Near Miss of the Day 11: Motorbiker in deliberate close pass on cyclist

Jimnm wrote:

We all have to put up with this close passing from other vehicles on the road. I think as long as they don't hit me, that'll have to do. I was in a bike lane yesterday, the traffic was queuing and a driver deliberately pulled into the bike lane to stop my progress. There is a lot of resentment out there against us cyclists and a lot of drivers do shit like this to annoy us. You get the argument that we shouldn't be on the road we don't pay tax. They forget that some of us have a car or a motorbike as well, so we do pay tax and insurance. The people that do this shit are  very stupid people with bad attitudes to other road users. There's no real answer that will solve the problem. 

Car drivers do this to motorbikes all the time, it's infuriating. 

My one concern with these close pass initiatives is that there's a big grey area around filtering. Say we're in the 8am stop start traffic through town, cars are stopped at the lights and I filter down the side to get to the lights, do those cars I've passed now have to give me 1.5m of clearance to be able to overtake me? Considering how on a morning commute I can filter past and be overtaken by the same 5 cars over the course of my journey I can imagine a lot of pissed off drivers if it's "ok for me to overtake them, but not for them to overtake me".

Vehlin wrote:

My one concern with these close pass initiatives is that there's a big grey area around filtering. Say we're in the 8am stop start traffic through town, cars are stopped at the lights and I filter down the side to get to the lights, do those cars I've passed now have to give me 1.5m of clearance to be able to overtake me? Considering how on a morning commute I can filter past and be overtaken by the same 5 cars over the course of my journey I can imagine a lot of pissed off drivers if it's "ok for me to overtake them, but not for them to overtake me".

Perhaps I'm being over-simplistic, but if you just end up passing them at the next lights when they get stuck in a queue, what's the point of them overtaking you?  Should they not accept that their average speed is screwed because of all the cars on the road and be less in a hurry to get to the next queue?  I mean, I drive as well - so I know it's not always like that - but it's no reason whatesoever for cyclists to hang back from filtering in front.  If the road is clear and it's apparent that the car will make good progress away from the lights then I might stay behind them as a courtesy, but not in start-stop traffic - if I want to get held at the back of the queue at every lights, then I'll get in a car.

On the topic of timid overtakers though, the ones that bug me are those too timid to overtake but not careful enough to give you distance.  This weekend I was descending a nice hill with lots of hairpins, shortly after it had rained, and I had a car behind me the whole way that was obviously not confident they could overtake safely but saw no problem driving quite close.  If I'd slipped and hit the deck, it would have been touch and go whether they could stop in time, which took a little shine off the descent.

hylozoist wrote:

Perhaps I'm being over-simplistic, but if you just end up passing them at the next lights when they get stuck in a queue, what's the point of them overtaking you?  Should they not accept that their average speed is screwed because of all the cars on the road and be less in a hurry to get to the next queue?

   Yes - that should be what they accept, but it isn't.  All that's going through their heads is "Must get in front; must get in front; must get in front..."

hylozoist wrote:

Perhaps I'm being over-simplistic, but if you just end up passing them at the next lights when they get stuck in a queue, what's the point of them overtaking you?  Should they not accept that their average speed is screwed because of all the cars on the road and be less in a hurry to get to the next queue?  I mean, I drive as well - so I know it's not always like that - but it's no reason whatesoever for cyclists to hang back from filtering in front.  If the road is clear and it's apparent that the car will make good progress away from the lights then I might stay behind them as a courtesy, but not in start-stop traffic - if I want to get held at the back of the queue at every lights, then I'll get in a car.

On the topic of timid overtakers though, the ones that bug me are those too timid to overtake but not careful enough to give you distance.  This weekend I was descending a nice hill with lots of hairpins, shortly after it had rained, and I had a car behind me the whole way that was obviously not confident they could overtake safely but saw no problem driving quite close.  If I'd slipped and hit the deck, it would have been touch and go whether they could stop in time, which took a little shine off the descent.

The problem is the traffic lights in general. , they a higher maximum speed, while spending a longer period stationary as traffic bunches up at the next set of lights half a mile down the road. 

You get a situation like this:

You pass 10 cars to get to the front of the lights. As the lights turn green the first couple of cars pass you straight away, and the remainder pass you over the next few hundred metres.

You get to the next set of lights 2-3 of the orignal cars made it through the lights, the rest are now stopped at the lights and you pass them again. This process continues until all the original cars are past and you're playing leapfrog with a new set of drivers. My favourite example of this is the A38 on the way out of Bristol in the morning. 

Now you could ask, why don't they just stay behlind me? The problem is that their maxium speed is a good bit faster than mine.  This is what allows a few cars to disappear off ahead at each set of lights. If you brought their maximum speed down to mine by not allowing them to overtake then their average speed would drop below mine due to me being able to pass the cars at the next set of lights. So now instead of being past me and on their way, they're now a few cars behind grumbling about bloody cyclists.

