cyclists turned right when i overtook

Sicard

kraken776 wrote: »

This is the second time I have seen this comment has come up.
I ignored it before because It is based entirely on pure speculation and and making up facts which i did not state but it now seams that i must correct this.

First of all the road in question is 6m wide.

Second of all I never said that the cyclist was on the left of the left hand lane, i made no comment about which part of the lane he was in.

There were actually 2 cyclists cycling almost 2 abreast (the one on the right was slightly behind the other and i observed them for long enough to know that one was not overtaking the other)

The one on the right is the one which pulled out, the other one did not pull out and also did not stop for the accident.

The cyclist i hit was actually in the middle of the lane the whole time and had been for the whole time i could see him.

The distance he had to travel to get in front of my car would have been about 2m

A person would travel far quicker than I could have reacted.

It appears the one involved in the accident was in fact either a stalker, following the other cyclist, or was trying to chat them up to which the stalker, after being rejected, decided to pull away because his feelings were hurt thus losing concentration and therefore not bothered to follow safety checks.

Joe_Horner

kraken776 wrote: »

You are not able to tell me that i should have been paying him more attention because you dont know how much attention i was paying him.

I can say you weren't paying him enough attention because you hit him. Simple as that.

Initially you say you must have already been passed him when he turned because of where the impact was.

When it's pointed out how that doesn't work, you change to him being far enough ahead for you to see it and start to brake but couldn't brake enough.

Where your real fault lies isn't in what happened (that may well have been his mistake) but it's in your insistence on "nothing I could have done" and your subtly changing version of events to back that up.

There's virtually always something you can do to avoid an accident because nothing happens instantly on the road. Thinking factually about what those things might have been instead of making excuses why there was "nothing" is part of the never ending learning process on the roaf and part of what makes the difference between people who never have accidents and those who do - often repeatedly and never "their fault".

Mercdriver

kraken776 wrote: »

This is the second time I have seen this comment has come up.
I ignored it before because It is based entirely on pure speculation and and making up facts which i did not state but it now seams that i must correct this.

First of all the road in question is 6m wide.

Second of all I never said that the cyclist was on the left of the left hand lane, i made no comment about which part of the lane he was in.

There were actually 2 cyclists cycling almost 2 abreast (the one on the right was slightly behind the other and i observed them for long enough to know that one was not overtaking the other)

The one on the right is the one which pulled out, the other one did not pull out and also did not stop for the accident.

The cyclist i hit was actually in the middle of the lane the whole time and had been for the whole time i could see him.

The distance he had to travel to get in front of my car would have been about 2m

A person would travel far quicker than I could have reacted.

I'm puzzled as to why you didn't include this (IMO) significant information in your OP. If I was driving behind two cyclists who didn't appear to be riding together (your stated opinion) I would give them a very wide berth and if the road didn't permit this (as you state) I would wait until I had the opportunity to give them a wide berth.

How can you seriously say that two cyclists cycling closely that aren't together that one of them isn't likely to overtake the other or make a turning? In my view you could have avoided the incident by anticipating better, so you are the very least partly at fault.

You didn't leave out the above information to make your position look artificially better did you? I hope you also gave the above information to your insurance provider. It will show in the cyclist's footage that he was riding alongside another cyclist whether that other cyclist was known to him or not.

The presence of the other cyclist is quite important, I think why would you leave it out of your original account?

prowla

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I can say you weren't paying him enough attention because you hit him. Simple as that.

Not so simple - the OP hit the cyclist because they changed direction.
Any and every overtake is made under the assumption that the vehicle being passed is not suddenly going to veer across the road.

Joe_Horner

prowla wrote: »

Not so simple - the OP hit the cyclist because they changed direction.
Any and every overtake is made under the assumption that the vehicle being passed is not suddenly going to veer across the road.

Really? Personally I assume on any and every overtake that's exactly what the other guy will do.

Occasionally they have (usually on DC where they decide to change lanes without looking or indicating) and I've never hit one yet because I've been expecting it, seen the very start of their movement (cars and bikes don't change direction instantly), and - because I was expecting it - already had a plan to avoid them.

It's pretty basic anticipation stuff really.

Retrogamer

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Really? Personally I assume on any and every overtake that's exactly what the other guy will do.

Occasionally they have (usually on DC where they decide to change lanes without looking or indicating) and I've never hit one yet because I've been expecting it, seen the very start of their movement (cars and bikes don't change direction instantly), and - because I was expecting it - already had a plan to avoid them.

It's pretty basic anticipation stuff really.

