- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
York Drivers YouTube stillVideo: York headcam cyclist who posted video of poor riding turns his attention to city's drivers
A York cyclist who last month posted a YouTube video showing poor cycling by fellow riders has turned his attention to the city’s motorists.
The anonymous cyclist’s latest compilation includes headcamera footage of cars parked across cycle lanes, drivers turning left across the rider’s path, jumping red traffic lights and several close passes.
The latter include one incident in which the cyclist is squeezed between an illegally parked car and a National Express coach that is overtaking him.
According to the York Press, the man, who goes by the YouTube user name CarefulCyclist, posted the video because he wants motorists to ask themselves: “Is the additional risk I am taking worth it?
"My second aim is to shame those road users who think it is OK to put others at risk.
"Drivers who choose to drive with a cup, food or phone in their hand are a danger to all other road users and should rightly be embarrassed by their selfishness. Drivers who pass too closely are in breach of Rule 163 of the Highway Code."
Referring to that incident with the National Express coach, he said: "At that point, I was scared. The camera has a wide angle lens and doesn’t really convey just how small that gap was."
Some commenters to the video suggest that the cyclist doesn’t seem to anticipate the actions of some drivers adequately, for example when a bus turns right onto the road he is riding on.
The sharp-eyed among you will notice that the video starts with footage of a cyclist attempting to undertake a left-turning vehicle that was featured in the previous video on poor cycling.
Presumably that’s included here since the rider doing the filming feels the driver should have anticipated what the cyclist was going to do by seeing him in his passenger side wing mirror.
Here’s the earlier video on York cyclists.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- Geordiepeddeler 3 hours 45 min ago
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
- chrisonabike 3 hours 58 min ago
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
- ktache 5 hours 48 min ago
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
- ktache 5 hours 56 min ago
Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
- Backladder 6 hours 42 min ago
If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
- jaysa 7 hours 8 min ago
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
- andystow 7 hours 59 min ago
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
- chrisonabike 9 hours 57 min ago
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
- mike the bike 11 hours 27 min ago
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...
Add new comment
50 comments
To the guys that are saying, whats new, move along, nothing to see here, my normal commute ..... Well, you are correct and its the same for me. And that is the whole point.
If you go back a little as 10 years, the majority of drivers who approached traffic lights and were greeted by a change to amber would do a text-book emergency stop as taught by their instructors, and even then some drivers would lock up and skid because it was a serious contravention of traffic law if you proceeded through the lights and nobody liked doing it, because it was considered dangerous to pass through those lights on anything other than green. Thats how I remember things.
There was more respect for traffic law and there were more traffic Police (and normal Police for that matter) around to enforce the law.
The UK motorist by-and-large (and the odd cyclist too) has become totally complacent and disrespectful of traffic law and the Highway Code. Traffic lights have become a guide and red has come to mean its okay to pass if theres nothing coming and its only been red for less than 3 seconds. Thats how it seems to me.
The things in that video have become the norm. Nobody is affected by it any more unless its a gory fatal and involves a vulnerable victim. We should be shocked, but we are not. All that behaviour endangers the lives of cyclists and other vulnerable road users and to me its because of the erosion of traffic enforcement that is not based around getting X number tickets for no seat belt or riding [safely] on the pavement so the figures look good, but where Police crack down on motorists hard where the safety of vulnerabe road users is put at serious risk. That doesn't happen anymore because the Police are too few in numbers and because the ones that are elft are up to their necks in jobs when you report a cyclist v motorist incident you are met with apathy.
Its really rather sad.
Has to be said that a lot of the close passes were due to him (I assume its a him) not riding assertively and allowing them to happen. You must dominate your lane and make car drivers do what you want them to do.
Can't say that I saw any cycle lanes though. Saw a lot of paint but no cycle lanes. All the markings are for is to tell car drivers that timid cyclists are to be found here - intimidate at will.
+1 and also a +1 to this comment from further up:
As mentioned a few times with the bike video, the guy needs to concentrate more on his own riding and less on the behaviour of others. A lot of what is pictured could have been avoided by better riding - stuff like that simply doesn't happen to me because I never let myself get into those situations. I imagine if I went looking for it then I too could be all sanctimonious and judgemental on video too.
When I get home from work, the last thing I'd want to do is replay video footage of my ride and decide which bits need editing into some sort of feature film. I want to forget about it all and do some more worthwhile stuff. And my video would be deadly dull because, as I said, I just don't get into those situations and I don't pick fights.
He should look where he is going and stop looking in car windows.....they aren't looking where they are going and are distracted too....., you could both run into cyclists.
