Near Miss of the Day 258: Driver changes lanes (nearly) into cyclist

ktache wrote:

Apart from the lack of use of the mirrors?  Which I had always thought was part of the signalling process, oh yeah and the illegal crossing of the solid white line into the bus lane.

And the way the cyclist releases his front brake makes one wonder what?

spen wrote:

ktache wrote:

Apart from the lack of use of the mirrors?  Which I had always thought was part of the signalling process, oh yeah and the illegal crossing of the solid white line into the bus lane.

And the way the cyclist releases his front brake makes one wonder what?

I can only conclude we are watching a different video.

How would you like cyclists to release their front brake?

spen wrote:

Going by the time from the camera there were four seconds from the driver starting to move to the cyclist coming to a stop alongside.  While the driver shouldn't have made the manoeuvre unless the cyclist was travelling at 30 there was plenty of time to stop.  Bit of engineered outrage to get on near miss of the day

more like 2. Perhaps the cyclist thought they were indicating in advance of the solid white line?

spen wrote:

Going by the time from the camera there were four seconds from the driver starting to move to the cyclist coming to a stop alongside.  While the driver shouldn't have made the manoeuvre unless the cyclist was travelling at 30 there was plenty of time to stop.  Bit of engineered outrage to get on near miss of the day

Maybe he didn't need to ride up right beside the vehicle, I'd accept that, however when you are put in danger there is the automatic fight or flight response, coming alongside to make the driver know that you were there, that they just cut you up is probably what a lot of us would do.

In any case as mentioned by another poster it's two seconds, firstly you aren't always looking at the motor to your right in those circumstances.

There are numbers exits directly to the left of the rider which are to be considered in terms of observance of potential threats - afterall this is one of the most common threats to all road users but is a horrible one for cyclists. There are also two pedestrians within close proximity to the road, given how peds stepping out is a well known thing/threat to safety it's another thing to be looking at and making a decision, so you aren't always immediately going to see the action of someone who you wouldn't ordinarily presume is going to make an illegal move.

So let's call that distraction of other more immediate potential threats/hazards a conservative .5s before he sees the vehicle moving, then we have what experts in crash investigations call reaction time. For an alert, well rested person an unexpected event it's reckoned upon 1.5seconds to react, and often longer in threat/panic moments. If you've already been making multiple decision making for your safety to hazards to your left as per above, the 1.5s would be quite reasonable, you also have then on top of that another 0.4s mechanical action time from pulling the lever (or pushing brake pedal in a motor) for the brakes to actually be activated and of course the time from the brakes actually hitting the braking surface for you to slow.

That does not and never has happened instantaneously, hence why we have braking distance/time charts and of course the thinking time added for braking distance totals.

It's easy to say that it's x period of time, but in practise there are so many things that are threats to you that it's not always easy to react as fast as we think or the 'book' says we should.

And hence why the Alliston reconstruction video by the MET was completely unrealistic and a stitch up!

" spoke with the driver at the lights and he just shouted at me that I should have noticed his signal.”

Perhaps the driver needs re-educating, that his indicators are...just that. An indication of his intentions, not an order which gives him the right.