Helmet cam footage taken on Nottingham’s Mansfield Road on February 20 shows a bus passing a cycle commuter so closely that it actually brushed his elbow as it went by.
Video uploader, Cyberslayer, said that he made eye contact with the bus driver at the lights before they set off.
“He was only in lane two because we both knew that lane one was going to be full of parked cars. As the lanes started to merge he makes no attempt to ease off and let me carry on in front and brings his bus within inches of my handlebars.
“The bus actually brushed past my elbow and caused me to take my right hand off the handlebars. I didn’t dare brake one handed as the heavy bike needs two hands to keep it straight whilst stopping. I just let the bike roll along downhill, hoping that the bus wasn’t going to pull over any further and desperately concentrating on keeping the bike heading in a straight line.”
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Cyberslayer contacted Trentbarton bus company about the incident. He was told that the footage had been passed to the general manager.
“She has advised that the bus doesn’t deviate from his lane, and if your lane is impeded it would perhaps be prudent to wait until lane two was clear. Equally, our driver could have read the road ahead, seen you and the parked cars and slowed to allow you into the second lane for this manoeuvre. She will be speaking to the driver, and showing him the footage so that he can be aware of the situation and hopefully will make better decisions in reading the road ahead.
“We are truly sorry for any distress caused, it did look very close, though in the driver’s defence, he did not appear to move across his lane, but as stated above, he could have read the road ahead better, and thank you for letting us know about this incident.”
After speaking to Nottinghamshire Police, Cyberslayer was told that due to the fact that he wasn’t hit by the bus, didn’t sustain any injuries and there are no independent witnesses, there would be no further police involvement.
In a similar incident last week, a London bus drifted into a cycle lane, almost squeezing a cyclist off the road.
The video uploader, Ian Croft, asked: “Is this bad driving or poor cycling?”
FOI request finds 1 in 10 complaints against London bus drivers involve cyclist
58 thoughts on “Video: Passing bus brushes Nottingham cyclist’s elbow”
Can someone explain the point
Can someone explain the point of a bus lane if there are vehicles parked on it?
Billy1mate wrote:
In general no bus lanes operate 24/7.
Discipline that driver.
Discipline that driver.
The bus company will know who was driving it with the time and route.
Discipline him/her.
It’s good to know that when I
It’s good to know that when I swing my dlock at a motorists head missing them by a few millimetres and there are no independent witnesses there will be no action against me, nice!
One day like this the roads
One day like this the roads will be crawling with idiots. Just have grace under pressure and hope you don’t crack you ribcage or have to stop for puncture repair.
The cyclist knew his lane was
The cyclist knew his lane was blocked with cars – he could seem them ahead.
Why didn’t he wait for the bus to come past and then merge behind it?
Plus, the lanes don’t merge, lane 1 is blocked with cars, there’s no merging zone.
Langsam wrote:
THIS. Just slow a fraction and let the bus pass. There was no room to clear the door zone and leave room for a bus which is already overtaking you, to get past.
Langsam wrote:
Fixed that for you 🙂
ChrisB200SX wrote:
That might be polite and curteous but its not actually the way the roads work. Standard procedure is that if you want to change lanes then you look for a gap, signal your intention and change lanes.
Don’t move into the next lane if it is occupied by a bus.
The bus driver may have been unhelpful, but he wasn’t really doing anything “wrong”. The sad thing is that as a cyclist, and vulerable road user is that drivers rarely “let you out” of a junction or similar.
P3t3 wrote:
Sadly, you’ve missed the point. The bus driver has absolutely done something wrong. He’s put himself alongside the vulnerable road user when the width of the road is about to taper down to the width of the bus.
Priority goes to the vehicle ahead (the bike crossing said junction). The incident occurs BEFORE the bus/cycle lane reappears ahead. What the vulnerable road user does AFTER this dangerous maneuvre is a totally different issue.
