How not to park: Tesco delivery driver just misses cyclist; Why don't cyclists use cycle lanes, No. 9,473; Eight miles of closed central London roads; Milan-San Remo anticipation (Van der Poel starts); Dowsett's pre-race nerves + more on the live blog

That could have been nasty, unsecured load, unforgivable.

....then you read the DM comments section!!!

lllnorrislll wrote:

....then you read the DM comments section!!!

I'm not falling for that again.

Bloody hell, that was awful

Boils down to cyclist should have known the bale of hay would come off and had the foreknowledge to get his timing right
Should have stopped knowing the bale would not have fallen off at that point.
Cyclist was going too fast as opposed to the normal going too slow.
And these people have a vote...

Nice to get an apology, but seeing a van was coming the other way too. Yikes! Hopefully it has made them a bit more aware for the future.

Checked the return trip and no better

Love the cycle sticker.

hmm, I probably would let them off with the apology, unless they were also speeding.

Passes like this are just so common I now ride in primary almost all the time. I suspect this Audi would have given me even less room on my last ride. Only me being in the middle of the lane meant they had to slam-on rather than pass at 60mph with the 2ft gap they were lining up for. Gave plenty of room when they did go by too.

Trouble is the road is fairly straight and NSL and uphill, so I'm only doing about 10 mph. I find the speed differential too great for primary. 30 is about my max for primary.

I still had the winter tyres on and not feeling great, only doing about 12mph on a NSL, so quite a high speed differential. I wouldn't do this without a mirror, and it is a bit disconcerting watching cars approach at speed then suddenly slam-on. But I've got used to it now and prefer it to the alternative. Not for everyone though and you do get the odd 'road rage' pass that is probably triggered by my road position.

You ride in primary @ 12 mph on a 60 mph single carriageway? ballsy..

Looking at the picture of the Audi not sporty not very utilitarian vehicle next to the Polo...

On current car size trends, in 20 years will stupid people need both lanes of the road for their 20 foot wide 4x4s adventuring through the wilds of suburban jungles?

And how soon do those things get reclassified as needing a different grade of driving licence?

That was one of the 'smaller' Audi SUVs too. 

@grog Controlling the lane on a fast road like that is not as bad as you might think, but it does take some getting used to. I get much better passes and even the nutters have to slow down before they do their thing.

HoarseMann wrote:

That was one of the 'smaller' Audi SUVs too. 

@grog Controlling the lane on a fast road like that is not as bad as you might think, but it does take some getting used to. I get much better passes and even the nutters have to slow down before they do their thing.

I used to trundle down a 50mph limit, 70/80 mph in practice dual carriageway. There were a few close calls but generally speaking I think motorists were so shocked to see me that they gave me loads of space.

I knew where the cycle path was, just took me a while to work out how to get on to it (under pass, service road, gated back area of a large transport hub, and down the side of some buildings that looked like private land but wasn't)

TheBillder wrote:

foot wide 4x4s adventuring through the wilds of suburban jungles?

That made me think of this I spotted the other day. I wonder if the driver of this 2,000kg 4x4 realised they weren't supposed to park in the leisure centre car park...

On current car size trends, in 20 years will stupid people need both lanes of the road for their 20 foot wide 4x4s adventuring through the wilds of suburban jungles?

Where these stupid people think they're going, they won't need roads! They will be looking down from their Flying Tiger Tanks powered by Magic at all the scum grovelling about on the few bits of land left above the waves

brooksby wrote:

On the Tesco thing, I started watching it and genuinely thought, "That wasn't so bad".

And then the Tesco van appeared again, where the driver was reversing... 

Literally this

I had the same experience yesterday but with a white van instead of a car.

As I approached the van the driver appeared and apologised which took the heat out of the situation.

I've been berated by more than one driver for refusing to move on the pavement to allow them to park.

TriTaxMan wrote:

And I made the mistake of looking at the twitter comments.... it's depressing that there are so many idiots who think that the cyclist is the one in the wrong not the tesco driver.

The ignorance and hatred demonstrated on social media is appalling. I think we're some distance from a system where insurers are notified about the lack of knowledge or willful disregard for rules and safety that people have. However, we could surely have a system where someone ends up in front of the police, a view of thoer social media activity is considered as a potential aggravating factor.

E.g. near miss approaching a junction from someone who two weeks prior said on arse book they are looking forward to claiming another cyclist. Still want to nip?

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote:

However, we could surely have a system where someone ends up in front of the police, a view of thoer social media activity is considered as a potential aggravating factor.

Wasn't that pretty much the reason Charlie Alliston got treated so harshly?  His social media comments after the collision were, erm, 'problematic' (allegedly).

That and choosing to ride a bike instead of driving a car.

Strangely, they fight shy of suggesting people actually replace car journeys with bicycle journeys, and the small accommodations that would enable this - secure parking, relaxing the dress code, etc.

Essentially a good plan but it could be expanded with more restrictions on private car use.  Filtered access, motor traffic bans/restrictions in towns/cities, removal of on street parking, road pricing, vehicle tax, etc.

It is OK to incentivise public transport, walking and cycling but that goes hand in hand with changing the environment to favour these forms of transport.

My car is off the road for a week so my kids are cycling 12km to school at the mo. We have to get up early but it's *awesome!

*teenagers have other opinions on the matter