Today’s video in our Near Miss of the Day feature took place outside the Royal Air Force Museum at Cosford in Shropshire.
Submitted by road.cc reader Paul Roscoe, it happened on 26 January and shows the moment a coach driver continues his left turn as the rider approaches, forcing Paul to take evasive action but with the perimeter fence giving him very little room for manoeuvre.
Paul, sho believes the coach is connected with the base, which remains an RAF training facility, told us: “Once I had swung off the road the driver stared at me as though this was my fault (well he is a professional driver) and with no gesture or comment and drove on, turning in to the main entrance to the base 100 metres further along.
“I tried to complain by phoning the base after watching the recording but the person I spoke to on the switchboard was unhelpful and did not know who would deal with any complaint.”
Paul added that he had sent stills from the video to West Mercia Police and completed an online ‘bad driving’ report.
The police have since got in touch and asked him to submit the full video.
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info@road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won’t show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
I have sent copies of stills taken from the video to West Mercia Police and filled in an online “bad driving” report form but as yet have had no response
62 thoughts on “Near Miss of the Day 87: Left-turning coach driver squeezes cyclist into fence”
Not saying this is the case
Not saying this is the case at all, but this link shows it is possible for the cyclist to be invisible in an extreme circumstance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33622318
hirsute wrote:
I’d suggest that your link actually proves that if drivers can’t be bothered looking thoroughly they won’t see things. If every driver who behaved like this instantly lost job and licence, suddenly invisible things would become visible.
oldstrath wrote:
The blind spots in large vehicles including HGVs and buses are large so all that would happen is more court cases showing that it the vehicle design, the employer at fault for buying them and the city for allowing them on the roads, allowing the driver to keep their licence.
Also when I was learning to drive I was warned about the blind spots of larger vehicles including when they are turning into a road. I’m aware motorcyclists are also routinely taught to presume they are invisible to everyone, there as a cyclist you are told with lights and high viz you can be seen when it isn’t always the case.
hirsute wrote:
it shows that it is possible in ordinary circumstances, not extreme ones, therefore the vehicle is not roadworthy and shouldn’t be on the roads.
I guess Loughborough
I guess Loughborough University got it completely wrong then.
hirsute wrote:
If the driver sits completely still and makes no effort to check then there will be blind spots, but surely drivers should be expected to make some effort? Or we could just ban the bloody things as too dangerous.
oldstrath wrote:
They should be banned on city and town streets.
Well done to the cyclist for
Well done to the cyclist for keeping calm. I’d have been letting the driver know what i’d thought if his driving.
Yes there are rather large
Yes there are rather large blind spots caused by large A pillars, but all of these blind spots can be eliminated by movements of the drivers head and neck. To believe that the drivers head should remain fixed when carrying out such manouvers in their large and dangerous vehicles is frankly ludicrous.
Can’t wait for near miss 100.
Can’t wait for near miss 100. I bet it’s going to be sometime we will tell our children about.
Sorry, but to me the cyclist
Sorry, but to me the cyclist is in the wrong here. It’s a sharp bend and the coach driver knows he needs all of the road to complete it. When he commits to the manoeuvre there are no other vehicles in sight to give way to. Having started his turn then any traffic subsequently arriving should either slow down or stop.
If the cyclist was driving a car instead would he have just ploughed on and crashed into the coach? That’s basically what he did here. He should have slowed/stopped and allowed the coach to complete the turn. I have no doubt that he coach driver would have responded with a friendly wave of “thanks”.
Decent road users know that sometimes you have to cede the right of way to other vehicles, particularly large and dificult to manoeuvre vehicles. You share the road.
I hope the police respond with some appropriate words of advice on road manners to this ignorant ‘cyclist’.
Joeinpoole wrote:
I’ve read your comments and watched it again. I think you’re wrong.
If the coach driver saw the cyclist he should have waited. I think he didn’t look properly.
Beecho wrote:
Seconded: the coach driver *may* have done a quick glance one way or the other, but going on the speed he was travelling he had no intention of actually stopping- if he even saw the cyclist, it was Just A Cyclist so he couldn’t care less…
brooksby wrote:
As I pointed out, he is already on the wrong side of the road before the bend (7-8sec mark) and confirmed by a look at the junction on Google sat view, this is the only way to get a coach round the bend. So yes, he could have stopped just before the bend and seen the cyclist, but he would still have been on the wrong side at that point. He had no other option than to be on the rhs before the cyclist came into view, and still make the bend.