Have you actually read what the cyclist said about what happened in this incident?
There probably wouldn’t have been any incident if the bus driver had got on and completed the overtake before the road narrowed… Unless an idiot following the bus decided to bully the vulnerable road user into the blocked lane, but that wouldn’t be an option if the bus driver wasn’t a dick.
ChrisB200SX wrote:
The cyclist arrives at the lights first, he chooses to take the left hand lane. The bus arrives after and chooses the right hand lane.
After crossing the junction the bus and cyclist stay in their respective lanes.
When it becomes clear that the cyclist’s lane is blocked he chooses to attempt a highly dangerous manoeuvre in order to avoid slowing down or stopping.
The bus driver is not required to give way to the cyclist as they are in separate lanes. If the cyclist wishes to move in to the bus driver’s lane the cyclist has to give way to the traffic in that lane already.
clearly the cyclist is at
clearly the cyclist is at fault.The bus was passing the cyclist long before the parked cars and the rider should have slowed down.Infact trying to squeeze into that gap between the parked cars and the bus was stupidity.
john1967 wrote:
unconstituted wrote:
When you decide to grow up then perhaps we could discuss this topic in an adult fashion.Untill that point then please carry on sucking your moms tits,
john1967 wrote:
I honestly think this is the
I honestly think this is the cyclist’s fault.
He decided to continue in the bus lane despite the parked cars being clearly visible and then when the bus was passing him he decided to squeeze past the parked cars rather than slow down.
One open door in that situation and he is dead.
He can see the road is obstructed and could easily have slowed down and merged behind the bus or taken primary position in the non-bus lane before he reached the parked cars.
I feel that was actually the
I feel that was actually the cyclist’s fault too. Poor reading of the road ahead. He should either have held the lane and stayed ahead of the bus, or been ready to brake and filter in behind before coming up to the parked cars.
The bus shouldn’t have
The bus shouldn’t have overtaken, thus blocking the cyclist. However since it did, the cyclist should have stopped or slowed down in order to get behind the bus.
So I think the first one who made a fault, was the bus driver, and the cyclist later made anothe poor judgement resulting in a dangerous situation.
The bus driver could see the
The bus driver could see the the cyclist was moving into lane 2 at the junction where the bus lane emerges but chose to try and squeeze/muscle past. Maybe the cyclist should have taken position in the outside lane and blocked the bus out but when faced by 15 tons of bus would you feel confident doing so.
Later in the video, once it’s clear that the bus has bullied the cyclist into what remains of the cycle lane , the cyclist would have done good to back off as at that point there was only ever going to be one winner in the case of any incident.
As far as the cops telling him that there was no independent witness, what the fuck is a camera? is that not suitable witness material.
Regardless of right and wrong
Regardless of right and wrong, the cyclist is most vunerable, so maybe should have behaved in a way that will help him survive. Bus vs Cyclist, hmmm.
It’s great being right and injured/dead isn’t it.
mikecassie wrote:
Regardless of right and wrong (and I haven’t worked out to my own satisfaction whose fault this incident was, mainly ‘cos I can’t be bothered viewing the video to be honest) your comment is predictable, tedious, and irrelevant to the issue.
Someone _always_ makes that smug, and entirely useless, observation in the aftermath of almost any incident. What’s the point of doing so, other than to try and take a one-up position and/or falsely convince yourself you are invulnerable?
You could have made your comment on almost any video showing any incident. There’s _always_ some way the more vulnerable party could have ‘made themselves safe’ (e.g. by not cycling on the road at all, or not going outdoors). A comment that is universally applicable doesn’t actually say anything useful at all.
Right and wrong is the whole point, it’s what people are arguing about (maybe the cyclist was wrong, I’m not ruling that out). But just saying that ‘regardless of right and wrong’ the onus is always on the person who is vulnerable is completely pointless.
The cyclist is a entitled
The cyclist is a entitled dickhead that is endangering other road users. Are his brakes broken?
