Passing on the In/Out side

kil0ran wrote:

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As car design changes it’s less easy to pick up these visual cues. One thing I have noticed is modern Mini drivers seem to consistently underestimate how much room they’ve given you when overtaking. Never driven one but I wonder if the low seating position and relatively high window sills are responsible for this. Probably just BMW genetics rubbing off…

Minis are around as wide as any moden family car, bit wider than the average hatchback, 2.0m inc. mirror, but some models have longer mirrors than average.

I’ll always pass on the

I’ll always pass on the outside. If, (if!) a driver checks his mirror before moving off he is more likely to check his offside mirror. As I usually ride with a fork mounted daylight running light hopefully that will also have attracted his attention.

A bit like driving without a seatbelt I have an absolute mental block about passing down the nearside, I think it comes from when before I cycled and nearly left-hooked a cyclist.

When I learnt to drive I was taught road positioning as follows:

1) line up the shut line of your bonnet (back when cars had higher/wider wings) with the edge of the kerb, when looking straight ahead.

2) in a queue, always stop so that the front edge of your bonnet doesn’t obscure the contact point of the rear tyres of the car in front with the road.

As car design changes it’s less easy to pick up these visual cues. One thing I have noticed is modern Mini drivers seem to consistently underestimate how much room they’ve given you when overtaking. Never driven one but I wonder if the low seating position and relatively high window sills are responsible for this. Probably just BMW genetics rubbing off…

fukawitribe wrote:

brooksby wrote:

sergius wrote:

Would be nice, though I tend to think half the drivers like to deliberately block cyclists as they feel we shouldnt be able to bypass the queue.

True. It’s not that they hate cyclists (well, it might be) but that they’re jealous!   Hence the rage about RLJ – I suspect it’s just that many motorists wish they could too. (EDITED:) Actually, many do.  I  notice far more motor vehicles either going through a light just turned red, or moving off on amber, than bicycles.

 

To take central Bristol as an example, which you’ll be familar with, I do too – in absolute numbers – but  I tend to notice a higher proportion of cyclists ignoring the lights than other road user types. That may well be highly inaccurate, either way, so i’m not really drawing too much of a conclusion from it.

I’ve spotted a different pattern between cyclists and motorists jumping red lights. Motorists seem to do it the most when the traffic light just turns to red and they speed up to reduce the amount of time between when the lights were amber and when they go through.

Cyclists are more likely to do it just before the lights turn green (i.e. get a head-start to go through the junction safely). Of course, there’s always the left-turn-on-red jumpers or junctions with very little traffic that tend to entice cyclist RLJers.

It’d be nice to have it

It’d be nice to have it specified in the Highway Code, but I don’t think it’s particularly practical. It’s difficult to enforce laws such as not using mobiles, let alone a subtlety such as where to leave room for a bike.

Also, it’s not clear which would be better. I prefer to pass slow/stationary traffic on the inside as you have protection from traffic going the opposite direction, but you’re more at risk of being doored or  getting squished by a driver pulling in (especially if they’re squeezing past a right-turning vehicle).

I’d go for a recommendation of trying to keep in line with the vehicle in front, so at least the space on the inside/outside will be more consistent and avoid the need to weave in and out round a badly placed vehicle.

Most car drivers sat in a

Most car drivers sat in a queue don’t look in their wing mirrors to see if a two-wheeled vehicle is coming up from behind.   It isn’t necessarily malice that means that they block our way; the real issue is that drivers assume that everyone else on the road is a car or a lorry or bus.

sergius wrote:

Would be nice, though I tend to think half the drivers like to deliberately block cyclists as they feel we shouldnt be able to bypass the queue.

True. It’s not that they hate cyclists (well, it might be) but that they’re jealous!   Hence the rage about RLJ – I suspect it’s just that many motorists wish they could too. (EDITED:) Actually, many do.  I  notice far more motor vehicles either going through a light just turned red, or moving off on amber, than bicycles.

A better solution would be to just ban all Q-series Audis, XC-series Volvos, X-series BMWs etc 🙂

The old claim that it is bicycles causing traffic queues, and not all of the single occupant SUVs which are far far too large for an urban environment…