so presumably he cycles a lot. Though not for much longer once someone hits him!

[DJBaggySmalls]

I think its ridiculous you can pass your test and drive for 60 years. IDK what the best fix would be, but I'd be in favour of having to resit the test at least every 10 years.

[Jonsnowsghost]

As a horse rider I do have some sympathy for cyclists but the same with some riders being twats you get cyclists being twats too and I don't get how they can behave with such disregard to themselves and others!
I was driving through a village the other day, main road through 30mph, when a cyclist shot out of a side road and just about managed to miss me and the car coming the opposite direction. The side road had give way signs and road markings and he didn't even slow down so the rules didn't apply to him then?! Also the guy cycling straight through the temporary red traffic light and through the cones of the roadworks...
In London the number of cyclists that cycle straight through red lights is ridiculous, you're constantly on the look out when you think it should be safe to cross.
That said that is only a small example and I could probably moan about the riders I've seen that just amble along and don't pull over to let cars past and don't thank drivers, again a small minority that give the rest a bad name. I just sit and get angry in my car instead

[BoysofMelody]

The car swinging in to the drive- were they turning left in to the drive or right in to their drive?

Turning right and going across my side of the road, didn't indicate and just swung across. Fair gave me a fright as there was no way of anticipating their stupidity.

To be fair, we were out for three hours or so and must have passed 100s of cars, the rest of whom, bar these dopes acted responsibly and largely courteously when passing.

After getting hit by a car door I started cycling a little bit further out so as not to get hit if it happened again.

The abuse i got. People would wind down their windows and swear at me for being too far in the road.

Ain't that the truth. Mind you, it isn't just the risk of getting doored, it is the risk of getting taken out by someone trying to pass you in a gap that doesn't exist and the the thought of getting trapped between their car and the curb doesn't bear thinking about.

If the road's too narrow to pass me safely I cycle in the primary position, if there's space to pass I will move over, I'm lucky that the city I live in has a 20 mph zone in the centre, so by and large I am near to the the pace of the traffic.

Pay them no heed,a bit of flak from some ignorant gobshite is better than the alternative and as cyclists we are just entitled to use the road in a safe and appropriate manner, rather than weaving around potholes mm from the curb, the more people see cyclists claiming their share of the road, the more it becomes the norm.

I find the small flashing lights harder to spot. I can't understand why cyclists use them.

They use them because some motorists complain that in the darkness, a single slowly moving red rear light often got lost in the street scene and you see the flashing LED lights far quicker than you do a steady light and has the advantage that people think 'that's a bike' when the see a flashing red light. The trade-off is that they make it harder to judge speed or distance.

If riding at night I have my main lights on constant and my secondary lights set to pulse, in an attempt to get a balance between visibility and perception.