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news
Near Miss of the Day 588: “You were in my blind spot!”
“You were in my blind spot!” is the excuse a motorist gave a cyclist after she pulled out on him in Bristol as he passed a row of parked cars – although as the Highway Code makes clear, that’s no excuse for failing to spot the rider.
Rule 159 of the Highway Code says:
Before moving off you should
- use all mirrors to check the road is clear
- look round to check the blind spots (the areas you are unable to see in the mirrors)
- signal if necessary before moving out
- look round for a final check.
Move off only when it is safe to do so.
Rule 211 adds:
It is often difficult to see motorcyclists and cyclists, especially when they are coming up from behind, coming out of junctions, at roundabouts, overtaking you or filtering through traffic. Always look out for them before you emerge from a junction; they could be approaching faster than you think. When turning right across a line of slow-moving or stationary traffic, look out for cyclists or motorcyclists on the inside of the traffic you are crossing. Be especially careful when turning, and when changing direction or lane. Be sure to check mirrors and blind spots carefully.
Jon, the road.cc reader who submitted the clip to us and plans to send it to the police, told us: “It happened in Bristol on Durdham Downs as I had reached the end of Lady’s Mile and had just turned left onto Stoke Road.
“I took my foot off the gas (so to speak) as cars came the other way in single file between parked cars before proceeding, but then had to brake as this car pulled out in front of me.
”When I caught up a traffic lights, her response was ‘You were in my blind spot, what could I do?’ to which my response was ‘Look more, then’.
“The mitigating factor for her is that she did apologise and you would not expect a car to appear so quickly from my direction given the two cars which had passed. B
“ut that completely ignores that there are loads of cyclists in Bristol who have just as much right to use the roads as cars and not be cut up.
“So my full response should have been ‘Look more then, including for cyclists!’”
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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88 comments
Didn't even indicate before pulling out into oncoming traffic.
I assume things must have changed in the 34 years since I passed my driving test. Because back then I was definitely taught it was my responsibility when driving to check my blind spot.
When I did my test - over 20 years ago, eek - my instructor strongly emphasised situational awareness over checking the blind spot. I was expected to know what was in the blind spots at all times. He'd ask me, and I'd be expected to tell him without checking.
I was told that this was required for the test, but maybe I just really scared the instructor early on
Things have changed. These days it is accepted that it is unreasonable for people to be able to see what they don't see, and so long as they exercise that excuse then they are free to drive into whatever they don't see.
And, having run you over, so long as they believed you to be a sack of rubbish - and who can gainsay what it is they believed - then there is no requirement for them to stop either.
Cyclist would have shown in the wing mirror as a minimum.
Worse one I had was just like this only the driver was still chatting to his mate on the pavement.
That car had a DOOR mirror, not a "wing" mirror.
How can you be that pedantic, and yet think CAPITALS can be used exactly like "quotes" in the same sentence? In any case both door-mirror and wing-mirror should be hyphenated.
It's pavlov's dog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDwHh6Kn8gs
Just give it up mate, Oxford dictionary, wing mirror, "a rear-view mirror projecting from the side of a motor vehicle." Enough already.
but you KNOW what is meant. You know Uranus isn't an actual anus, it's just its name. Obviously cars, unlike planes, don't have wings. Names are not always literal. Fuck sake.
What do you think is the difference between a crow, an SR71 spy plane and Zoe Saldana? On being pedantic I will point out they are all black birds but one of them can't fly.*
*unless the one that can't fly goes in the SR71 or something.
Euclid would disagree about planes. Aeroplanes, though, do have wings. I would suggest that cars do as well, although placing mirrors there is uncommon these days.
What you do in the privacy of your own home with a consenting Japanese beverage is entirely up to you, but I'll not be taking up your suggestion.
Not only Euclid, but most carpenters as well.
I never realised that people lusted after sake in that manner, but maybe that explains why it has desirable serving temperatures?