The cyclist’s positioning was
The cyclist’s positioning was not ideal. Before the parked cars, he was riding at the extreme right hand edge of his lane which reduced the passing distance of the single decker. He should either have rode more centrally in his lane or indicated earlier and moved into lane 2. Personally, I would have stayed in lane 1, let the bus pass then move to a safe position in lane 2.
JulesW wrote:
I read it as poor positioning by the cyclist too. That being said, the bus driver could have chosen to slow down slightly to allow the cyclist to pass the parked cars.
It is disturbing that many
It is disturbing that many people (including the bus company) seem unaware that the presence of a cycle lane does not negate the requirement to allow a safe distance when overtaking – 1 to 1.5m, depending on the speed.
The police are fucking
“you wasn’t hit by the bus”…where do the police get these illiterate misfits from?
The ‘onus’ is obviously on
The ‘onus’ is obviously on the ‘professional’ driver not to be twat just for the sake of making point a homicidal point with a 4 ton killing machine. (Whatever that point might be)
Well done bus driver, you nearly kill somebody, I bet it’s a daily occurrence if you drive like that all the time.
Housecathst wrote:
It is funny the person on the lighter vehicle doesn’t ever seem to consider the possible results that being crushed by a bus would do thus actually killing himself in the process, the responsability is on both but for different reasons but rather worrying lately is the habit to keep blaming those who’ll lose least from the collison no matter who is in the wrong.
Loving the comments here.
Loving the comments here. How many of you geniuses would have passed that cyclist that closely, while driving a bus?
If any of you admit you’d have done what the bus driver did, regardless of the number of lanes or parked cars, then you have absolutely no right, EVER, to complain about a close pass again.
Positioning, lanes, parked cars – all irrelevant. A bus driver chose to get within inches of a cyclist’s arm and half of you blame the cyclist. What a bunch of fucking morons.
Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:
The cyclist made all the choices.
The bus driver simply drove in his lane.
The cyclist chose to position himself right next to the bus and then chose to squeeze between a moving bus and a row of parked cars. He did all this because he chose the wrong lane.
If we mindlessly defend idiotic cycling then we make ourselves look ridiculous. This makes it even harder for us to be taken seriously when campaigning for better infrastructure etc.
Rich_cb wrote:
Loving the comments here. How many of you geniuses would have passed that cyclist that closely, while driving a bus?
If any of you admit you’d have done what the bus driver did, regardless of the number of lanes or parked cars, then you have absolutely no right, EVER, to complain about a close pass again.
Positioning, lanes, parked cars – all irrelevant. A bus driver chose to get within inches of a cyclist’s arm and half of you blame the cyclist. What a bunch of fucking morons.
— Rich_cb The cyclist made all the choices. The bus driver simply drove in his lane. The cyclist chose to position himself right next to the bus and then chose to squeeze between a moving bus and a row of parked cars. He did all this because he chose the wrong lane. If we mindlessly defend idiotic cycling then we make ourselves look ridiculous. This makes it even harder for us to be taken seriously when campaigning for better infrastructure etc.— Peowpeowpeowlasers
You are entirely wrong. Bus is following the cyclist in the SAME LANE across the junction, then chooses to bully and force cyclist into the bus/cycle lane (as the bus/cycle lane starts), clipping his arm in the process.
You are defending idiotic and dangerous driving and it’s tragic that you cannot see that.
Would you have overtaken a cyclist like that when pulling away from traffic lights, driving a bus?!
ChrisB200SX wrote:
The 2 lanes are clearly visible at the start of the clip. The cyclist has chosen the wrong lane.
The bus also does not pass until the cyclist has entered the marked bus lane on the other side of the junction.
If you wish to enter another lane you have to give way to the traffic in that lane.
The cyclist chose to ride right at the edge of his lane, he also chose not to slow down at all once it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to get into the right hand lane ahead of the bus, he then chose to make an insanely dangerous manoeuvre.
