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

[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.