" I know about my vehicle's blind spot, and that it is big enough to contain a vulnerable road user, so I deliberately didn't check it by turning my head t see it was safe, but pulled out anyway."
You're being very unfair to the car. It doesn't have a blind spot big enough for a cyclist to hide in
This one's all on the driver not looking at all.
Fair
The car doesn't have a blind spot at all. The driver has blindspots that are influenced by the design of the car, the driver's position, the adjustment of mirrors and so on.
Again, a very fair point!
A blind spot is as large as you want it to be. She only looks out for large 4 wheeled motor vehicles, so all cyclists are in her blind spot. There is some logic to this position when 'I didn't see you' (because it was dark, was during a busy time on the road etc.) is regarded as an excuse/ mitigating factor. So when I was hit in the dark by the mirror on a large 4WD cutting a corner and driving on the wrong side of the road, as I was stationary waiting to leave a well lit Sainsbury's exit road, the police accepted that he didn't see me because it was raining and dark- despite me having a very bright Aldi flashing light mounted on my helmet and a bright Cateye front light on the bars. The police described this as "only a momentary loss of concentration". They would have said the same if I had been mashed to pulp having my stem and bars smashed back into my stationary pelvis.
"despite me having a very bright Aldi flashing light mounted on my helmet and a bright Cateye front light on the bars"
You're still basically invisible in those conditions.
That doesn't excuse the driving in any way, but you have to act like you're invisible at night if you want to stay safe. Cover yourself and your bike in flashing lights and you might have half a chance of being seen on a clear night. In the rain, bike lights are hard to pick out from all the other flashes, reflections, and points of light caused by droplets on the windscreen.
As a driver, you're dazzled by the lights of oncoming cars to an extent where even in clear conditions, nothing but other bright lights are noticeable.
When I drive, I'm very aware of all this, and appropriately careful. Most drivers are not, they're so bad they can fail to notice you in broad daylight. And most cyclists who don't drive don't realise how invisible they are at night. Leaving fault aside, it's a recipe for trouble.
Then they really ought to be considering handing in their licence to drive, oughtn't they?
I completely agree. The roads should be for cyclists and my car(s) only
But seriously, the UK is amongst the top dozen or so countries in the world for standard of driving tuition and skills needed to pass the test - though the top two or three are quite a long way above. Our drivers are much better than in most of the world. The level is still very, very low. Knowing when to slow down for things that might be there, very hard to see, is not the low-hanging fruit by a long way. Near Miss OTD would have gone entirely long before that gets attention
This one's like not riding up the inside of lorries turning left. It'd be lovely if it wasn't a problem, tech might solve it soon, but for now it's on cyclists to realise they cannot be seen by car drivers at night in the rain.
It is a lot better to be fined (or more likely, at most, told off by a policeperson) for inappropriate lights*, or for riding on the pavement, than to be hit by a motor vehicle.
[*AFAIK, lights attached to your bike must conform to the Highway Code. Lights attached to your clothing or bag, on the other hand, are pretty much unrestricted.]
The highway code advises against parking on the wrong side of the road, and says to take special care when pulling out in that situation if you do.
Again, and I keep saying it; the majority of motorists haven't read their Highway Code since learning to drive - so have no idea what they can/ can't do.
I read it reasonably often. Even so sometimes I'm surprised by things in it.
For the people who don't read it, that's just a symptom. They haven't thought about their driving at all since they passed their tests.
I'm the same, and I also bought the Road Sign book just to keep me informed, as there are signs that one very rarely sees.
I agree about your last point; it's a state of mind; most aren't interested, and it shows.
No, that's not a blind spot. There's a clear view through the windows. She didn't look.
Hang on, there! You mean you expected her to move her head? Expected her to look for objects smaller than another car?? Are you quite mad???
A moving object can't stay in a stationary car's blind spot for very long, especially a tiny car like that.
But she said he was in _her_ blind spot. You know, the one that covers everything from the A pillars back. She'd probably have done the same thing if it was a bus instead of a cyclist.
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