Griff500 wrote:
Probably should not have had that vehicle on that road, then…
brooksby]
Very much this, if the coach was too large to use the road safely, it should bloody well be there. And as for trying to defend the driver. Seriously? No wonder standards of driving are falling if you think that that is acceptable.
I’ve got a wee example of piss poor driving, and reaction, that you can further make fools of yourselves if you like in an attempt of apportioning blame.
Griff500 wrote:
As the coach driver did not have to check for emerging traffic on his right his full attention should have been on the advancing cyclist and he should have stopped before making his manoeuvre. Even if he was on the wrong side of the road, stopping his vehicle would have negated the cyclist from being pinned against the fence. Both would then have had ample space to carry out a safe pass of each other. The blame is entirely on the coach driver in this instance as he could/ should have given way .
Griff500 wrote:
He may not have any other options with respect to his road position to make the turn, but he certainly had other options with respect to his speed in taking the corner and with respect to squeezing the cyclist against the fence.
It might be that the cyclist would have found the bus blocking the road after the turn, but the cyclist would then have had options to manoeuver around a stationery bus or to then give the bus sufficient space to safely take the turn. This would have been infinitely preferable to what actually happened.
Pudsey Pedaller wrote:
As I pointed out, he is already on the wrong side of the road before the bend (7-8sec mark) and confirmed by a look at the junction on Google sat view, this is the only way to get a coach round the bend. So yes, he could have stopped just before the bend and seen the cyclist, but he would still have been on the wrong side at that point. He had no other option than to be on the rhs before the cyclist came into view, and still make the bend.
— Beecho He may not have any other options with respect to his road position to make the turn, but he certainly had other options with respect to his speed in taking the corner and with respect to squeezing the cyclist against the fence. It might be that the cyclist would have found the bus blocking the road after the turn, but the cyclist would then have had options to manoeuver around a stationery bus or to then give the bus sufficient space to safely take the turn. This would have been infinitely preferable to what actually happened.— Joeinpoole
Exactly this. The best possible solution would have been for the coach driver to slow to a stop rather than continue his ill advised manoeuvre; irrespective of his forced road position.
Joeinpoole wrote:
You have made a couple of mistakes there.
Firstly and most importantly cyclists are classed as vunerable road users. As a motorist if you come across a vunerable road user who is in your path it is your duty to avoid causing an incident by slowing down or stopping. (If you are a bitter old codger you may shout at them but expect to be given a mouthful back if that vunerable road user happens also to be a motorist of any kind.)
Secondly while this is an adult cyclist the cyclist could have easily been a teenager or younger child. So they simply wouldn’t be expected to know that a coach would use all the road to turn.
So yes the cyclist may be ignorant but as a vunerable road user they are not expected to know the large turning circles of coaches or HGVs so the coach driver – who has more training than a car or light van driver – should have been the one to stop.
Bluebug wrote:
Oh come on! Watch the video. The cyclist can clearly see that his way is going to be blocked from some distance back … but he simply carries on at full speed regardless until he runs himself (yes, himself) into a fence. It appears that the coach driver did stop too. The cyclist’s lack of road-manners didn’t give him much choice.
How many of you experienced cyclists can put your hand on your heart and say you would have ridden in exactly the same manner as the cyclist in the video?
It seems to me that many of these GoPro riders deliberately create or worsen-by -their-own-actions situations that could have been avoided by simply easing off the pedals for a few seconds. Had the cyclist involved here done that then there would have been no video for him to post, no report to the hard-pressed police and both parties would have continued their journeys without incident.
Joeinpoole wrote:
I agree there are attention seeking YouTube cyclist warriors out there. I also agree I would have ridden differently, but everyone does all of the time. However, the black and white of it is that the coach driver should not have pulled out. Whether they did so knowing the cyclist was approaching or not is the only debate and the motorist is in the wrong either way.
Joeinpoole wrote:
The cyclist can’t be ‘in the wrong’ as he did pull over against the fence as soon as he saw the coach would have hit him, had he had continued ahead.
Joeinpoole wrote:
Couple of observations here. If as you say there was no traffic visible to the coach, how come in the video we can see him approach the turn and then pull onto the wrong side of the of the road in the face of oncoming traffic?
