Cyclist gesticulating wildly at me

[FrankyGoesToBollywood]

On the school run this morning which involves driving down a narrow winding lane which is always very busy at school run time. The lane is wide enough for two cars but it’s tight. There are three schools on this route and at school drop off and pick ups times it’s busy and congested. It’s 30mph. This morning I was driving along at about 25mph and a man dressed in serious looking cycling gear was cycling. I overtook him with quite a bit of space, definitely more than the 1.5m minimum, and as I was overtaking I could see a car coming towards me so nipped in in front of him- again definitely more than 1.5m from him. My windows were closed but I could then hear him shouting wildly “what the F was that!!” Over and over again and gesticulating. I didn’t indicate. I’m worried he will report me he was going wild, I genuinely thought I was driving quite considerately until I saw his reaction!

I’m now second guessing how close I was to him when I pulled in in front of him, and thinking he will report me and upload footage. If so how likely is it I will hear about it or be prosecuted?

Just be nice to more vulnerable road usres, its really not hard

Ok, I'll play along.

When I used to cycle to work I did it because:

It took around 20 minutes for me to cycle across town compared to about an hour in the car.
It was fun.
It was exercise.
It was free.

Statistically you are more likely to die from falling down your stairs than you are on a bike. I do hope you live in a bungalow.

Unfortunately even pavements dont keep pedestrians safe from cars. Between 2012 and 2020, 99% of fatal collisions with pedestrians on pavements or verges involved motor vehicles

No, that's regressive.

Fun and free exercise could be done somewhere safer.

Well yes, I suppose there would have be a vehicle involved for there to be a collision. I don't think pedestrian on pedestrian "collisions" are recorded.

Okay, you’re right it’s my fault. How dare I expect to be able to cycle to work on the road and be safe. Stupid of me really.

Yes, it is a stupid decision. There are far safer means of transport. You could take a bus or drive there. You could use an Uber or a taxi or a ride share app.

No amount of airbags and crumple zones will protect the occupants of a small car, or indeed most cars, in a high-speed collision with a lorry. There just isn't enough structure to absorb all that energy. For example, a lorry being driven by Tomasz Kroker struck a people carrier, which in turn struck a small hatchback, killing the occupants of both. The hatchback was compressed to a third of its length, despite having an entire car acting as an additional crumple zone between it and the lorry.

Which is exactly why people should drive the biggest and heaviest vehicles they can afford. Fortunately there are far fewer HGVs on the road compared to the number of passenger cars, so those sorts of collisions are rare.

SUVs are more likely to seriously injured or kill a pedestrian than a smaller vehicle

Not everyone can afford to buy or operate a big, heavy vehicle. Did anyone criticise the family killed by Kroker for not owning a pair of SUVs? Lorry drivers must treat all other road users as comparatively vulnerable, and drive accordingly. Same goes for all motorists in relation to cyclists and horse riders. This is really basic stuff.

Wow. Go back to your cave troll. Victim blaming at its finest. So it’s my fault and I should drive and add to the millions of other cars and pollution. Okay then. Sound advice. Just wait a minute while I type it on my invisible typewriter and file it in the bin

You’re on a wind up 😆😆😆😆🇮🇪

Thought school holidays ended this week?
Have you just graduated from Troll School?

Bedrooms should all be on the ground floor.

No point travelling in even a heavy car or SUV, it's far safer to travel by air. If you are killed in a car, it's your own fault for not getting around in your Learjet.

My DH can cycle at 30 mph on a flat road. If you overtook and only left about 1.5 m, you nearly killed him. He would have had to do an emergency stop to not plough into the back of you. On the basis of what you have said you are in the wrong and deserve a bollocking.

So you agree, the point you made about pavements being safe is wrong?

Not if that pedestrian is driving instead of walking.

So wait, your answer to road safety issues is just that everyone should just drive a big fuck off armoured vehicle everywhere?

Thanks. You've persuaded me. I will let the other people in my office who cycle know as well that this is the responsible thing to do. It currently takes 1 hour plus to drive 6 miles into my work (which is why I often cycle). If we all decide to do it, we can probably stop all traffic for most of the day.

If you needed to "nip in" because of an oncoming car, then you overtook at the wrong time, or you overtook too close to a bend to reasonably see the oncoming traffic.
I'm a driver and a cyclist, and I grew up around bendy country lanes, so I get the frustration when there's something slower in font, but you just have to take a deep breath and ask yourself whether the 5 minutes you might save on your journey is worth risking someone else's life in a collision because the road is too bendy or narrow to overtake properly when you'd like to.

Lucky he didn't fall off his bike while he was busy gesticulating and shouting, I doubt he was in full control.

It's difficult to know who was in the right, but some cyclists do think they own the road, and if the road is busy they bat along overtaking and being overtaken as the car traffic slows and accelerates. It may be having got past, you slowed for the oncoming vehicle, the bike didn't and closed on you rapidly, they were probably going not much slower than you in the first place if it was a proper cyclist on a fast bike. Worst thing is if you both use that road every day at about the same time you will see them frequently in the future.

Why shouldn’t they “bat along overtaking and being overtaken”? It’s called filtering, motorcyclists do it too, and it means they can make faster progress, perfectly legally.