(Not so) Near Miss of the Day 828: Driver hits cyclist at speed, leaving door mirror behind

And of course it is grossly lenient.  You should expect, though I realise not always receive, points and a fine for driving without due care and attention.  So failing to stop / failing to report had what effect on the penalty exactly?  And was there a "not guilty" plea, as implied by "found guilty at court"?  (I suppose could have been misreported by the police, but wouldn't bank on it).  I was under the impression that these were serious matters.  Guess not.

It doesn't seem likely it went to court if Ooblyboo wasn't called as a witness, or at least notified that they might be called as a witness on a certain date.

andystow wrote:

It doesn't seem likely it went to court if Ooblyboo wasn't called as a witness, or at least notified that they might be called as a witness on a certain date.

If the driver pleaded guilty in advance of the court date, then no witnesses are called. The hearing at court is just for the magistrate to review the evidence and determine the level of punishment to be handed out.

However, Ooblyboo should have been given an opportunity to attend the hearing from the public gallery. They also should have been offered to write a victim impact statement and have it read out in court.

I'm certain it must have gone to court, as leaving the scene cannot be dealt with via a fixed penalty notice.

According to the narrative the criminal was "found guilty at court".  Which says to me (a) the case went to court; and (b) he entered a not guilty plea but was found guilty.  Even if I am wrong on either or both of these, doesn't answer the failing to stop / failing to report question.

It's as Chris Boardman, in tragic circumstances, pointed out:  road crime is not seen as real crime.

Xenophon2 wrote:

(question unrelated to events)

Are there many such roads in the UK and is it customary for cyclists to ride there?  Not interested in starting an argument, I'm sure it's legal to cycle there and that's that.  Just wondering about how 'normal' this type of situation is.

Where I am, on this type of road (dual carriageway with divider) cycling would be prohibited and even if allowed, personally I don't think I'd risk it.  

Yes there are quite a few A roads like that, often used to bypass town centres. You can cycle on any road in Britain except motorways. Generally cyclists avoid them but they're often used - as here - for time trials due to the fact that they offer long traffic-light-free stretches.

I wouldn't ride on them for a king's ransom myself, but it's perfectly legal.

I know all the arguments / discussions around victim blaming etc and, like you, I would never ride on an A road like the one in the video. 

BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP wrote:

I know all the arguments / discussions around victim blaming etc and, like you, I would never ride on an A road like the one in the video. 

I would but only on the hard shoulder. I wouldn't ride on a dual carriageway without a hard shoulder.

My original view was that they were good for TTs because the traffic can be light early morning and you don't have to worry about cars entering from side roads or oncoming traffic. Obviously I have now revised my view and think TTs on closed tracks/roads, although more difficult to organise, are the way forward.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Xenophon2 wrote:

(question unrelated to events)

Are there many such roads in the UK and is it customary for cyclists to ride there?  Not interested in starting an argument, I'm sure it's legal to cycle there and that's that.  Just wondering about how 'normal' this type of situation is.

Where I am, on this type of road (dual carriageway with divider) cycling would be prohibited and even if allowed, personally I don't think I'd risk it.  

Yes there are quite a few A roads like that, often used to bypass town centres. You can cycle on any road in Britain except motorways. Generally cyclists avoid them but they're often used - as here - for time trials due to the fact that they offer long traffic-light-free stretches.

I wouldn't ride on them for a king's ransom myself, but it's perfectly legal.

They also use them for time one trials because they are fast, due to better road surfaces, and also because of the draft from passing vehicles.

I recall a report of a time trialist being disqualified for riding close to the line between lanes, in order to make cars pass closer and gain a benefit.

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Yup - agree with Rendel (don't want to make a habit of that!!) - it's legal, but a long way from safe.

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'I may be dead, but at least I was in the right'.

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It's the drivers who make it unsafe though, and once you come around to that view, you realise all roads are equally unsafe whilst we allow drivers a literal licence to kill.

Awavey wrote:

It's the drivers who make it unsafe though, and once you come around to that view, you realise all roads are equally unsafe whilst we allow drivers a literal licence to kill.

Absolutely this^

It is dangerous drivers that are the problem. If the public see A-roads as the problem then all A-roads needs to be closed until the problem is fixed.

Flip that around though and you see the problem: "I have 'rights' but occasionally I can get killed for exercising them, and the law doesn't take that seriously. So what do those 'rights' actually mean?"