Your point about sharing the road is very valid and the coach driver should follow your advice. He should not have driven onto the wrong side of the road until he was certain that other drivers had become aware of what he was doing and stopped for him to continue. Instead he took a view of ‘I’m bigger than that cyclist, they’ll have to give way to me’.
Oh yes, I forgot, he’s an ignorant professional driver.
The cyclist would have been
The cyclist would have been cleaarly visible the moment he emerged from under the bridge if, anda big if, the highly trained professional had bothered to look. Where are the calls from Joeinpoole for the coach driver to share the road, or to stop, or at least to slow his manouvre Just a little bit, we are not that big.
Did Joeinpoole also forget
Did Joeinpoole also forget about the bit in your quaint British Highway Code about vehicles emerging from minor roads onto major ones needing to give way to traffic (Im pretty sure cyclists count too) on the afore mentioned major roads? Because Im pretty sure that this counts regardless of which way you are turning out of the junction.
An interesting rule of thumb I learned from a DVLA tester one time was that if your actions during a test make another road user take undue evasive action, then you’ve failed, sunshine. Had this been a test, that driver would have failed. Ergo his driving isnt up to scratch. Ergo it wasnt the cyclsts fault and no, he isnt required to be an accomodating door mat, a jolly good chap or any of that nonsense.
Had this been me I would have had a proper go at the muppet of a seat – steering wheel interface in the coach about his complete lack of judgement, with a side order of swearing.
I don’t think the cyclis was
I don’t think the cyclis was wrong and don’t want to victim blame but what about defensive cycling :-/
HLaB wrote:
What about it? Are you talking about submissive defensive where everyone walks all over you or aggressive defensive where you’d have moved into the middle of the road to make sure that the semi-blind incompetent coach driver would have had a much better chance of seeing you thusly and not attempted to kill you?
don simon wrote:
Im talking about being aware of your situation and namely aware that folk make mistakes and are numpties and avoiding a confrontation its nothing about letting folk walk all over you but if you want to let a blind numpty drive all over you so beit;there’s no point in being right and six foot under though.
HLaB wrote:
This old chestnut is getting a bit of a workout on here these days.
Bit of a non sequitur, given that the video didn’t end with the cyclist being squashed and that people posting on here tend not to be dead.
It’s also a really shit argument. I might counter with ‘no point being wrong and allowing the current moton movement to rid the roads of cyclists and therefore not being able to ride your bike anyway’, but that’s not as dramatic, or snappy. There are also countless examples of causes having been furthered by people’s deaths. I’m not advocating martyrdom – I don’t think we’re quite there yet – but I am advocating stopping that waste of words.
So, please, take your advice yourself, but don’t preach it as if it’s some pearl of wisdom or anything remotely noble, and not just some way of justifying cowardice.
davel wrote:
there’s no point in being right and six foot under though.
— davel This old chestnut is getting a bit of a workout on here these days. Bit of a non sequitur, given that the video didn’t end with the cyclist being squashed and that people posting on here tend not to be dead. It’s also a really shit argument. I might counter with ‘no point being wrong and allowing the current moton movement to rid the roads of cyclists and therefore not being able to ride your bike anyway’, but that’s not as dramatic, or snappy. There are also countless examples of causes having been furthered by people’s deaths. I’m not advocating martyrdom – I don’t think we’re quite there yet – but I am advocating stopping that waste of words. So, please, take your advice yourself, but don’t preach it as if it’s some pearl of wisdom or anything remotely noble, and not just some way of justifying cowardice.— HLaB
Sorry you don’t like it but to me there’s a line between beinng brave and brown trowser moment or even worse potentionally being dead (thankfully it didn’t happen). I personally would rather be dominant and brave on the road and hopefuly avoid something happening through that but anticipate blind numpties and avoid the brown trouser moment or potentially worse :-/
HLaB wrote:
Yeah…
That’s not really what ‘there’s no point in being right and six feet under’ implies, though, is it?
Do as you like and good luck with it, but I’d rather cyclists had a bit of backbone and gave drivers shit for driving shittily. And guess what – they won’t die doing it.
davel wrote:
there’s no point in being right and six foot under though.
