Near Miss of the Day 153: London bus driver pulls in while overtaking

Lurker not poster but hi, wanted to post.

That’s the A232 isn’t it and the descent after Cheam? Know the route - and behaviour of the buses -well.

The one thing I would have done differently was to immediately slotted in behind the bus as it came alongside. They all go for that gap and it only took a couple of crap passes for me to start slotting in well before the island.

In fact that after a few months commute on the A232, I said to my wife that someone would eventually kill me on that stretch between Cheam and Carshalton and changed my route. 

There is something the cyclist can do to control things here, I see this all too often, come up behind traffic then people on bikes either try to get down the left to get to the front (which is fine if enough space and the lights have only just turned or you know the phase length) or stand off to the left. He correctly chose not to try to filter.

You invariably can see or know (if it's a route you do frequently) that there is a somewhat narrowed gap just as you are exiting the lights on the other side as there will be a pedestrian crossing or as here a two into one and a pedestrian refuge further on.

He is initially whilst waiting far off to the left, this is not really a good position to be in, he continues far left and as he's coming through the lights at 55seconds you'll see his position is actually really far off to the left almost in line with the kerb itself, this opens up a huge gap to his right, he then moves back across moments later but it's already too late as this ceding position through the lights has already invited the wanker bus driver to pile through and no fucks given as to safety (might is right and all that).

My position here would be to either filter on the right and get in front of the motors (if as above you have time/know the light phase) and take a far right of the left lane position. If not enough time/not sure about the light phase wait behind the traffic in that same far right position. Check to my right and over the shoulder to see what vehicles might be in conflict with me that could cause me problems through the junction and beyond. Carry on through the junction being even more central to prevent dicks from filtering in from the right in front of me and continue to maintain primary so that they cannot overtake when there is no room, adopt secondary only IF the road widens and this allows following traffic to get past easily without impinging on my safety.

I know it isn't always easy but that central position/strong primary all the way through past the refuge will pretty much negate assaults like this. I know we shouldn't have to but because the government/police allow this type of cretinous use of the highway by people we know kill and maim every day we have to take more control.

Road design is a large part to blame here. I live really close to where this is filmed and almost every set of lights spit traffic into multiple lanes then converge back almost immediately after. I guess the idea is that during busy times, you can park more cars side by side when the lights are red, and minimise tail backs.  But the reality is that each lights turns into a mini race to hold your place in the traffic or to stop the guy that was behind you from getting in front.  Its irrelevent, but human nature means people drive like dicks to avoid this happening. 

There are plenty of dangerous London Bus drivers, some of the stunts they pull on me are ridiculous. It's not all, but I find it's way too high a proportion.
The "I'll just get alongside this cyclist then pull in at the bus-stop" is quite boring and predictable now... I simply stay out of the "cycle lanes" which enables this lethal driving.

Central traffic islands ni this country are always a hazard since they're almost always designed as pinch points.   I have some symapthy for the bus driver as he has a big vehicle without much acceleration, so overtaking safely takes a long distance.  Putting  pinch points in means large vehicles get held up.  "quite right too!" you shout.  But they have to keep to timetables.   My reading of this one is the bus driver initially gave lots of room, slightly misjudged the speed of the cyclist and then expected the cyclist to give way.   Blame the driver if you want, but I think decent infrastructure is the real answer to this one, not blaming other road users.  I bet situations like this are very few and far between in the Netherlands.  Not here, sadly.

Yet another close pass occuring when the 'professional' driver (ha!) misjudges the speed of a fellow road user and has to swing back in because of a traffic island.

Some re-education needed methinks. I do hope this has been reported.