Didn't like the bus, the rest was the same crap all road users deal with daily.
You make some points I've previously heard from advanced drivers especially the one about passing a lorry or similar but on a closer analysis they are not as valid as they seem.
Passing the lorry at a higher speed to make the manouvre take less time and therefore safer doesn't really stand up. The basics are that you only make a manoeuvre when the conditions allow it and you are able to see clearly that you have enough time and room to safely complete that manouvre - if you need to exceed the speed limit to do it then you don't really have enough time and space and should wait until a more appropriate opportunity. In your example you said there is enough room and time to overtake so the HC says you should so in this case you don't need to break the limit to be safe.
In the case of an ambulance needing to pass at the lights most of us will cross the stop line to let it through but in doing so we know we are actually creating a degree of extra risk but balance that with the needs of the person the ambulance is assisting so we take a small risk, controlled as far as possible by careful observation and positioning, to help.
I'm not saying I never break rules like speed limits but I am saying that you don't need to break them to drive safely. I think we all tend to be a bit too loose with the rules because enforcement is so poor and to be non existent in most circumstances. If I knew that any time I broke a speed limit there was a real chance of being penalised I think I'd suddenly find that driving within the limits was really quite easy.
Standard
All fixed.
I can't believe people can accept this sort of crap without raising objection to it. As if having a self-centred, defeatist whinge about 'putting up with this sort of thing daily' is worth as much as actually trying to sort the bloody thing out.
If suffering this sort of thing regularly is a mark of personal pride, then well done you; you are Lord of Being Bullied -- your Suffer Score must be through the roof -- but some people don't want to play the 'Being Routinely Physically and Psychologically Abused' game quite as much, and would actually like to ride their bikes in a different context.
For their sake, please gain some perspective.
Take all my likes!
As a regular bike commuter I have a lot of perspective on the situation and believe me there is no pride in saying that I find this the norm. What ever your thoughts, you have no right to judge me or anyone else on here that have said these daily experiences the 'norm' You are bang out of order and I find your comments laughable quite frankly.
Take on the fight rather than ranting on a forum who most of the drivers shown in the video wont even know exist. Who find cyclists annoying and feel shouldnt be on the road and lastly wouldnt remember a single 1 of these incidents or give a shit when shown their driving.
That is your challenge.
I once tried but now due to riding unheard, I find this is the norm and sadly I dont seeing it ever changing
The comments about red traffic lights gave me a weary smile. On my commute last week a car clearly went through a red light as speed there was a lancashire constabulary car opposite which clearly saw
this. I pointed at the car and the constable simply couldn't be bothered. May be there was a more pressing incident past Tarleton, to make it more annoying the lights are 50 meters from the police station. I think the constabulary in Lancashire were just made to look incompetent and not fit to protect the whole community. Still they often park across the bike path on southport bye pass so I don't think they like cycles. We can produce video for ever but if the police don't care we are on to a looser.
Absolutely Agree
Sorry Shay. I don't think we are too far apart it is probabaly a mattter of emphasis and of course a specific example I created to demonstrate a point is open to criticism.
My comment was responding to the question whether it is ever conscionable as a responsible road user to break a rule. I am in favour of rules btw.
I don't particularly want to go on about driving and lorries but I think it wold help if the "safety" calculation (risk assessment) were spelled out.
The question I posed using the lorry is this. There is a general rule about speed that applies for road safety reasons. There is also a proper way to overtake which I described. The proper way to overtake is predicated on the principle that you should spend the least amount of time on the wrong side of the road.
The question posed then is should you spend longer on the wrong side of the road overtaking a lorry in order to comply with the general rule of not speeding?
Remember the general rule on not speeding is for "general" safety purposes.
The advice on overtaking as quickly as possible is based on "specific" safety purposes.
The question is therefore whether specific advice on a manoever should ever outweigh general rules. My argument is that on occasions it should.
To be very specific about this. The distance necessary behind a lorry to be able to see around on both sides is about 30 metres. Maximum length of an HGV (not a road train is 18m and then you need to pull in so, let's say the overtaking distance is therefore around 75m
The lorry is travelling at 45mph = ~20.1 m/s.
To overtake keeping rigidly to the speed limit of 60mph = ~26.8m/s
Therefore your speed differential is 6.7m/s
At 60 mph it will take you 75 / 6.7 = 11.19 seconds to make the manoever
11.19 seconds at 60mph (26.8 m/s) means you will be on the wrong side of the road for 11.19 x 26.8 = 300 metres.