— davel This old chestnut is getting a bit of a workout on here these days. Bit of a non sequitur, given that the video didn’t end with the cyclist being squashed and that people posting on here tend not to be dead. It’s also a really shit argument. I might counter with ‘no point being wrong and allowing the current moton movement to rid the roads of cyclists and therefore not being able to ride your bike anyway’, but that’s not as dramatic, or snappy. There are also countless examples of causes having been furthered by people’s deaths. I’m not advocating martyrdom – I don’t think we’re quite there yet – but I am advocating stopping that waste of words. So, please, take your advice yourself, but don’t preach it as if it’s some pearl of wisdom or anything remotely noble, and not just some way of justifying cowardice.— HLaB
Sorry you don’t like it but to me there’s a line between beinng brave and brown trowser moment or even worse potentionally being dead (thankfully it didn’t happen). I personally would rather be dominant and brave on the road and hopefuly avoid something happening through that but anticipate blind numpties and avoid the brown trouser moment or potentially worse :-/
— davel Yeah… That’s not really what ‘there’s no point in being right and six feet under’ implies, though, is it? Do as you like and good luck with it, but I’d rather cyclists had a bit of backbone and gave drivers shit for driving shittily. And guess what – they won’t die doing it.— HLaB
Don’t worry I can give driver plenty of sh1t for sh1tty driving 😉 I just like to plan ahead and anticipate to avoid squeaky bum moments it just makes it a more pleasant ride for me 😉
The 6 foot under is just an old adage and hopefully not a literal thing.
I’m not sure how any blame
I’m not sure how any blame can be attached to the cyclist here. If I’d managed to stop earlier then I wouldn’t be pinning myself against a fence, I’d have sat in primary with the camera rolling…
The coach manouevre wasn’t
The coach manouevre wasn’t really dangerous but cost a lot of energy to the cyclist and that is what it really makes inconsiderate. Motorists will hardly realise how uncomfortable it to gain again 10 mph of speed.
The coach wasn’t emerging
The coach wasn’t emerging from a minor road – it’s a tight left-turn on the main road they are sharing. And yes, the rider should realised the difficult mnouvere the coach driver was undertaking and held back out of politeness and consideration for his own safety.
JohnnyRemo wrote:
No, the driver should have realised the difficult manoeuvre he was about to undertake as he is supposed to be a professional driver who has had the training needed to drive such a large vehicle and held back out of
politenessnecessity and consideration for the safety of a vulnerable road user.Unless the cyclist is also a bus driver or a driver of a similarly large vehicle, he won’t have had the same training.
Pudsey Pedaller wrote:
The coach wasn’t emerging from a minor road – it’s a tight left-turn on the main road they are sharing. And yes, the rider should realised the difficult mnouvere the coach driver was undertaking and held back out of politeness and consideration for his own safety.
— Pudsey Pedaller No, the driver should have realised the difficult manoeuvre he was about to undertake as he is supposed to be a professional driver who has had the training needed to drive such a large vehicle and held back out of
politenessnecessity and consideration for the safety of a vulnerable road user. Unless the cyclist is also a bus driver or a driver of a similarly large vehicle, he won’t have had the same training.— JohnnyRemoI was about to make the same point as Pudsey Pedaller, but he beat me to it. It’s the coach driver whose manouevre requires him to cross into the lane for oncoming traffic, and the coach driver’s responsibility to ensure that that lane is clear. I’m sure there is something in the highway code about about not driving in such a way as to make other road users have to slow or change direction when overtaking or changing/encroaching upon lanes.
JohnnyRemo wrote:
seems to me it should be the responsbility of the driver that needs to cross the centre line to carry out a maneouvre to ensure there is space to do so. Not just press ahead into oncoming traffic with the view that they can see that you need to and being accomodating.
The people backing the coach driver here seem to be the same sort who cleared Helen Measures
Having said that…I think I
Having said that…I think I would have pulled up a little earlier if I had been the cyclist. Especially if I was familiar with the road. (Maybe the road needs an’unsuitable for HGVs/long vehicles’ sign?)
The incident took place on a
The incident took place on a left hand bend on Worcester Road. No junctions involved, both vehicles were on the same road. Take a look at the position of the bus at around the 8 second mark. He is right over to the right hand side of the road before the bend, and still needs the entire width of the road to get round the left hand bend. He needed to appoach the bend on the right hand side of the road to get round the corner, and at this point he could not have seen the cyclist. Had he stopped before he turned left, then the cyclist would have rounded the bend to find a bus head on on his side of the road. Would that have been any better? The driver didn’t exactly have many options!