Vehlin wrote:

The problem is the traffic lights in general. , they a higher maximum speed, while spending a longer period stationary as traffic bunches up at the next set of lights half a mile down the road. 

 

etc

I get this on my commute, too.

Coming home a while ago, by chance, I ended up next to my next-door neighbour, in his car, at a set of lights. Over the next couple of miles we did exactly this until I lost him completely in a queue of very slow moving traffic up to another set of lights and got home 5 minutes before him over the next couple of miles.

Vehlin wrote:

You get a situation like this:

You pass 10 cars to get to the front of the lights. As the lights turn green the first couple of cars pass you straight away, and the remainder pass you over the next few hundred metres.

You get to the next set of lights 2-3 of the orignal cars made it through the lights, the rest are now stopped at the lights and you pass them again. This process continues until all the original cars are past and you're playing leapfrog with a new set of drivers. My favourite example of this is the A38 on the way out of Bristol in the morning. 

Now you could ask, why don't they just stay behlind me? The problem is that their maxium speed is a good bit faster than mine.  This is what allows a few cars to disappear off ahead at each set of lights. If you brought their maximum speed down to mine by not allowing them to overtake then their average speed would drop below mine due to me being able to pass the cars at the next set of lights. So now instead of being past me and on their way, they're now a few cars behind grumbling about bloody cyclists.

Yeah, it's a bit like that on my commute.  2 or 3 cars will overtake me on the approach the queue for the traffic lights and often the ones that are unable to overtake (partly because of the oncoming traffic and partly because I'm not in the gutter) sit on my back wheel for 1/4 of a mile, impatiently waiting for the smallest chance to overtake.  Then we'll get to the queue for the lights and I'll over take 100 cars and get to the ASL before the light changes (and probably share it with the car at the front of the queue).

Then the lights will change an perhaps 20 cars will get through the lights, maybe 10 will be following me straight on,  7 turning left and 3 turning right.  We'll get to the round about, 50 metres up the road and one of the 10 cars might overtake - i'll take a right at the roundabout as will perhaps one of the cars, then I'll take a left onto a quieter route and not see any of them again.

Meanwhile... the 2 or 3 cars that originally overtook me will be waiting for 4 or 5 changes of the lights, which takes a long time as the junction has 3 phases.  But they absolutely must drive because any other form of transport is just too slow.

Jimnm wrote:

I was in a bike lane yesterday, the traffic was queuing and a driver deliberately pulled into the bike lane to stop my progress. There is a lot of resentment out there against us cyclists and a lot of drivers do shit like this to annoy us.  

This sometimes happens to me particularly at traffic lights. It's often a young, inexperienced driver in a small car who is not confident about overtaking cyclists safely.

Having just overtaken a cyclist, before having to stop at the traffic lights, they then try to stop the cyclist filtering through on the inside as they would then have to overtake them again when the traffic lights allowed them through.

They're not trying to be nasty, they're just not very confident drivers ... so you might choose to remain behind them anyway. If they don't have trust in their own abilities then should you?

Yorkshire wallet wrote:

It's like lingering death being passed by a Honda Jazz going barely faster than yourself.

That comment made me laugh. Whenever you're cycling along, particularly on a main road, and you hear a car following you but not overtaking, you just know there's a pensioner behind you too timid to overtake properly.

guyrwood wrote:

... Whenever you're cycling along, particularly on a main road, and you hear a car following you but not overtaking, you just know there's a pensioner behind you too timid to overtake properly.

Might it be that the car following you but not overtaking is actually being driven by a diligent and conscientious driver who feels that there is not room to overtake you in their opinion.  You know: careful, rather than stupid/timorous...?

cyclisto wrote:

.. try wobbling .. Yes it may sound stupid but if done right it may add more than 0,5m of overtaking distance, as drivers try to evade .

Yup.  You're right.  Sounds exceedingly stupid.

Bigtwin wrote:

cyclisto wrote:

.. try wobbling .. Yes it may sound stupid but if done right it may add more than 0,5m of overtaking distance, as drivers try to evade .

Yup.  You're right.  Sounds exceedingly stupid.

Doesn't Grant Peterson-the bloke from Rivendell bikes- make a similar point in his book? He suggested just stretching out an arm like you've got cramp, wobbling a little further away from the kerb, that sort of thing. By making you seem less predictable, it forces the overtaking motorist to pay attention and think a bit more about what they're doing. Still won't help if you have a real sociopath and/or a Daily Mail reader doing the overtaking, but still...

Jem PT wrote:

I'm trying to work out how fast he was cycling at the time. Two speedos? what's that all about?

Two speedos make you faster of course.

Bigtwin wrote:

Kept watching waiting for the near pass...

Same, perfectly normal pass.