Near miss this morning (was I in the wrong)

System

or if the op had noticed the bike and put his indicators on the bike wouldn't have gone to overtake as they'd know what the intention of the car was

Velcro_Hotdog

Just driven down the same stretch of road with a work mate after getting lunch. The same cars were parked in the same place so I was able to explain what happened with an experienced biker (30 years).

His opinion was

My observation was poor and a quick look over the shoulder could have meant I spotted him. If I had seen him I would have had to stop behind the parked cars to let him pass but a few seconds delay to my journey isn't worth nearly killing someone for.

The riders road position wasn't great and he shouldn't have been expecting me to see him first. As far as riding goes expecting a motorist to see you isn't a very good long term plan.

Both me and the rider need to learn from this

almillar

It seems ok for bikes to hare down the wrong side of the road at say a junction backed up with traffic and nudge their way back in, but it would be extremely wrong for a car to do so?

Fine by me, bikes don't hold me up and take up less space. There are lots of different rules for bikes. They're allowed to 'filter' (this wasn't filtering though).

Velco Hotdog - you've already admitted you should have been more aware of your surroundings, and that's about all you did wrong. But the biker, who's the one doing the overtaking, really needs to be the one concentrating. He should have known you would have to avoid the cars. Moving out sooner and more smoothly would have helped though.
So the question is - what did the biker expect the driver to do? If the driver sees the bike, how does that change anything? They're still going to either move within their own lane, or smash into stationery cars. The onus is on the overtaker, which is what the biker was. If he's riding along passing cars, and not anticipating that they'll move out (still in the same lane) he's not good enough. I don't think an indicator was necessary either.

agrinnall

fred7777 wrote: »

It all depends on where the motorbike was when you moved out. The highway code says:

Before overtaking you should make sure

• the road is sufficiently clear ahead
• road users are not beginning to overtake you
• there is a suitable gap in front of the road user you plan to overtake.

So the rider failed on the first point as the road ahead wasn't clear and had parked cars.

You may be at fault on point two depending on where the rider was when you started to move over. If he was alongside you then to him it would look like you were trying to push him across the road. If he was behind you then if doesn't have much to complain about.

But you have highlighted Before overtaking and in this case the OP wasn't overtaking, so the rest of what the Highway Code says is irrelevant. While there may be an argument for more careful checking of mirrors (we can't be sure as we don't know where the bike was at the time) there's also an argument to say that the bike was overtaking unsafely: had it moved into the other carriageway it could have passed the OP successfully, and if it wasn't safe to move that far across then perhaps the biker should never have started the maneuver in the first place.

Joe_Horner

colino wrote: »

You should never cause another road user to change speed or direction by your actions.

Which is exactly what the biker was doing in this case. By overtaking where he could see that the car would have to move out past the parked cars he was putting the OP in a position where he would have had to slow or stop.

OP, since (taking your description at face value) you were keeping within your lane it would probably be judged the biker's fault in a legal sense but, yes, better awareness could have allowed you to compensate for his bad riding.

Given that it's apparently not much comfort for most people to be saying "it wasn't my fault" when someone's just gone under your wheels, avoiding other road users' bad driving / riding is a skill well worth developing!

From the very fact you asked and have accepted comments along those lines suggests that you're a far better road user than the biker because you're willing to think about and learn from incidents like this

johnfarquhar74

agrinnall wrote: »

But you have highlighted Before overtaking and in this case the OP wasn't overtaking, so the rest of what the Highway Code says is irrelevant.

Perhaps not classed as overtaking but the OP did have to change road position to pass a parked car, that is always worth a wee look in the mirrors and a shoulder check.

It's really difficult to judge(well, some find it easier than others), but without knowing how 'wide' the road was it's hard to say whether the OP's deviation was reckless or whether the motorcyclist had no sane right to be overtaking a line of cars with no margin for error. The OP states he was in a line of cars doing 35 in a 40. If the motorcyclist cruised by at 40 the perception to the drivers is he is going past at a fair rate, but he 'aint doing a lot wrong bearing in mind the motorcyclist didn't have to go on to the other side of the road due to the width of the lane, that is until the line of cars reaches the parked car.

To me it seems like something over nothing, the motorcyclist perhaps got a little wake up call in regards to his fore planning, the OP perhaps could have been a little more observant and I'm sure will be so in the future so this will be a positive thing.

All's well that ends up with a spleen vented and not smashed!

dacouch

Mirror, signal...manoeuvre

C_Mababejive

I think you were both right and both wrong. You have a responsibility to look well ahead,plan ahead and drive accordingly. You should also mirror,signal move. Had you done so,you would have perceived a conflict.

The biker...and im a biker too..he has the same responsibvilities. To read the flow of traffic,to perceived that you would need to move out and therefore hold back a little.

You both failed the share the road.

Its no consolation fighting over who was right if there is a body in the road and massive compo claims..

Both should remember..If in doubt..Dont.

alleycat`

As above ^ +

Why is this bit from the original post getting ignored?

--
"as I moved over to go round the cars a motorbike tried to overtake me but had to suddenly brake and tuck in behind me to avoid being hit by oncomingtraffic."
--

This suggests that the Motor Bike was trying to overtake in an inappropriate place at an inappropriate time.

If the Ops maneuver left the bike with no "escape root" then the riders road craft is not defensive or sound.

There is very little reason for a bike to be overtaking a row of moving traffic (indicated 35mph) into oncoming traffic.

This is not a case of "filtering" and more a case of someone in a rush.
As the police would have said the 40mph limit is not a target but a maximum speed.

An independent person has now seen the layout and confirmed that a road positioning mistake was made by the OP. They have also come to the conclusion the rider needs to consider his surroundings more as he is the vulnerable one.

It isn't about who is more to blame it is more about who is likely to end up dead.

Yes all cars/trucks/buses, etc have a duty of care to look out for bikes but the people riding them have a duty of care to themselves to avoid the conflict by good road craft.

At least the OP has the good grace to take on board that a mistake was made.
Hopefully the rider does too.

coinxoperated

Biker shouldn't have been driving down due to this sort of thing happening, but that's more of a common sense issue.

The fact is, if you had checked your mirrors as you should have, you wouldn't have pulled out and there wouldn't have been an issue.

Mirrors and shoulder checks in future sir!