Cyclists in the inside lane

Rolandtheroadie

Obukit wrote: »

I don't understand how you can know exactly where the cyclist pulled out of and what lane he was in, yet your brother, who was closer to the cyclist, still managed to cut him up? To be honest sounds like cyclist was probably in lane 1, and your brother just was really stupid to pull across a whole lane without bothering to look.

Hopefully lesson learnt - mirror, signal, manoeuvre is one of the first things they teach you when driving for a good reason!

Ok, parked cars in lane 1. The 2 cars never overtook the cyclist and are in lane 2. They are in lane 2 to allow for car doors opening or for pedestrians stepping out between parked cars.
Cyclist joins road and rides dangerously close to parked cars allowing no room for error (a pedestrian is unlikley to have lights etc or be easily seen, could be drunk or suffer dementia and a door could open at any point).
He then trys to go past a car on the left that is slowing and indicating it's intention to turn left.
At what point is this cyclist expected to take responsibility for his own actions and his dangerous riding techniques?

Rolandtheroadie

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

I can get up to about 25mph on my road bike less than 10 seconds.

Thanks AND quote. I wondered when someone would say how fast they could go on a bicycle. Thats great. My hayabusa could go from 0-60 in 2.7 seconds. That makes it ok for me to ride too close to parked cars and undertake everything in the road infront of me. And if someone turns left, WHILST I'M RIDING LIKE AN !!! and I collide with them, it's their fault.

Kilty_2

Although I'd always check my mirrors when turning - for all you vigilante cyclists out there, touch my car and I will hurt you, that is a guarantee.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

scotsman4th wrote: »

Thanks AND quote. I wondered when someone would say how fast they could go on a bicycle. Thats great. My hayabusa could go from 0-60 in 2.7 seconds. That makes it ok for me to ride too close to parked cars and undertake everything in the road infront of me. And if someone turns left, WHILST I'M RIDING LIKE AN !!! and I collide with them, it's their fault.

You're making a lot of assumptions on the basis of a poster who has modified his story several times.

My experience of riding on the roads (over a 20 year period) has taught me that in nearly every case where a motorist turns left in front of a cyclist, it is the motorist at fault. Cyclists don't go around with a death wish. Being knocked off is painful.

No, im betting that the cyclist had right of way, and that the brother just wasn't paying attention. By the way, my front light is about the size of a box of matches, but is almost as bright as a car headlamp, with a spread of light a good 30 feet. My rear light is one of the brightest available on the market. Motorists still act as though I don't exist.

Rolandtheroadie

mealticket wrote: »

i'm an FJR 1300, built for comfort and speed

Hayabusas a write off (old guy in works car park). Looking at a Honda x11 just now.

Rolandtheroadie

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

You're making a lot of assumptions on the basis of a poster who has modified his story several times.

My experience of riding on the roads (over a 20 year period) has taught me that in nearly every case where a motorist turns left in front of a cyclist, it is the motorist at fault. Cyclists don't go around with a death wish. Being knocked off is painful.

No, im betting that the cyclist had right of way, and that the brother just wasn't paying attention. By the way, my front light is about the size of a box of matches, but is almost as bright as a car headlamp, with a spread of light a good 30 feet. My rear light is one of the brightest available on the market. Motorists still act as though I don't exist.

I dont think he's really modified, more clarified for those that made assumptions about the driver.
I always say theres loads of bad drivers out there. Equally, theres loads of bad cyclists out there too.
It's the same on forums. Theres loads of drivers that wont admit they're wrong because it involves cyclists, and cyclists wont admit it's wrong because they cycle.
Reading it, I think the cyclist is at fault (it does happen) and his aggressive attitude also makes me think this could show up in his riding.

Lum

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

By the way, my front light is about the size of a box of matches, but is almost as bright as a car headlamp, with a spread of light a good 30 feet. My rear light is one of the brightest available on the market. Motorists still act as though I don't exist.

Am I alone in hating lights like this, not necessarily on bikes but on cars as well where they are becoming increasingly common thanks to bloody LEDs

The brightness is so bright that close up they dazzle you and reduce your ability to see where it's actually coming from, and from a distance they are so small that the brightness is irrelevent as even if you can see it you can't judge distance.

LED sidelights on cars are the worst, especially where the LED is a single luxeon in a lens designed for a normal bulb but the ones I am seeing on bikes are almost as bad.

You don't need lights that burn like a nuclear furnace, just nice big lights of a sensible brightness.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Lum wrote: »

You don't need lights that burn like a nuclear furnace, just nice big lights of a sensible brightness.

Right, so a 10W LED light is really such a problem when compared to a 55W car headlamp, of which there are two?

I'll pick the brightest most visible lights I can get my hands on, and !!!!!!!! to anyone who doesn't like being dazzled. At least they can't pretend not to have seen me.

petrolhead69

As a biker since I was 8 and riding on the road since i was 16 (ish,maybe, allegedly a bit younger) it`s been well drummed into me to always indicate in plenty of time, check the mirror then do a lifesaver before turning. (not saying i`m a perfect driver or even anywhere close, just on a small engined bike you learn this habit very quickly to stay alive, i wish to !!!! some cyclists would learn the lesson...) and despite doing that in the last few years I`ve had about 4 incidents in my van or car where I`ve been overtaken on the nearside by a cyclist despite me having my left indicator on and being in a left filter lane at traffic lights or at a junction. If I hadn`t done the lifesaver then braked they would be under my car in a second. When you sound the horn they go ballistic. I just smile, give them the finger and hope that one day when they get whats coming to them that the car driver doesn`t get an example made of them by some judge.

In slow city traffic it`s easy for a cyclist to go faster than a car and to be able to pass many cars on the inside, the difference between them and a motorbike is the training, the bike test is harder than the car test for good reason, and a big part of it is planning to take account of other drivers mistakes, a lot of cyclists would do well to learn that.

Lum

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Right, so a 10W LED light is really such a problem when compared to a 55W car headlamp, of which there are two?

I'll pick the brightest most visible lights I can get my hands on, and !!!!!!!! to anyone who doesn't like being dazzled. At least they can't pretend not to have seen me.

even discounting the fact that LEDs output more light per watt than halogen lights, the car headlight is going to have much more than 5.5 times the surface area of the LED light which in turn makes it less annoying.

As I tried to make clear, this post wasn't a dig at cyclists as such because cars are getting just as bad, if not worse, especially the tiny HID lights that are becoming increasingly popular.

If you dazzle someone with your light, they will lose the ability to see where they are going and will not know where you are. They will know you are around but not where. This doesn't really improve your odds of preventing an impact though I admit it's still safer than no lights at all.

A lot of it does depend on the design of the lense though. If the lense on your light scatters that light across a nice wide angle it wont be so bad. Too many just have a bunch of LEDs behind a useless piece of flat clear plastic.

I'm currently looking at replacing the bulbs in my car with LEDs and I'm finding that many only spread their light by a pathetic 30 degrees, so if you're slightly off to one side you wont be seen, even if your light housings do have reflectors. I'm going to go for the kind that have a large number of dimmer LEDs all mounted at different angles to produce a light output more like a single bulb.