This one's "recreational" but it still holds.  It's like the state built a coconut shy on your commute / school route route.  Over time it got used for archery, then firearms.  Now the state encourages you to walk to work or school - for health! - and notes the range has a good safety record.  They say they guarantee your right of way across the shooting range ("share the range") and they've put up signs with guidance for people to not shoot when others are crossing.  They're considering if they need a review to maybe come down harder on any rogue shootists...

That type of road is only 10mph higher on the speed limit then the country lanes that cyclists do have to use regularly. And with the long sight lines and room for manouvreing. I would state it should actually be safer then the ones with lots of turns, narrower and with less chance of meeting a car on the wrong side of the road.  

as many have said, it is perfectly legal to ride here, and many judge it to be dangerous. I feel thet a large part of that danger comes from the fact that riders are so rarely encountered on this type of rad, to the extent that drivers don't expect them to be there and aren't looking out for them. However if the drivers were alert to the presence of riders (perhaps if they encounered them more often) then these roads should be safer and cause less driver frustration as the site lines are such that they have much more time to move over (and have a lane to move into) to preform the overtake safely.

If only organised events like this had to put out additional high viz signage to let drivers know about the race and warn them that riders woul be present..... Oh wait....

On a side note, what a strange country this is that a dual carriagway like this (with 70 mph speed limit) permits cycling and yet a motorway (which has wider lanes and better site lines again) doesn't allow it on the hard shoulder.

For people who don't know, such events are marshalled and signed. People with poor observational skills aren't likely to absorb what they are being warned about if they even managed to lift their eyes from their phones to notice that there are signs.

The other unfortunate aspect is that riders are spaced out, departing at minute intervals typically, so drivers will come across lone cyclists rather than a group.

Without being victim blaming, the reality is that we know many drivers are proven to be unable to apply the attention required to the task of driving to be able to make riding on any road safe for cyclists, but a dual carriageway clearly offers drivers more opportunity to switch off or switch over to something of more interest to them. Therefore I do think we have to accept that the risk of very poor driving killing people is too high on this type of road.

Our club has had a time trial rider killed on a major road and escape with the momentary lack of attention defence. Given that the law repeatedly demonstrates that this standard of driving is only a minor, understandable deviation from the standard of driving required, is have to agree that dual carriageway time trialling on NSL roads is high risk, we cannot depend on drivers - or the law encouraging proper behaviour.

Your post is too accommodating to drivers.

There is such a road near me that is used every week by TT riders where a lady was sadly killed earlier this year. She was hit by a van driven by a local man.

I used to use OSM mapping on my Garmin generated by a German team. I got them to amend their road weightings because the UK appears to be the only place where a road defined as a trunk road allows cyclists. In Europe, a non-motorway trunk road would by definition ban cyclists. I guess it goes back to historical right of way laws in England (specifically because Scottish law has different right of way concepts). Part of that is that in England we only have defined rights of way anything else is permissive or banned, but that right is well-guarded. Other countries are more relaxed about access.

We made a navigational error this year and we're led round M42 J10 which is a junction with the A5. That was scary in a group.

Xenophon2 wrote:

Where I am, on this type of road (dual carriageway with divider) cycling would be prohibited and even if allowed, personally I don't think I'd risk it.  

That is true , actually there are places where in a such road any motor vehicle that cannot reach the speed of 50km/h is banned. And it makes sense, as they are practically immobile objects in the middle of the road. Just remember in Friends TV Show when Ross  had taken his dad's Porssss and was super slow, the policeman just issued him a ticket.

I did wonder that to start with but I think it was pure lack of attention. Whatever the driver was doing, they weren't looking at the road or me.

Or the other cars in front who seemed to move across the road for some strange reason. 

You're more forgiving than I am, or maybe I'm just a cynic at heart, but from where they start to be visible on the road, to when they pass you, imo, it was a deliberate attempt to buzz you or scare the xxxx out of you.

no doubt as a reaction to the TT event and that self entitlement road rage of damn all those cyclists making me drive in the right hand lane to overtake and pay attention, that they miscalculated, though fortunately not badly enough to have ended with another KSI stat, at which point everyone would have blamed the stupid road for the danger, and not the idiotic drivers.

Awavey wrote:

is it just me but that felt alot like the van driver steers into that...?

It did appear that they moved toward the white line but then back in again just before hitting the human being.

Whether deliberate or just driving for quarter of a mile at 60mph+ without looking where they were going... this should be an instant ban and extended test at the minimum. It's pure luck that this was not a KSI.