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

Thanks for sharing hope you're making a full recovery.

I applaud you contacting the company, makes me wonder where the HSE are with such matters. Perhaps if companies fleets were grounded for a week whilst proper investigations took place then employers would take more responsibility.

Thanks for sharing - this wasn't something I knew.

I rode it the before while I was still of the opinion that I preferred DC courses and it felt absolutely fine. Unfortunately, when a driver isn't concentrating, it doesn't matter how 'safe' the course is.

Maybe the police thought that they were just a witness...

Remind me again why this isn't just a way to save police doing work?  (That could be a good thing of course but since it's not the case for other types of crime involving injury or fear / trauma it really smacks of "crimes involving cyclists are on a lower tier / don't really matter much, but we vaguely pretend that's not the case")

Remind me again why this isn't just a way to save police doing work?

No, the police don't need any help in not doing work, as they're already pastmasters. Check both vehicles at Garstang MOT, Insurance and Tax Evasion HQ, at the Old Garstang Police Station. The BMW was first reported over 5 months ago- this house is passed by most police vehicles going to New Garstang Police Station  half a mile away, and the vehicles are often parked outside on the road because of the narrow but deep frontage which has to accommodate up to 4 vehicles, coming and going.

Amen brother.  One of the hidden costs / unmentioned consequences of our long-distance high-speed transport systems (including rail also) is that we've not just cut through communities and severed access.  We've made it extra inconvenient to get a short distance to some places *unless* you've got a high-speed box.  "Just take the A1 and turn off after a mile."  Or walk / cycle along a noisy traffic artery - if there is a thin crumbling line of tarmac to use, often littered with bits of vehicles.  But maybe there is an alternative?  A "quiet route" (requires travel on a windy B-road with fast cars and poor sight lines) which only takes 6 miles and a 50 meter climb...

Wasn't that one of the (many) criticisms of HS2?

That they had originally said they'd put access tunnels under it or bridges over it, to allow cyclists and local traffic to get across the line, but then they discovered that it would add a cost that they couldn't claw back in extra fees so decided to forget about it.  Meaning that all those local A roads and B roads would simply run up against chainlink fence and stop, with a twenty mile diversion to the next crossing point for a major A road...

(Of course, at the rate they're going, they'll be lucky if HS2 makes it as far as the M25...).

I know Exactly the bit you mean. I've frequently ended up on it from the Southwest side, usually to turn back on myself or ride back up past Charlecote or Moreton Morrell to get up North, instead of risking it. The incongruity of it is also that, on either side of the A46, there are perfectly lovely and quiet lanes that are easy to traverse by bike but, as you say, impossible to access without crossing the A-road.

There is one crossing just west of Snitterfield that has a bridge across the road. However, to get to that bit from the south say, you ride through Hatton Rock and have to go down the A439, which paradoxically although just an A road rather than a major trunk route, is worse to cycle along as the narrow road puts you in conflict as you ride the half mile to the next country lane, so using the bridge is no safer. The reverse leaves you grinding up a steep hill to a right turn with imaptient cars wanting to pass.

That being said, with patience, once you have crossed the traffic, cycling down the edge seems to be about as safe as you can get in either direction.

Also I lied about the cycling infrastructure. Turn that Goole Maps link round and you will see what is apparently a shared path which is actually just a re-marked and overgrown unused pavement - had the odd nettling along it. Someway up the road there is an odd warning sign warning of pedestrians crossing but no other obvious infrastructure. Keep going up the road and after several hundred metres, you will see the cycle lane ends at an unmarked crossing point which crosses to a nearly hidden gap in the hedge marked with a rusty pole (I kid you not - TBF the cycle lane marker has fallen off) where you can cut through to an old lane that then joins up to Park Lane. Saner cyclists would simply cycle further on the main road and use the right turn area marked in the centre.

I reckon 80% of van drivers regularly interact with their phones.

Well funny you mention it but Suffolk police just completed a week long campaign on the A14,A12 and A11 stopped 216 HGVs and vans, issued 213 TORs for 120 not wearing seatbelt, 41 using mobile phone, 33 roadworthiness, 25 insecure load,13 careless driving, 4 speeding and 4 no insurance. Along with seven arrests, 6 for drug driving & one driving whilst disqualified + possession of cannabis.

"Professional" drivers.

More of this, police!

Awavey wrote:

Well funny you mention it but Suffolk police just completed a week long campaign on the A14,A12 and A11 .....

So the rest of the drivers know that they're safe to carry on regardless for maybe another year?

Patrick9-32 wrote:

Perhaps harsh penalties, for instance, mandatory gaol time for those who leave the scene of an accident and permenant loss of license without possibility of retest for those who are convicted of careless or dangerous driving would make people understand the responsibility of controlling over a ton of steel at speeds human evolution has not prepared us for?

Absolutely.

Currently, there's a perverse incentive to leave the scene of a collision if a driver has any alcohol or drugs in their system or believes that there'll be no evidence to link them to it. The only exception should be for those oblivious drivers who don't even know that they've hit someone/something and they should face an immediate and permanent driving ban for the sake of the public.

Would argue 'obliviousness' should be almost exclusively limited to HGV's.

I can accept that a 44 Ton HGV isn't going to respond much to hitting 80kg and its response may depend on load.

qwerty360 wrote:

Would argue 'obliviousness' should be almost exclusively limited to HGV's.

I can accept that a 44 Ton HGV isn't going to respond much to hitting 80kg and its response may depend on load.

That's a good point, though I was thinking of some half-blind pensioner with their hearing aid turned off. There's no point sending someone to prison just for being incompetent if we can ensure that they never have the chance to cause any further hurt.

Given the strike seriously damaged their car they cannot have been unaware of the collision, and they must have had an inkling they had hit a cyclist. To not stop in such circumstances is quite callous.

I thought it was a deer

Or sack of potatoes.  And I couldn't stop there anyway - it's a busy road with fast-moving vehicles...

Absolutely. If the penalty for this calousness was automatic prison sentences harsh enough to seriously fuck up your life nobody would drive away after this type of incident. The driver would absolutely know they had hit the cyclist here, unquestionably. Even if they were entirely deaf (deaf people can drive) they would have noticed the bump that would have been felt through the car and seen the missing wingmirror next time they looked over. There is literally no realistic excuse and points and a fine is laughable. 

Patrick9-32 wrote:

...and seen the missing [door] mirror next time they looked over. 

But that could be weeks later!