Near Misses Volume 2 (So close you can feel it)

Seth Brundle

Fighting Tao wrote: »

Proper enforcement and fines won’t happen though.

Oh I know but neither the RSA nor the government/Dept of Transport/Dept of Justice aren't really interested in improving road safety through simple methods such as enforcement, in my opinion!

magicbastarder

speaking of which

https://twitter.com/ciarancannon/status/1388043762325151744

Duckjob

I cringe when I see videos of people riding a road like that so close to the edge with oncoming traffic. I used to ride that way too, I guess subconciously to "not be in the way too much". Nowdays, after being on the receiving end of one close pass too many, I've learnt my lesson very well and I would be squarely in the middle of the lane.

Problem with riding near the edge in a place like that is you're giving bad drivers an invite to drive selfishly and endanger you.

One of the comments on that tweet "The roads aren’t good enough eimear you shouldn’t be on a road like that." :mad:

Completely agree with Duckjob re: position on the road.

fixXxer

Duckjob wrote: »

I cringe when I see videos of people riding a road like that so close to the edge with oncoming traffic. I used to ride that way too, I guess subconciously to "not be in the way too much". Nowdays, after being on the receiving end of one close pass too many, I've learnt my lesson very well and I would be squarely in the middle of the lane.

Problem with riding near the edge in a place like that is you're giving bad drivers an invite to drive selfishly and endanger you.

It's been one of the benefits of this thread since I took up cycling again, positioning ,myself on the road rather than trying to be out of the way. All the discussion that has gone on about positioning, looking ahead, etc has been super helpful.

Thanks folks, your near misses are not going in vain

TheChizler

Duckjob wrote: »

Problem with riding near the edge in a place like that is you're giving bad drivers an invite to drive selfishly and endanger you.

Completely agree. The odd time I drive these days and I come up behind someone riding in the gutter like that and I could physically fit past without crossing the line there's an unconscious sense that I'm the one causing delay, and most people just overtake when that happens. Probably the same feeling that makes someone ride in the gutter.

Rogue-Trooper

Heading into Swords yesterday, just before JC's supermarket, and a black Audi A4 came in on top of me as they passed me. I was a good 1.5m out from the kerb so I had plenty of space to dart to my left to avoid being hit.

As we both rolled to a stop at the pedestrian lights a few metres later, I tapped on the passenger side window to ask politely for more room in future and did they realise they had nearly knocked me off.

The poor driver got such a fright from the tap on the window that she dropped her mobile phone.......:mad:

Wildly Boaring

TheChizler wrote: »

Completely agree. The odd time I drive these days and I come up behind someone riding in the gutter like that and I could physically fit past without crossing the line there's an unconscious sense that I'm the one causing delay, and most people just overtake when that happens. Probably the same feeling that makes someone ride in the gutter.

Couple that with the people with cars who simply cannot drive and you have a recipe for disaster.

Off the top of my head I know
An aunt who won't drive bigger than a micra and cannot reverse said micra
A mate's ex who I had to refuse to take a lift off. Scared the **** out of me by driving straight onto a main road without looking and then nt seeing the problem with this!!
My own cousin who stopped on the motorway and made her brother drive as the "cars are going so fast"

eeeee

Got cut off by a white micra covered in anti choice material.
The irony was lost on them :rolleyes:

CramCycle

eeeee wrote: »

Got cut off by a white micra covered in anti choice material.
The irony was lost on them :rolleyes:

I remember coming through town when the big anti choice parade was on when 2 adults herded a couple of kids straight out into the road while traffic was moving The irony was too much for my small mind to bear.

Ferris

Rogue-Trooper wrote: »

The poor driver got such a fright from the tap on the window that she dropped her mobile phone.......:mad:

It’d be funny if it wasn’t true 50% of the time

VonLuck

This is a story from a few years ago but don't think I ever told anyone about it. I was waiting at a very awkward five road junction with a queue of traffic behind me waiting for the green light. A green light appears, but just for the adjacent road which is at about 30 degrees to the one I'm on so you can clearly see their light when it changes.

I figure the guy behind me thought it was green for him and proceeds to nudge my back tyre with his car! I turn around and give him the WTF arms up in the air and I could see him absolutely furious behind the wheel, despite me pointing to the clearly red light. He must have thought he had to stay committed to the fury and couldn't stand to admit fault, even with his clearly embarrassed girlfriend in the passenger seat trying to calm him down.

buffalo

VonLuck wrote: »

This is a story from a few years ago but don't think I ever told anyone about it. I was waiting at a very awkward five road junction with a queue of traffic behind me waiting for the green light. A green light appears, but just for the adjacent road which is at about 30 degrees to the one I'm on so you can clearly see their light when it changes.

I was never nudged, but often at Belvedere Road onto NCR I'd be waiting at a red, the green would go for Sherrard Street Lower and drivers would pull off and not think it was odd that I hadn't. Luckily there was usually only one car coming out from Sherrard St so there was never an accident.

AndrewJRenko

Fighting Tao wrote: »

Every vehicle (except emergency ones) should block all mobile signals.

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Paging AJR...
One in 10 motorists admit to texting while driving

And eight of the other nine admitted to being liars.

Weepsie

Blake's cross to skerries today. I know a few do that road regularly. F*ckin he'll the standard of driving is bad.