We all occasionally end up in the wrong lane, that’s life, you wait until the lane you need to be in is clear, signal and move into the correct lane.
The line demarcating the lanes essentially acts as a ‘Give Way’ line.
Would you pull out from a ‘Give Way’ junction in front of a bus? The same applies to crossing the lane line.
The cyclist’s actions were stupid from start to finish.
Here’s a view across the junction.
Clearly 2 lanes wide.
Rich_cb wrote:
Not at all: no dividing line, so just a single very wide lane.
(I would have held back, in the cyclists situation, and chalked it up as a learning experience; but “it’s safe, because the bus didn’t leave its lane” is a rubbish response).
brooksby wrote:
That’s not how junctions work. There are usually no lane markings across a signal controlled junction.
According to the Government’s ‘Traffic Signs and Road Markings Manual’ (a real page turner, highly recommended)
“The number of lanes on the exit side of the
junction should match the number of ahead lanes at the Stop line. If localised widening of an exit is necessary to achieve this, the subsequent reduction in the number of lanes should be carried out beyond the junction over a distance of at least 100m”
They also include a handy diagram.
As you can see, no lane markings across junction but lanes continue.
The bus drove within its lane and was not required to give way to the cyclist. It may have been polite to do so but that’s not really the point. The cyclist’s actions were dangerous and he was lucky to have not been killed.
Rich_cb wrote:
so why does that not apply in London then ? there are lots of junctions with 3 straight ahead lanes one side that merge into 2 on the exit, actually thinking about it there are more than a couple of those in Nottingham too.
and I presume the “bus lane” was provided for the bus,if the bus cant use the bus lane because cars are parked in it, why are cars allowed to be parked in a bus lane ?
Awavey wrote:
This bus lane is only in operation at certain hours of the day. It says so on the blue sign just to the left of the bus lane at the first set of lights. You can see it in the video or on street view.
I imagine that the diagram is the gold standard but in areas like London with road layouts that are hundreds of years old it can’t always be met.
The point was that the lack of road markings across a junction don’t indicate that the lanes have ceased to exist. Obviously if you marked all the lanes in all directions across a junction you’d just have a mess.
If you look at the satellite image of that junction you can see it pretty much follows the diagram layout. There is no tapering of road width after the junction, the width of the road stays constant throughout, the markings for the bus lane are just tapered in.
So the onus is on drivers and cyclists to remain in their lanes and only switch lanes when it is safe to do so in accordance with the highway code.
Rich_cb wrote:
Not at all: no dividing line, so just a single very wide lane.
(I would have held back, in the cyclists situation, and chalked it up as a learning experience; but “it’s safe, because the bus didn’t leave its lane” is a rubbish response).
— Rich_cb That’s not how junctions work. There are usually no lane markings across a signal controlled junction. According to the Government’s ‘Traffic Signs and Road Markings Manual’ (a real page turner, highly recommended) “The number of lanes on the exit side of the junction should match the number of ahead lanes at the Stop line. If localised widening of an exit is necessary to achieve this, the subsequent reduction in the number of lanes should be carried out beyond the junction over a distance of at least 100m” They also include a handy diagram. As you can see, no lane markings across junction but lanes continue. The bus drove within its lane and was not required to give way to the cyclist. It may have been polite to do so but that’s not really the point. The cyclist’s actions were dangerous and he was lucky to have not been killed.— brooksby
Actually my point was that the road in the foreground of your picture appeared to be a single wide lane, with no lane dividers.
So, the road *after* the junction.
That’s a different thing from whether or not there were lane dividers *through* the junction (I wouldn’t expect there to be, because as you rightly point out, the junction would just be a chaotic mass of lines).
brooksby wrote:
That picture is looking back across the junction in the opposite direction to the travel in the video, you can see a white line in the bottom left of the picture which is where the road markings reappear after the junction.
