Today's brush with death...

[emmelinemay]

I got hit by a car this morning.

Well, sort of.

Offord Road has cars parked all the way along both sides, and it's common for traffic to have to wait while one side clears until there's enough space to drvie down it. Being a fairly safe cyclist, I tend to wait along with the cars rather than head out into the middle and risk ARRGHness. (Offord Road is the same road where i had the pot-hole incident, and the opening-car door into me incident).

So I'm behind a car, next to a parked van, waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear. I'm not right to the left hand side, I'm centred, part of the traffic and know there are 4 cars behind me and another cyclist. It clears, car in front of me moves off, and I follow. Car behind me either doesn't see me (despite the fact i'm RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM) or is pissed off at being behind a cyclist and STEPS on that pedal and ZOOMS past me with a clearance of about 1". Unfortunately for him, my handlebars are slightly wider than the rest of me, and he smashes his wing mirror into my handlebars, the wing mirror flies off at my head and that crazy cyclist self-preservation kicks in and somehow I deflect the wing mirror away from my face with my arm.

Guy in parked van, driver behind me and cyclist behind me all stop to check I'm ok, and reassure me the man in the car is a wanker and could have killed me. Man in car stops, and gets out SLAMMING his door and GLARING at me for daring to have been there at all as he comes to pick up his wing mirror. As he passed, he looked like he was going to say something, but a barrage of abuse from the other drivers around me, man in van, and other cyclist clearly made him think better of it. He didn't say sorry though.

I couldn't be arsed to have any altercation, so I just muttered some obscenity at him and cycled off. It wasn't until I was almost at work I realised how much I was shaking.

I'm totally unhurt, not even a bruise where the wing mirror hit me, so pretty lucky really!

So this week, so far, I've had a cyclist cut me up, two pedestrians walk into me when stepping onto the road without looking, 3 motorcyclists swerve to avoid me as they zoom up the left hand side of stationary traffic and one car totally fail to acknowledge I'm even there.

My rage is not confined to merely drivers, but to ALL humans who fail to LOOK TO THEIR FUCKING LEFT.

Comments

[shackers.livejournal.com]

Deck yourself out with flashing fairy lights and loud jingly music

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

it's clearly the way to go.

Actually, i quite like the idea of fairy lights on my bike. I wonder if you can get some really cheap battery operated ones...

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Solar-Powered-23M-Outdoor-Lights-150coloured-LED-lights_W0QQitemZ190121659786QQihZ009QQcategoryZ93665QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
might be a bit of winding round the frame and the solar charger might take a bit of mounting........

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ikea battery Christmas LEDs. They were about sixpence just after the event. Blue and flashy, IIRC.

Bloke was a complete cock, obv.

(Two Astra drivers, one minging bint in a BMW, a builder's van and the utter cockwit of a hairdryer pilot who decided to overtake while I was signalling to turn right. If it had stopped, I'd have put my kryptolock through its sodding helmet.)

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Oh, i forgot the motorcyclist this morning who overtook me on the right hand side so he could turn left while i was going round a roundabout...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I've rigged up some battery-powered ones from a poundshop on the inside of the clear box I use in the cycle rack. They don't flash, because I hate flashing things, but should help with visibility some. Also, lights! Shiny!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

i have to admit, it's the OOH SHINY aspect that appeals, above and beyond the visibility aspect.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Shiny is good. IKEA also sell EL wire around Christmas time, and I have some of that taped into the box too. As it's a folding bicycle I'm not decorating the frame so much, because it would be awkward, but I do intend to deck out the helmet at some point, and I'd love a set of those valve covers that light up.

That said, I also want pink handlebar streamers. BECAUSE. Dammit.

[ant-girl.livejournal.com]

I've had a couple of incidents recently of being overtaken with much too small a margin by double decker buses, which is really scary. Never had anything hit me yet though -- sounds nasty. I hope that guy learned his lesson. Although somehow I doubt it.

Interestingly, some of the worst culprits for overtaking without giving sufficient room seem to be *other cyclists*. Especially ones in lots of lycra.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Yup. Some cyclists seem determined to cycle like utter dicks. They're why drivers hate cyclists so much.

But this guy was SO CLOSE i felt the car on the hairs on my skin. It was really scary.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

we were driving in central london the other week and it was manic and we saw a typical aggressive, git of a cyclist who wasn't bothering to look where he was going whilst jumping a red light... he cycled into the back of a cab which was stationary and faceplanted on it.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

hahah!! pwned!

[ant-girl.livejournal.com]

It always surprises me that some of the worst ones are people on sporty bikes in sporty clothing. I expect bad cycling behaviour from chavs on mountain bikes, but a lot of these people look like serious cyclists. One shouted at me once as he passed very close by me at high speed. I didn't catch what he was saying, and I think his intention was simply to warn me of his presence, but all it really did was make me jump out of my skin, which I didn't appreciate. If I'm passing other cyclists, I always give them as much room as I'd like a car (or any other vehicle) to give me.


