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Near Miss of the Day 195: Driver pulls out on cyclist because he assumed he would stop to let him out
Today’s near miss sees a motorist pull out on a cyclist from a side road – not because he hadn’t seen him, but because he just assumed the cyclist would stop and let him out.
The incident occurred on the King's Road Junction onto London Road in Waterlooville, Hampshire.
What’s striking is that a motorist travelling in the same direction as the cyclist had stopped to allow the driver to pull out – because why not? They were stuck in a queue of traffic anyway, so it made no odds to them.
The cyclist, George, was not stuck in a queue, however. He had clear cycle lane ahead of him and he didn’t expect a motorist to pull out directly in his path.
George said: “I was using the cycle lane, wearing a high-visibility jersey and bag cover and my bike is equipped with flashing LED lights.
“However this motorist admitted seeing me and even explained to me that they expected me to stop for them, completely disregarding my right to use the cycle lane.”
“I felt rather shaken up after this near miss given the wet conditions and the ignorance displayed by the driver.”
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
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 [at] 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.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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53 comments
As an aside, I was cycling at lunch and was on a segregated cyclepath that at first, went alongside the main carriageway, before merging to become a dedicated cyclelane on the carriageway.
As I came alongside the road, a car came up to be level with me. I wondered why he didn't overtake, so looked at him and saw that he was signalling left.
I was intrigued to see how this played out, so I just carried on, and sure enough, come the junction, he just took the lane where I was... slowly, carefully, but very deliberately in full knowledge that I was there.
I made a point of rubbing my cross tyres horribly against his rear bumper as he cut me off and carried on my way.
In his eyes it was up to me to get out of his way... dedicated cyclelane or no dedicated cyclelane... he'd signalled and everything.
This is the problem with unwritten rules.
You can’t force someone else to be generous. That’s literally a contradiction in terms.
I think there are factors in this scenario that are relevant to the wider 'battle' between cars and bikes, namely the application of written and unwritten rules.
Motoring is absolutely dominated by the unwritten rules, think about it;
- nearly everyone speeds, at certain times
- undertaking in two or more lane traffic - when is that OK and not OK? There are rules, but we bend those to fit our own rhetoric
- overtaking - the law is clear... do not cross a solid white central line unless the vvehicle you are overtaking is travelling at less than 10mph. Who follows that rule in practice?
- Letting people out of junctions, etc. rules are in place, rules are regularly ignored
- Merging in turn... replaced by, merging as you see is fit with regards to your rate of travel and the vehicle trying to merge into you lane.
Bascially, motorists are indoctrinated into a mindset of making up the rules as they see fair / meet their requirements from day one. No wonder why there are so many misunderstanings around the legal obligations cyclists do and don't have. Its an interesting one.
This happened to me when I was younger. I was on my BMX and all I could do was get the front end up. They didn't appreciate a chainring in their front wing. I had to push home and straighten it with a hammer but that was better than going over the bars and needing new forks.
I bet they never did it again.
If we were dealing with a two lane road with, say, a queue of cars in the outer lane, perhaps waiting to turn right, while traffic flowed freely in the inner straight on lane, would any of the apologists be saying it was ok for the driver to pull out in front of a car?
Personally, if I had been the cyclist in that situation, I would have slowed slightly and waved the grey car through. It wouldn't have delayed me for more than a couple of seconds. It was the obvious thing to do in that situation and that was probably why the motorist assumed that the cyclist would do so.
Common courtesy and 'sharing the road' works both ways. Cyclists are actually allowed to be generous to motorists.
That only serves to endorse and encourage bad behaviour.
You missed out 'and tugged at your forelock and thanked the driver for not killing you'.
That is sort of the problem. You can yield your priority, but you cannot speak for the (hypothetical - not a part of this particular video scenario) cyclist coming up fast behind you, the pedestrian about to cross the road, the motorcyclist passing on the right of the cars or indeed any other road user in the vicinity.
Not saying, not to be considerate but it can sometimes cause more confusion. Confusion = contusion!
I've got no problem with being courteous, but that's encouraging really dangerous behaviour. Motorists need to learn to treat filtering cyclists as a separate lane of traffic as otherwise we get more and more of these types of incidents and at some point, a cyclist won't be anticipating it.
Sharing the road does not mean that you should be encouraging really poor driving.
That's true ... when they choose to be. Not when someone else thinks they should be.
Absolutely: of course cyclists are allowed to be generous to motorists. And motorists are allowed to be generous to cyclists. But neither is *compelled* to be so generous.
I hear what you're saying, but if this had been a dual carriageway and someone in the far lane had stopped to let the grey car out, nobody would be criticizing a car in the nearer lane which didn't stop, would they? In fact, I suspect people would be criticizing the stupidity of someone who just pulled out after making the presumption that all parties would be generous and let them out...
Highway Code. End of.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/362/schedule/9/made
The Traffic Signs and General Directions 2016, Schedule 9, Part 7 says:
"Give way marking
7. The requirements conveyed to vehicular traffic on roads by a road marking provided for at item 3 of the sign table in Part 6 of this Schedule are—
(a)except as provided in paragraphs (b) to (d), that no vehicle may proceed past the transverse line which is the nearer to the major road into that road in a manner or at a time likely to endanger the driver of, or any passenger in, a vehicle on the major road or to cause the driver of such a vehicle to change its speed or course in order to avoid an accident;
⋮
(d)where the transverse lines are placed in advance of a length of the carriageway of the road where a cycle track crosses the road along a route parallel to the transverse lines, that no vehicle may proceed past such one of those lines as is the nearer the cycle track, in a manner or at a time likely to endanger any cyclist proceeding along the cycle track or to cause such a cyclist to change speed or course in order to avoid an accident."