I'd consider 1 pass a in a long cycle a bad one such is the rarity really. Every few vehicles though on this stretch until I got beyond lusk at least was brutal

Wildly Boaring

Weepsie wrote: »

Blake's cross to skerries today. I know a few do that road regularly. F*ckin he'll the standard of driving is bad.

I'd consider 1 pass a in a long cycle a bad one such is the rarity really. Every few vehicles though on this stretch until I got beyond lusk at least was brutal

Wife is skerries direction
I constantly wonder about the state of drivers on that road. Hate driving it. Never cycled it and never will

Duckjob

Went out for a little pootle around in the sun earlier. Didn’t bother with a helmet as it was a relaxed Dutch style ride.

All well until I was nearly back home. On a straight bit of road with traffic coming the other way. I was already riding well out to discourage stupidity, but idiot man in an Audi wasn’t going to be delayed and blasted though regardless. Not the worst close pass I’ve had, but still too close and too fast (60kph zone and I guess he was well over 70)

Anyway, I saw him turn into one of the estates further up, so I followed him to see if I could have a reasonable word with him. I approached him calmly as he was getting out of his car and said to him he had passed Me very close and fast. His immediate response - “where’s your helmet?”. I asked him what he thought a piece of styrofoam on my head would do to protect me if he hit me at 70+ kph. He just keep on about me not wearing a helmet, so I left for my own sanity.

AndrewJRenko

Duckjob wrote: »

idiot man in an Audi

Ah no, that's hard to believe now.

Seth Brundle

Seen on twitter - professional driver performs dangerous manouvre at Garda checkpoint on Dublin's Victoria Quay (but not stopped)...

https://twitter.com/clicky_here/status/1388493603140476936

Duckjob

“Professional” driver...

crosstownk

Duckjob wrote: »

“Professional” driver...

Exactly. Taxi drivers simply drive for a profession. They are not professionally trained drivers in any way. Their driving licence is identical to mine. Their attitude to cyclists is something to behold, imo.

The J Stands for Jay

crosstownk wrote: »

Exactly. Taxi drivers simply drive for a profession. They are not professionally trained drivers in any way. Their driving licence is identical to mine. Their attitude to cyclists is something to behold, imo.

I'm sure there's probably more than a few taxi drivers out there who never sat a test and got their licence during the 70s or 80s when they gave them out to clear a backlog. The taxi driver who rear ended me on a Dublinbike while I was stopped at a traffic light was about the right age for it.

cletus

McGaggs wrote: »

I'm sure there's probably more than a few taxi drivers out there who never sat a test and got their licence during the 70s or 80s when they gave them out to clear a backlog. The taxi driver who rear ended me on a Dublinbike while I was stopped at a traffic light was about the right age for it.

The amnesty was in 1979. There was 25,000 licences given out. That was 42 years ago. Out of that number, how many do you think might now be taxi drivers?

In 2016, there were 17,146 registered taxi drivers in the country. In the same year, there was a total of 2,820,528 Irish driving licences, of which almost a quarter (249,657) were provisional. That's 2,570,871 full licences on the road. That's 0.61% of full licences being used to operate taxis.

At the end of 2017, 6,213 taxi drivers were in the age profile to have received an amnesty. So if we extrapolate the figures above, thats 37.89 drivers, so call it 38 taxi drivers, for the entire country.

Figures show that 55% of taxi drivers operate in Dublin, thats 21 taxi drivers, statistically speaking, who are driving around Dublin on an amnesty licence.

All of which is to say, while the figure is not zero, most of the time when the amnesty argument is invoked, the effect is generally less than people suppose

magicbastarder

not a near miss, but i had a puncture coming downhill on this stretch of road here earlier:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.583304,-6.3137458,3a,75y,314.56h,65.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRhhEva5jhUvoz20sz0-m2Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

i set up on the outside of the bend to change it - so traffic had a better chance of seeing me (it's not a wide road). while i was doing so, i heard a motor off in the distance about 30s before i saw it, and it turns out it was a motorcyclist who when he appeared, absolutely gunned it up the hill past me, on the inside of the bend. doing 100km/h at a guess, he was fairly thundering along. brave chap.

Duckjob

crosstownk wrote: »

Exactly. Taxi drivers simply drive for a profession. They are not professionally trained drivers in any way. Their driving licence is identical to mine. Their attitude to cyclists is something to behold, imo.

If you have something as a profession, it's kindof expected that at very least you are going to be half decent at doing that thing.

I mean, you don't have to a jedi of your profession, but you should at least not be completely sh*te at it. It's a pretty low bar that many taxi drivers dismally fail to clear.

Weepsie

Nearly witnessed a head on collision somewhere between tibradden and glencullen today.

Some moron who couldnt wait a moment to get by me, gave me plenty of room, but I'd waved at them to stop and the car in the oncoming lane had to slam on and stop.

The parking up there was absolutely criminal too. There'll be loads of complaints about bloody cyclists holding people up, but the amount of just bad parking and inconsiderate parking was just bloody awful.


Then in rathnines I had to roar at some lads who decided they'd be able to run across the road from behind a va as I was going through the junction at my lights

Mundo7976

Got left hooked today where i hit the car, i was in a bike lane and all. Driver left the scene. Full report to Gardai

magicbastarder

any damage to yourself?

Mundo7976

None. Nor to the bike. Thanks for aksing ����

CramCycle

Mundo7976 wrote: »

None. Nor to the bike. Thanks for aksing ����

Glad to hear it, the most important thing, hopefully they have no issues tracking the driver down.