I’m not sure I’m describing it very well so here’s a Google maps view of the whole junction!
Rich_cb wrote:
Corrected your alternative facts for you 🙂
Fuck this shit, I’m also going to space.
ChrisB200SX wrote:
The bus chose the wrong lane?
The bus chose the only lane that was open.
As explained in my other posts there are 2 lanes before junction and 2 lanes after. It is a standard junction design.
Cyclist rode to the extreme right of his own lane, the bus is clearly just driving in the middle of his own lane.
You can cry about alternative facts if you want but there is a video. The junction is also easy to find on Google maps so your claims about tapering etc can be demonstrated to be nonsense.
Finally this isn’t like a normal overtaking manoeuvre as both vehicles have there own lane. The fact the cyclist chooses to cycle so close to the edge of his lane as to place himself in danger is entirely his own fault.
The highway code is clear in this, if you leave your lane and cause any hindrance to vehicles in the lane you are moving in to then you are at fault.
It’s easy to say after the
It’s easy to say after the fact that the cyclist should have done this or the bus driver should have done that but personally I’d blame the road designers and local council, their is far too much terrible road design that forces vulnerable road users into these situations,if the cars were parked illegally and not regularly being fined and towed then the council are creating the situation and if the cars are there legally that’s even worse, I ride regularly ride in this area and the roads are not safe for cycling
Loving the way the bus says
Loving the way the bus says “caring” on the back windscreen.
Of course the real problem here is too many cars and not enough decent public transport and cycling/pedestrian infrastructure.
I believed bus driver
I believed bus driver “misjudged” the speed of this cyclist’s capability
Look how fast he accelerating, I think bus driver was try to pass him asap but seems like cyclist somehow too fast and bus driver misjudged it and then collide happened
He could just slow down, he know bus is behind him and there car park in front of him . . .
By the way, It is downhill? a little slope?
Amazing how police seem to
Amazing how police seem to pick and chose which sources of evidence are actually evidence.
Post a video of yourself doing 160 on the motorway. Nicked. Post a video of yourself being hit by a bus. Sorry, no witnesses.
It all comesdown to common
It all comesdown to common sense.
The cyclist should have read the road ahead and been prepared to fall in behind the bus, and the bus driver should have realised the cyclist was going to get cut off and prepared for the cyclist to try and squeeze past the parked cars.
As a driver, if i see cyclists coming up to road blockages, I let them past the blokage as I know I could then overtake moments later.
I’m not sure which part of Mansfield road this incident occured on, but having been there on a work trianing course last week, I can safely say that it is an awful road layout with two lanes merging into one, then back again with many changes in speed limits and cars parked wherever they like, in bus lanes, cycle lanes and on double yellows.
It’s one of the things I hate
It’s one of the things I hate about cycling in traffic – having to decide whether (and how) to try and merge in front of speeding vehicles when my lane is blocked ahead. Most of all when the cars blocking my lane are parked illegally (which is often the case, as there seems to be little enforcement of parking rules).
I’d favour a change in the law to make it legal for any passerby to vandalise or remove any car that is parked in other than a legal parking place. If its not a legal parking place, its not private property, its just some junk someone has dumped in the street, no different from an old mattress or broken bit of furniture.
The bus driver knew he was
The bus driver knew he was going to have to pull in at the next bus stop just past the parked cars. But he was so eager to overtake the cyclist, (people can’t stand having to be delayed for a moment) and put the cyclist in danger, and him (the driver) causing harm to a human being, all for the sake of 30 odd seconds. We share the road, or at least we should. Very sad.
Abbie wrote:
Fine point Abbie, though I’d say that the bus driver may have gained at most 5 seconds, from this dangerous manouvre. Just because it’s a seperate lane, does not mean that a safe overtaking distance is not necessary. I think most of us have been close passed while we are in left hand cycle lanes, some drivers will run their wheels right up to the line.
