FOI request finds 1 in 10 complaints against London bus drivers involve cyclist

Today's #LondonBusWatch update for Leon Daniels http://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/londonbuswatch-another-l...

Here's my latest correspondence to Leon Daniels "updating" him on #LondonBusWatch. http://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/londonbuswatch-denial-is...

Car Working 199 - Stagecoach London - Catford Garage (TL) Still from 0'42" shows red signal clearly reflected in windscreen of bus.

If you have the height you might consider action to 'protect your head' by raising your arm and knocking the mirror back, removing that risk of a "Cracknell' event (caused by failure to be aware of danger approaching from behind, and take avoiding action - and failure to ride with the support car following on a fast and exposed section of road).

Without an external mirror the driver will be forced to stop, at which point you can (as a person reasonably requiring details) invoke s.170.2 of RTA 1988, and s.5.3 of the Conduct of Bus Drivers &c.. Regulations 1990, and require the driver to provide these. Although not a contractual requirement with TfL (and why not?) most main bus operators provide drivers with Section 170 or Bump Cards, which they should hand over in the event of an incident to comply with the law. This has the advantage of no party admitting liability, and no roadside rammie about whose fault it was.

Remember also that by law there should be an externally accessible emergency stop button or pull lever, should the driver be 'reluctant' to remain at the scene..... on a modern bus this locks in the stop condition until re-set.

the vehicle type I most often see blatantly jumping red lights or red light gambling are London buses

Just after Christmas I had a run in with a bus outside Liverpool Street station, on a couple of occasions this bus kept over taking me extremely closely and after the third time I approached the driver and asked what he was doing, and to my horror his response was "trying to kill you".

After which I got off my bike and wrote down his licence plate number and reported the bugger, only to be told that they needed the 4 or 5 digit number printed near the rear of the bus. They did what they could but as expected I got nothing back.

All I can say is that TFL need to realise that we all need to share the road wither bike,car or bus.

When a bus in London is behind me, I'm usually expecting good driving as some other comments here suggest.

However if a royal mail truck is behind me I can just as well hit the nearest tree myself before I'm forced off the road by it.

If it's your job to drive professionally for a living how much leeway should we be giving the 'bad few'?

London bus drivers are good in my experience. Not perfect, of course, but probably some of the best on the road.

The complaints procedure is deficient. Tfl passes the complaint a cyclist has made onto the bus company who may or may not do anything about it, but here's the killer. You as the complainant will never know because Tfl refuses to tell you the outcome of the complaint. For all we know the complaint is filed away in a cabinet.

"However TfL said that the number of complaints received each year – between 4,000 and 5,000 – needed to be put into the context of the 2.4 billion passenger trips made by bus in the capital each year."

Surely it's more appropriate to judge the number of complaints received against the number of buses on the road, not by the number of passengers on the buses? A number which I'm sure, while still large, is much smaller than 2.4 billion.

Most bus drivers are ok, but there are too many who drive badly.
In central London its common to be overtaken by a bus that pulls in to a stop straight in front of you. Being a passenger isn't much fun with too many driver accelerating and braking harshly.

The bus companies and TfL don't help by setting very strict timetables with penalties for not meeting them, but a lot of the problems comes down to attitude.

Driver awareness is much better, but when you do have a close call it scares the s++t out of you simply because it is such a huge vehicle. My last incident with a bus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-YBEK-JLqM

" Director of buses Mike Weston said: “Passenger satisfaction is hugely important to TfL — in fact our organisational ethos is ‘every journey matters’.

“The statistics in question here must be considered in the context of the 2.4 billion bus journeys that are made each year across a bus network that comprises 8,700 buses, operating on around 700 bus routes and travelling more than 490 million kilometres in passenger service.” "

Bollocks! Lets just consider it in the context of people get hurt when "professional" drivers drive badly. Or perhaps in the context that most people don't bother complaining. Or perhaps in the context that you really shouldn't be defending bad driving by saying that in general you are not too bad.

Sorry Mr Weston but we, the public, will decide in which context the statistics "must" be considered

As with any type of road user the bad ones are always in the minority thankfully and the vast majority of the time things are ok...but...

...and there is always a but...they are under time pressure from the bus companies. I haven't got the link anymore but theres a great blog somewhere that explains the reason for the high ksi rate on london's roads by buses and suprise suprise, it's down to forcing drivers to put timetables above road safety - or ultimately, putting money ahead of lives, the same reason HGV's/cabbies/coaches/white van men all have a bad reputation on our roads for agressive and impatient driving.

I find that London buses have got much more aware of cyclists over the last 5 years. I'd often find buses overtaking then immediately indicating to stop and not judging my speed very well. They seem to be much more patient nowadays. Driving something the size of a bus must be pretty difficult on London roads, most of them aren't very large vehicle friendly. Maybe the option of sending something positive via the same website would be useful.

Oh god yes.
Just today, in two separate incidents maybe a mile and a half apart, I had one double decker overtake at around 24mph in a 20 zone, on a bend, forcing me to brake hard to not get pushed into the kerb.
The second one was a bus overtaking at around 25 in a 20 zone through a traffic calming island, pulling across into my part of the road, 50 yards before pulling into a bus stop.

These 20 zones need enforcement. It's sodding ridiculous otherwise - I know all motorists say 'yeah but you never get anywhere if you stick to 20' but then how come I always end up overtaking the car when my average urban pace on the flat is around 20?

Grumble grumble rant rant