I was overtaking a car on the M8 years ago and had an accident. They were in lane 2 doing approx 65mph. I was doing approx 70mph overtaking in lane 3. When i was right beside them, they decided they wanted to go into lane 3 as well and drove into the side of me. I had about half a second if that to react if that. They were found 100% at fault for that accident.
Not sure what (if anything) i could have done to prevent that happening apart from not overtaking.

Joe_Horner

Retrogamer wrote: »

[...] Not sure what (if anything) i could have done to prevent that happening apart from not overtaking.

Not being there at the time it's hard to say and, as i said several posts ago, the following suggestions are not intended to shift "fault" to you but as possible learning outcomes from what happened:

As a car (or bike) starts to change direction, it will inevitably alter its "stance" before it actually moves. That's because the tyres (and suspension for cars) are compliant so the mass of the car trying to turn will cause some degree of settling before the turn. Extra awareness of the risk (which you presumably now have) can let you spot that before it actually starts to move towards you, which gives a little more reaction time.

As you realise what's happening, you have the rest of your lane 9and, on most dual carriageways, at least some central hard shoulder before the barrier) to play with. If you're in the centre of your lane you've usually got a good 3 feet of clearance that you can provide if needed.

Most people instinctively react to any situation on the road by braking. This sort of situation is one of the few where accelerating is usually a better response. As a rule, people don't pull across into the path of a car that they've seen. They've either not used their mirrors or they've "lost" you in their blind spot.

Braking, and so moving further back from them isn't going to help that, whereas accelerating hard and emerging in their peripheral vision will. Human peripheral vision is very sensitive to movement (it's a prey animal thing) and the nose of a car appearing will be noticed far more easly than something trying to get back in behind.

Finally, it's one of the rare cases where a quick blip on the horn (if you have time) is justified and likely to help.

While you're unlikely to have time to reason through all that as it happens, it's exactly the sort of thing you can take time to think through afterwards in order to learn from other people's mistakes.

Then "actively" think about it as an "escape plan" on future overtakes - as you prepare to overtake, remind yourself to keep track of the other car's stance as well as it's position, take a moment to judge how much "spare" space you have on your right to react into, "cover" the horn control so you don't have to waste time reaching for it if needed, and (as you make the overtake) make a conscious decision about at what point it would be better to accelerate than brake.

It will soon become as instinctive as standing on the brakes is for most, until you don't have to "think" about it at all.

prowla

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Really? Personally I assume on any and every overtake that's exactly what the other guy will do.

Occasionally they have (usually on DC where they decide to change lanes without looking or indicating) and I've never hit one yet because I've been expecting it, seen the very start of their movement (cars and bikes don't change direction instantly), and - because I was expecting it - already had a plan to avoid them.

It's pretty basic anticipation stuff really.

If you did that you would never be able to overtake, because you would need to satisfy yourself absolutely that they weren't going to before you started your manoeuvre.

It is part and parcel of driving that you do make certain assumptions about the other road users around you.

Retrogamer

In my situation i couldn't see any of the warning signs of the car about to change direction (if there were any) as i was beside it and focused on the cars in front of me

If was a Peugeot 106 1.5 diesel and if i remember you know your XUD's Joe, so you can imagine the problems i'd face trying to use the "power" to pull in front of them in that situation.

That accident made be super paranoid about overtaking anyone for a while but i think what's helped my reactions and avoidance of accidents most of all is cycling on the roads

kraken776

Joe_Horner wrote: »

I can say you weren't paying him enough attention because you hit him. Simple as that.

Nope
This is an absurd and irrational opinion and several other posters have already challenged it.
If the person turning right does so at a late enough moment (which is what happened) there is not going to be time to ovoid the collision

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Initially you say you must have already been passed him when he turned because of where the impact was.

When it's pointed out how that doesn't work, you change to him being far enough ahead for you to see it and start to brake but couldn't brake enough.

Where your real fault lies isn't in what happened (that may well have been his mistake) but it's in your insistence on "nothing I could have done" and your subtly changing version of events to back that up.
.

Again NO
if i say multiple different things then unless i copy/paste the exact same text every single time there are always going to be slight differences. To deliberately find some trivial difference in my words and claim that this amounts to a contradiction is a very transparent ad hominem attack. behaving in this manner discredits YOU not me because it highlights the fact that you dont have a strong counter argument to my claim.

Joe_Horner wrote: »

There's virtually always something you can do to avoid an accident because nothing happens instantly on the road. Thinking factually about what those things might have been instead of making excuses why there was "nothing" is part of the never ending learning process on the roaf and part of what makes the difference between people who never have accidents and those who do - often repeatedly and never "their fault".

Not if something happens at a very late moment.