Can you imagine the
Can you imagine the opprobrium that would heaped on the “crazy” cyclist on the equivilent coachdriver.cc if there was dashcam footage of the cyclist doing the apex of the corner. Except of course there could have been no danger to the occupents of the massive vehicle.
ktache wrote:
I can; scary isn’t it?
This was very inconsiderate
This was very inconsiderate driving by the coach who should have hung back. If the cyclist was a car or other larger vehicle I bet the coach would have stopped.
There are situations where you should be prepared to hang back or allow space to let larger vehicles make manouveurs (as per highway code 221) but the coach driver showed no regard for the vulnerable road user and just plowed on. The rule applying to him is a ‘MUST’ (ie give way), he was in the wrong by crossing into the lane and forcing the cyclist to stop.
Whatever the actions of the
Whatever the actions of the bus driver, the cyclist should have held back when he saw a dangerous situation arising. He’s either not experienced enough to assess the situation or decided to ride into a life-threatening position regardless.
Whatever the actions of the
double post
At the very least the selfish
At the very least the selfish act by the coach driver is obstruction, well police use that BS against people on bikes, at worst it’s an assault.
If the vulnerable road user had been a disabled person on a trike or electric scooter they might not have been able to get so far across nor indeed react so quickly to another road users massive error/inconsiderate action. The driver didn’t slow down for the turn, took it at speed and was obviously incorrectly positioned for the turn to start with.
In wet conditions the rider might not have being able to stop so quickly either.
If police don’t prosecute then that’s yet another miscarriage of justice and another tick in the box for drivers to do whatever the fuck they like.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Have you recently been sectioned under the Mental Health Act? I hope like fuck that you do not hold a valid driving license if your judgement of basic situations is so bizarre and self-evidently wrong.
Joeinpoole wrote:
I’m a better driver than you can ever dream of being sonshine, I hope to fuck that you stay off the roads as you’re clearly a danger to other road users with your stupid, invalid and dangerous attitude and totally missing the problem/s in this scenario
Clearly attacking people’s mental health is all your good for you knobjockey
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
It’s “you’re”.
Joeinpoole wrote:
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
I am utterly nonplussed and
I am utterly nonplussed and disappointed by the number of road.cc contibutors who have taken the side of the dickhead ‘cyclist’ in this video.
All he had to do to avert the situation entirely was to ease off the pedals for a few seconds. He quite deliberately chose to ride as he did to create this supposed ‘incident’. He rode himself into the fence for YouTube purposes.
If you ever wonder why motorists hate cyclists then this nonsense video is a good part of why they might.
Judging by most of the responses in defence of the cyclist I find myself starting to hate cyclists myself … even though I am obviously am one.
Why do so many Road.cc contributors feel that common courtesy, generosity and understanding of other road users are always trumped by their ‘right’ to ride as they choose to do so?
We always impore motorised vehicles to ‘share the road’ with us … and yet it would seem that many road.cc contributors are unwilling to reciprocate.
That’s all that happened here. The cyclist was a dickhead and caused the ‘incident’ by riding like an inexperienced wanker who couldn’t recognise a potential issue from 300 yards away.
Joeinpoole wrote:
Why do you expect the cyclist to show generosity toward and understanding of all other road users, and criticise them for not displaying these qualities, when the coach driver in the clip clearly showed none of that?
Joeinpoole wrote:
I am completely aghast and frustrated by the volume of road.cc members who have sided with arsehole “driver” in this video.
All that was required to completely avoid this issuewas to ease off the gas for a few seconds. Either neglegently or willfully, the driver forced the cyclist to carry out evasive manuvers.
Should one ever wonder why cyclists hate motorists then this clear example is a very good illustration of why they might.
Judging by the bulk of the responses to the drivers defense, I find myself starting to hate drivers myself… even though I am one too.
Why do an appreciable portion of motorised road users feel that common courtesy, generosity, attentiveness, understanding of the rules and regulations governing use of the roads and understanding of other road users are always trumped by their ‘right’ to drive as they choose to do so?
Drivers frequently demand that cyclists pay “road tax”, use lights, don’t listen to music and the most used advice; “get off the fucking road”… and yet it would seem that many road.cc contributors are unwilling to reciprocate.
That’s all that happened here. The driver was an inattentive dickhead and caused the incident by driving, at worst, as if “might is right” or at best as a myopic twat who couldn’t recognise a potential issue from 300 yards away.