Conduct the same manoever at 70mph and let's see the result?
70mph =~33.5m/s
Differential speed is now 13.4 m/s
Overtake time is now 75/13.4 = 5.59 seconds on the wrong side of the road
Distance travelled on the wrong side of the road is now 33.5 x 5.59 = 187m
I hope that you can now see that infringing a general rule for 5 seconds increases the safety of the manoever considerably. The manoever is over in half the time and you reduce the distance travelled on the wrong side of the road by well over 100m. (113 m)
To reiterate my point. In general stick to the rules. In some circumstances sticking dogmatically to a rule at the expense of safety is not good common sense. ipso facto in some circumstances an inflexible and rigid application of rules is counter to road safety.
ie The guidance of wise men and the blind obedience only of a fool.
No.
He's not at all responsible for anyone else's driving. How could he be?
Close/dangerous passes are ALWAYS the responsibility of the person overtaking.
I do agree his positioning could be better, but even so, not his responsibility to ensure others follow the rules of the road, drive safely, or show some basic respect and decency towards other human beings.
Smells of victim blaming in here... I'm getting some fresh air.
@Levermonkey: Not pointing my finger at you, using your text to illustrate the point. We probably entirely agree on this.
Victim blaming much, I couldn't help but notice the cycle lanes that were so bad:
1) They suggest cyclists cycling in them.
2) They aren't even mandatory.
3) They give motorists they idea that they can cycle next to the cyclists because it's a different land.
But hey, blame the cyclist, why not.
What actually happens when you take the lane is:
1) Drivers riding on your rear wheel.
2) Drivers doing very very close passes, risking collisions with cars on the other side of the road.
3) Drivers sitting behind beeping their horns.
Yes Oozaveared I agree that we are not too far apart and you have given a really clear explanation of your point which does make perfect sense. If more people drove cars in a way that make sense rather than the way many seem to do based on habit and not getting caught I think the roads would be a better place.
Of course I also feel that the roads would be a better place with far fewer motor vehicles and more people on bikes (especially if those on bikes also cycles in a way that makes sense).
In fact if everyone was sensible all the time we'd have to think of something else to complain about!
You accuse me of victim blaming and then go and reinforce my points with your six points.
I accept that even if you correctly use the primary and secondary riding positions you will still be close passed, but, it will be a damn sight less often and at least you will have space to move into. In most of the close passes shown in the video the rider is far too far to the left, almost inviting the close pass.
How you ride and in particular your positioning on the road is the best way of controlling the behaviour of other road users around you. You are the one primarily responsible for your own safety!
As to the road markings always ride as if they aren't there. Again, you are the one primarily responsible for your own safety!
Take the road YOU need; NOT what others are prepared to give you. You have every right to be there.
And York claims to be a cycle friendly city? I wonder how many councilors cycle? This is a much better idea via www.meccanicacycles.com
HKFGG-Bike-Lane.jpg
Well, I agree with some of what you say but not the repeated nonsense about 'you are the one primarily responsible for your own safety'. That's obviously not true because we don't live in a state-of-nature. we live in what's supposed to be a civilisation where people have a right to expect a level of care from those with power around them.
If it were true, then there we wouldn't have the other thread on here now about the police investigating cyclists who followed drivers home and punched them in the face for hooting at them. There they were taking responsibility for their own safety - by encouraging better behaviour from drivers - and suddenly the police get involved - almost as if we live in a society with rules and laws and stuff rather than a wild-west where everyone is 'primarily responsible for their own safety'.
I accept your advice in a pragmatic spirit, but I don't accept the way you seem to be elevating it to a moral principle. That simply doesn't work.
the rider who shot this is called "careful cyclist"?
Well, most incidents are when he/she is riding in the gutter or very close to parked cars.
of course, the fault for all of the bad driving lays squarely with the motorists, but does the cyclist know that he/she can prevent the motorists bad behaviour a lot of the time by taking the lane? (that is, around 1.5m from the kerb)
Looking before you come out of a junction, holding a strong position on the road, keeping on top of your cycle maintenance, using lights during hours of darkness, obeying signs and road markings, adhering to the rules of the road, not going up the inside of large vehicles just as the lights change. All of these are examples of YOU being PRIMARILY responsible for YOUR safety.
Or do you think that these are the responsibility of others? Didn't think so! Do you still think my stance is "nonsense"?
How you then link my saying that cyclists are primarily responsible for their safety to the police investigation into the cyclists assaulting the car driver who honked them is beyond me. There is NO excuse for thuggery, as I have stated many times before , in many threads, on this site.
Pages