This incident should be reported to the police - along with the relevant legislation as I find the police ignorant of the law usually - and get them to at least talk to the driver as the driver has clearly broken the law.
And if the police ignore you, as I personally would expect them to do, raise it with the PCC and your MP; after all, what is the point of creating laws if the police choose which ones to implement.
Lots of drivers can’t bear the thought of spurning another driver’s courtesy. If someone flashes their lights at them then they will pull out without even looking, because they don’t want to appear ungrateful to the driver who was benevolent enough to let them out.
This situation is common enough. Am I the only one that gives the 'flasher' a bit of shit for letting someone out into my path?
I swear some people do it deliberately.
Anyway, the rules are pretty clear on this... do not flash people out, do not assume that because someone is flashing you, the road is clear / safe.
No where in the rules does it say 'if someone flashes someone else, you much be prepared to giveway to any vehicles entering your lane... its the polite thing to do'
I think this so called "Grey Area" needs calling out for what it actually is. It is the gap between what should be done on the roads ("Highway Code") and what actually happens on the roads ("Road Craft" "Road Sense" "Common Courtesy" etc.).
If people just stuck to obeying the written rules of the roads rather than the unwritten agreements then the roads would be a lot safer in my opinion
It's not a grey area at all. The car pulling out completely failed to abide by the 'give way' marking on the side road and thus forced the cyclist to take emergency action to avoid a collision.
That was my point
I was saying that it is not a grey area, it is people not adhering to the written rules of the road and instead creating some form of supposedly agreed unwritten rules of the road and expecting all others to follow.
Totally agree.
It’s not a gap, it’s people not knowing how to drive.
The two things that really annoy me with this:
1) People getting angry when I don’t pull out when they flash or wave, because either I have seen something they haven’t or, more often, I don’t feel safe going because they are blocking my view of the road for cyclists, motorbikes or cars using a right turn box.
2) The appeals for cyclists to “be courteous” and wave cars past. I don’t know how fast their car is, how confident they are, how well they know the road or what is happening behind them. It’s up to the driver to decide when it is safe, not me to relay the state of the road ahead. What is an easy overtake on a motorbike or fast car may be impossible in a 1.0 Corsa.
Driver 100% wrong but (with the video paused at 17 seconds) I would like to think that I might have second-guessed this driver's very dangerous assumption and slowed down well in advance, giving him the chance to get right out of my situation.
Purely in the interests of self-preservation, I am sure you will all understand.
This hasn't happened because it was a bike this happens all the time.
If i am driving on a dual carriage way in a queue and the left lane stops to let someone out on to a busy road I will stop too. Firstly as it is polite and I would want others to let me out and also because the chances are high the car coming out will see their chance and not look properly. Yes their fault but a pain in the arse to sort out.
Same on bike, the bike has to expect the cars to pull out, nothing to do with being on a bike
Obviously you would stop or did you plan to pile into the back of the queue?
What had that got to do with someone turning right into oncoming traffic?
Yawn.
Again.
He did expect it, or at least dealt with it without hitting the car, so that's as good as.
Secondly, none of this means the driver wasn't 100% in the wrong.
There are definitely a group of motorists out there who really seem to believe that drivers always have priority over cyclists. Remember Emma Way's "I have priority, he doesn't even pay road tax" tweet, after her hit and run?
Strangely there are also motorists out there who actually think they have priority other all vehicles, just because they've put their indicator on.
I was driving through our village one day, looking for a parking place near the shop. I saw a car maneouvring around a bit and assumed it was an elderly person attempting to park, so I drove on past.
Next junction I turned round to go back and was confronted by an angry old woman yelling "you should be ashamed of yourself, I had my indicator on".
I didn't realise what she was on about at first and had to think hard to recall passing the maneouvring car.
If I had known she was leaving, I would have been only too happy to take her parking place, so I definitely hadn't seen her indicator!
The main issue I had with this, though, is her total lack of knowledge of the highway code.
“If you see a car stopped in the road, you should slow down!” “And if *you* see a moving cyclist coming toward you, you should use your eyeballs!” Best. NMOTD. Exchange. Ever.
Hmmm. Again cyclist riding pretty quick into a situation. You see the car has stopped in the busy road... You see the others pull out.. what's going to happen next? .. tell you what I'll crash along at 20mph+ and find out.
Driver was in the wrong but you don't just boom along on a one man mission because you're in a cycle lane.
If I was cycling or even driving in that situation I would have pre-empted that happening. Happens in cars as well as bikes.
Cyclist riding pretty quick *on a clear cycle lane on which they have priority. *
They would expect that person coming out of side road would obey the HC and order of priorities not just assume: or did the driver of that car think that the driver of the car which stopped was in radio comms with the cyclist so they could coordinate their actions?
If that were a dual carriageway and the guy in the outside lane decided to let grey car out while I was "booming along" on the inside lane causing me to take evasive action. I'd probably go ever so slightly postal on both drivers.
Not a one man mission, just driving along without having to work out who the real dangerous drivers are out there. These so called polite drivers who buck *trends really are dangerous.
*The Highway Fucking Code.
That is the point. People do not see cycle lanes as a seperate lane of the highway. If I drive on a dual carriageway, I hardly ever see drivers straddling the lanes unless overtaking. A piece of narrow "lane" for bicycles however is an irrelevance and inconvenience and not worthy of too much notice.
God damn bloody cyclist riding within the speed limit (though this is irrelevant too), in a straight line, within his lane and clearly visible. I know what, I will pull out on him (even though there are clear give way lines at this juction) and berate him for not stopping like the cars in the outside lane once I have nearly caused an accident with him. It is totally my fault of course, but I will be damned if I am going to own my mistake and apologise!
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