Fixed that for you.
SNAFU.
SNAFU.
Nothing much happening with Brexit… Check.
No election on the horizon… Check.
No recent Islamist terror attacks… Check.
Number of posters on road.cc taking a driver-centric view of the world goes through the roof… Check.
Don’t worry… Trump will tweet something that’ll lure them back to the Daily Heil soon.
davel wrote:
Trump and the NHS in one story. God bless America.
Crampy wrote:
Just out of interest, at what point would easing off on the gas have resulted in the cyclist not having to take evasive action? As has been pointed out, the bus approached the turn already on the right hand side of the road, as that is the only way to get a bus round that particular corner. By the time the cyclist came into view, the front of the bus was already on the rhs, before the bend (6-7 second mark shows this). Had he eased off at that point, the cyclist would have had to pass him on the right, which is not a correct manoevre either, and in fact he may have been blocked by the back of the bus, which we can’t see.
I encounter exactly this type of situation almost daily, sometimes as a driver, and sometimes as a cyclist, on the twisty mountain roads where I live in France. People back off, give each other room, no problem. Only the British (or English?) can make this so complicated.
Griff500 wrote:
My post is a satire of the bullshit Joeinpoole is currently shovelling. He kindly opined that by slowing down the cyclist would have negated the whole thing. Which is just a little bit silly.
As the rider in this video I
As the rider in this video I feel I need to respond to various issues raised in the comments, particularly those of joeinpoole in his late night rant. Firstly I am not an inexperienced cyclist, I have ridden road races, time trials, toured in several different countries and commuted year round, currently I mostly ride for leisure with then odd audax thrown in. While I have never kept an accurate record I estimate I have ridden 200,000 km plus. I have also held clean driving and motorcycle licenses for over 40 years. Secondly I am not a “You Tuber” or “Go Pro” rider who worsens avoidable situations. The camera (occasionally) records dangerous unavoidable situation when they occur but on my computer I have far more clips of the good experiences such as the descent of Bwlch y Groes to Bala recorded on a beautiful day during the Four Rivers Audax a few years ago and a fast summer evening ride with friends between Broseley and Bridgnorth. I have never shared recordings of bad driving on any social media or website before but felt that this one particularly because of the drivers apparent attitude would be the first. Thirdly regarding the incident itself. I feel that the camera lens makes the length of road in which I had time to respond appear to be more than it is, once you emerge from under the bridge it is only a short distance to the right hand bend. The coach was not in sight as I came from under the bridge such was its speed (and this was the real issue) going in to the bend, that as soon as I saw it I was aware of the potential consequences and began to brake, I was slowing from that point there was no chance of stopping earlier and “courteously” waving the driver through. The coach did stop, and I too could have stopped, right in front of it, but eased of my brakes to roll off the road which I was going to have to do anyway as I doubted the coach would reverse to make way for me! Had the driver been able to see the expressions on the faces of his passengers in the front seats as I did it might have reminded him of his responsibility to them as well as other road users. I hope that this clarifies some of the issues raised and discussed.
mercian59 wrote:
Thanks for the concise and clear explanation, it’s a shame you have to defend yourself.
From my reckoning there is about 3 seconds between the bus first appearing and you stopping, and (if it was me) probably about 1 second between realising the bus was coming wide and stopping. Taking into account response times etc i don’t think any other cyclist would have been able to do anything any different.
Deeferdonk wrote:
The “cyclist didn’t slow down” argument is easily debunked. The bike covered the approximate 40 metre distance between the bridge exit, to standstill at the corner entrance, in 5 seconds, equating to an AVERAGE speed of about 17mph. This suggests slowing from 20-25mph to standstill in 5 seconds. Not a trivial deceleration, but perhaps not evident from merely viewing the video.
Mercian, you’re a disgrace!
Mercian, you’re a disgrace! Why didn’t you simply jump the coach and reimburse the passengers their road tax through the air conditioning unit.
I notice you don’t say whether you had lights, high viz and a helmet and you probably went through a red light under that bridge. You’re giving us all a bad name!
Incidentally, when you were propped against the fence, did it not occur to the driver to stop, revers, wave a hand in apology? I have worked in coach parks before (ferrying people to and from music festivals) and drivers generally dont know where their front bumpers are in these situations. He should not have tried to complete that manouvere in the presence of another road user!