Near Miss of the Day 837: Mercedes driver close passes cyclist carrying four-year-old son in child seat

mattw wrote:

Hmm. Hope it's a careless for both drivers - the Volkswagen one may well be more dangerous imo, not looking futher ahead than the end of the driver's conk into a 3.2m wide pinch point.

I don't agree. Looked to pass wide and saw their mistake and bailed, most would have just turned left.

The Merc driver knew their wasn't room and moved towards a child on a bike!

alansmurphy wrote:

mattw wrote:

Hmm. Hope it's a careless for both drivers - the Volkswagen one may well be more dangerous imo, not looking futher ahead than the end of the driver's conk into a 3.2m wide pinch point.

The Merc driver knew their wasn't room and moved towards a child on a bike!

I don't agree. Looked to pass wide and saw their mistake and bailed, most would have just turned left.

Disagree in turn. The VW driver did not notice that there wasn't room until they almost hit the pinch-point.

The VW driver *started* their passing manoeuvre withing 40m of a pinh-point, and did not back off until they hit the serious hazard hatchings.

What were they thinking, and how far ahead were they looking?

Heaven help in a hazard situation when doing the driver is doing a higher speed and does not look ahead.

Fair enough, but danger to the cyclist and child in this case was very much with one rather than the other...

For me... everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect all the time. The key, for me is realising your mistakes in a timely manner, and making the right choices to overcome. 

In this case the VW driver, realised his stupidity before creating a dangerous situation, and then backed out in a safe manner. 

Nothing to see here... move on. 

That's my take on it as well. As you say, we all make the occasional mistake, I know I can look back at some incidents when I have been cycling and in hindsight say I misjudged the situation and made a mistake. To me, it's about how you deal with issue once you realise your error. The VW made a mistake and actually rectified it pretty well, much better than many. I have had numerous people start to pass me in similar ways and rather than brake and fit back in behind, they have decided to continue anyway and squeeze me into the edge rather than act to correct their misjudgement.

mattw wrote:

Need to lose most of the on street parking.

"BURN THE HERETIC!"

Ha!

If nearly all the houses have off street parking, especially in London, I don't see too much of a problem :-). Especially if there is a tube station close by.

Perhaps it needs a car storage facility nearby for visitors.

More difficult in places where public transport is absent, but then because we still tend to have reasonable minima of offstreet parking for new hooses, and have traditionally not lived in apartments, reasonable amounts of parking are possible whilst still allowing for all transport modes.

Important point is - as ever - to prevent the London tail wagging that UK dog.

Bungle_52 wrote:

society needs to deal with this poor driving if active travel is going to take off

My perception is that if progressively everybody in London were to ditch the car for cycling, even then the last remaining motorist would be swearing at all the bloody cyclists getting in their way. As would, to be honest, a good many of the cyclists.

I think that is a very good question.

IME of doing one myself, and of others doing them, is that driver awareness courses do make a difference.

I have not seen research on how long it lasts, though.

But at present that is the best we have.

Rakia wrote:

I was under the impression that you weren't meant to plaster close pass footage over the internet prior to police finishing their work on the submission, so the poster might want to take the video down.

I've never really understood why. Is it in case this goes to a jury trial and it becomes impossible to select a jury because they are all tainted from having watched the video online? Seems pretty implausible. Or is it in case Plod views it and is likewise tainted by the experience - except, wait, they have to view it in the first place anyway.

like alot of police decisions, I suspect just covering their behinds, as they can never give you a consistent reason for that demand, some say its data protection, some say it jeopardises a trial, some say people identified from it could sue for wrongful alledging of crimes.

all I know is whenever theres a major incident thats covered by the press and high definition video footage is endlessly replayed on the news, it never seems to harm any trials that result later.

take the woman in the Land Rover who drove into those XR protesters, the media repeatedly aired the footage, didnt stop a jury finding her guilty did it ?

or the woman who kicked that horse, hasnt come to trial yet, but again the media didnt seem concerned about repeatedly showing the footage of the incident or publishing her job, which she then lost as a result and had to move home as a result of the media exposure.

It was in a Magistrates' Court, so no jury.

And she entered a plea of guilty, so no question about the verdict.

So not even a smidge of relevance.

I'm inclined to say that she was spectacularly badly advised, or did not reflect before capitulating to the charge.

I can't comment on the woman who kicked the horse, though if the horse had been sensible and kicked back she perhaps would not do it again.

yet the request not to share your videos online comes before its got to any court or any plea has been entered at all

so wheres the smidge of relevance to that ?

Nigel Garage previously banned for racism and libel wrote:

Wait, the cyclist said "f***ing idiot" to his 4 year old kid? That's barely better than some of Rendel's previous behaviour.

Bless, it's so sweet that you keep on with your obsession honey but I've told you before, I'm not going to pay to rent on that space I occupy in your head. Hugs, get well soon.