But this guy was SO CLOSE i felt the car on the hairs on my skin. It was really scary.

I think a lot of drivers really don't like it if you position yourself in the middle of the road -- they think it violates their god-given right to pass you as soon as they possibly can. Tossers.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

It's always the crappy idiotic few that SPOIL it for the rest of us.

I've had my moments, I've failed to see a pedestrian or check for a cyclist, it's so easily done and the shock makes you lash out. I do get it, and i don't drive, and when i did have my few driving lessons I did realise HOW invisible pedestrians and cyclists can be.

Some drivers/cyclists just make a mistake.

Others are just fucking idiots...

[ant-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. Anybody can make a mistake, and I'm capable of being completely dippy at times, when cycling or when driving... I always apologise profusely if I do anything like that though. But it's the ones who know perfectly well you're there and just don't show you any consideration whatsoever that really bug me, e.g. by passing you when there isn't really room just because they think they shouldn't have to wait behind you.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

next time if you have the composure, pick up the wing mirror and tell them you are keeping it as a reminder....

I'm still not prepared to cycle a lot on the roads. especially in central london. Driving is bad enough and i've got a car protecting me.

It's not just cyclists who appear invisable, i regularly have cars try to drive into me whilst driving another bloody car, it's usually people zooming along bus lanes and trying to cut into traffic, they get pissed off when i won't back down in their one sided game of chicken though. I even had a black cab try to force me off the road yesterday because he was in such a hurry.. wish i'd got his carriage number.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

yikes, that's scary!

Thank heaven for the concerned bystanders who do something to redress the balance for the human race.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

by shouting obscenities. Good old british public, any excuse for swearing at someone!

[kynon.livejournal.com]

Surely the pedestrians failed to look right?

Minor pedantry aside, at least you're not hurt. Having once been a cyclist myself, I try to be considerate to & aware of cyclists when I'm out driving.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

good point! Pedestrians also do regularly fail to look left however, when crossing a side road that cars turn left onto from a busy road. They often have push chairs.

[kynon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've encountered something similar - most often actually when crossing Princes Street to go up the Mound in Edinburgh - there have been numerous times when there's been people waiting to cross at the bottom of the Mound, and they've got the pushchair containing their child sticking out into the road...right on the second part of the fairly tight chicane-type path that you have to take when you drive across...which has resulted in some amusing use of car-horn, brakes, swerving, and choice expletives.

[fracture242.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, hun - that sounds awful. Smaff cycles to work and back and I always worry about him because people are such wankers to people on bicycles - I've lost count of how many friends on bicycles have been hit etc. because no-one seems to ever see them. It seems to be a most dangerous way of travelling these days :(

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

oddly enough, there is evidence that suggests that it's much safer">this article for example.

There's just a lot of propaganda about how dangerous it is, and how you MUST WEAR A HELMET and so on.

this website is very interesting, and might set your mind at ease...

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

whoops - messed up the HTML, but the links still work :)

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

what an asshole. i'm glad you're ok, tho. and yay for all those indignant-on-your-behalf witnesses.

there are tons of bikers around boston, and i'm always afraid i'm going to hit one because most of them don't stop for red lights. they just zoom through. and someday a car with the right of way is going to hit one.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

yeah, there's a big old red light debate here too. AFAIC we should stop, as if we want to be treated like traffic, we should have to obey traffic laws.

[jaketherat.livejournal.com]

if we want to be treated like traffic, we should have to obey traffic laws

It's not just that; traffic lights are there for a reason, namely preventing things from crashing into each other. Town planners may not make the greatest decisions, but I'll go with them over the split second ones made by a testosterone-soaked lycrabeast at 25mph.

[jaketherat.livejournal.com]

That's really shitty :(

I got tagged by a removal lorry on the way to work the other day and knocked on to the pavement. Guy just sailed past far too close to me on a corner (obviously I was protected by the mystical wall of energy that surrounds cycle lanes) and as the back end swung round (as they do - note to truck drivers) it clipped my arm and threw me up the kerb. The driver was either just shit or simply didn't know the size of his vehicle; there's no way he didn't see me - the parts of me that weren't bright fucking orange were in black and white stripes!

Luckily I caught up with him at the lights and gave him the full force of my venting through the open passenger window. Shouting at stupid people may not make the world a better place, but it certainly helps to get your day back on track after they drive their vee-hickles into you.

Luckily I regained composure enough to

[djsynne.livejournal.com]

I can`t turn left but luckily (!?!) thats only when free falling:)

Seriously though, it`s amzing how some days you can have the most blissful of rides without incident and some days you get to work shaking with rage and half scared to death due to idiots:(

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mauler_/]

Holy carp! It's good that you're OK - you should of stolen his wing mirror though and clocked him upside the fizzog with it get a cattle prod or something for inconsiderate cretins :(