And in the Ian Croft video the bus driver is clearly driving within the mandatory cycle lanes.
The cyclist is wide in their
The cyclist is wide in their lane and the move out is a bit dodgy but this is all after the event. The bus is far too close from the first seconds – that magic white paint doesn’t defy physics!
Down with this sort of thing!
Down with this sort of thing!
Moral outrage!
Another vote that the ‘Bloke on a bike’ is at fault, he put himself in that position, if he cut up the bus in a car there would have been lots of horns an obscentities blah blah, do it on a bike and he’s put himself in a life really dodgy position.
If he was driving one would hope he’d see the obstruction, check behind him, indicate and pull out when the next gap came, he clearly didn’t do this…reminds me of the bike courier clip where he decides to aim for a gap between a bus and a truck and guess what he doesn’t come out winning.
edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2UsaO9vEJs
Yes he’s on a bike, but it doesn’t make him right, a GoPro and a Youtube account isn’t a substitue for a healthy sense of self preservation and a dash of common sense.
Just a question SS, do you
Just a question SS, do you think the bus is in an appropriate position at any time?
The bus is in the appropriate
The bus is in the appropriate position through the clip, simply watch the video.
0.46 Bloke on a bike looks over his shoulder bus is approaching in his lane.
(at this point you would make you intention to move to another lane, as the bus is too close to safely do so the vehicle in the inner lane should wait to change lanes when safe to do so, bloke on the bike does not do this and does not deviate from his course or speed.)
0.48 bus approaches road furniture, Bloke on a bike is still positioned to the far right of his lane still not deviating from his course or speed..
0.50 bus and Bloke on a bike converge on the road furniture Bloke on a bike still positioned to the far right still not deviating from his course or speed..
0.52 bus has completed the major portion of the overtake Bloke on a bike still not deviating from his course or speed.
0.54 Bloke on a bike still not deviating from his course or speed heads into the gap he is complaining about.
All told you have approximetly 10 seconds there when all the bloke on the bike on the bike had to do was dab his brakes look over and pull behind the bus. Mountains Mole Hills.
I don’t think either party is
I don’t think either party is completely without blame here. The bus driver could have easily seen that the cyclist was going to be pressed up against the parked cars during the overtaking, but as said previously, the cyclist could have taken action to avoid the situation as well. It would have been interesting to see the attitude of the bus driver had been had the cyclist moved over to the right hand lane straight from the green light in order to claim the lane (as directed by the arrows on the road). It does look like this ‘Bus Lane’ is actually a ‘Parking Lane’ after a certain hour, which given there are still buses on that route at that time seems a bit pointless!
Not sure this is worthy of an article though.
KendalRed wrote:
Tend to agree.
The cyclist should have moved into the other lane to overtake the parked cars – either before or after the bus came alongside. You aren’t entitled to be allowed in by someone in the process of overtaking you and he seemed stubborn to carry on into the tiny gap when easing off a bit would have let the bus pass first.
The bus driver might’ve done better to anticipate the cyclist’s actions, though, and either been sure his bus could pass safely before the parked cars, or eased off a little to allow the cyclist to get ahead. We all need to take account of others’ foibles, especially those more vulnerable than ourselves – it’s good “defensive driving” and bus drivers should be well-versed in it.
SS – I’m not suggesting his
SS – I’m not suggesting his move between the cars and the bus wasn’t stupid but the bus driver is driving on the paint the whole way through, never giving the cyclist enough room!
alansmurphy wrote:
if you check the width of the lanes here on streetview, you can see that there’s very little choice – equally with the car parking spot right after the bus stop – it seems a lot of the factors attributed to the road users are actually symptoms of the road design
The cyclist didn’t read the
The cyclist didn’t read the situation well and should’ve backed off. That said, the bus driver crossed a solid white line on the cycle lane, which is a traffic offence.
OldRidgeback wrote:
.