Near Miss of the Day 818: No action taken as police say cyclist ‘put himself in danger’ by ‘barging to the front and moving into driver’s path’

ride2smile wrote:

Utter tripe. Akin to your door was unlocked so you were asking to be burgled, you didn't have hi-vis on...., you were wearing a short skirt ..... etc.

Guy on the bike didn't break the law or endager anyone. Guy in the 3 tonne vehicle did drive carelessly and did endager someone.  

 

Both of these statements are true, and yet filtering to the front was not necessary and didn't really benefit the cyclist. So you can all keep filtering to the front as the law allows, but the result will be more drivers overtaking you once the lights change, with a percentage of those overtakes being closer than you would be comfortable with.

Well said. The risk with reporting this sort of thing is it reduces the focus on more serious reports. To me, that pass didn't look dangerously close or aggressive, although it was clearly closer than the HC requires — and I'm not surprised at the drivers' reactions to OP's "barging" to the front, legal or not. I would have waited at the back of the queue myself, like a good Brit.

Well this is of course the fundamental problem with NMotD.  The clue is in the title - there's one more or less every day.  I don't know enough about the economics of the site to know whether churning content is optimal for revenue, but I have often thought it would be better to pick one of the absolute shockers, leave it on the front page and make more of a concerted effort with the CPS on it, like wot the cycling barrister did with his death threat.  The problem with daily is that each one sparks an hour of keyboard mashing then fades into memory along with the other 800-odd.

FWIW I wouldnt have filtered there, I dont think theres enough room to do it safely and it then muddled the impact of the Toyota close pass, because all that oncoming traffic whilst filtering, are they not close passing also ?

But if I had found myself at the front of that queue, I'd know damn well if I leave any hint of a car/truck shape sized gap that drivers going to go for it, makes no difference if your at the front in full view or at the back with cars joining behind you,leave an inch and theyll take a go at it, so imo you have to ride to block in situations like that,nd be aggressive about if necessary, not just appeal to drivers better nature about what they know they shouldn't do.

panda wrote:

Or, equivalently, turning up to the road.cc readers' forum Christmas drinks with a "my other car's an Ineos Grenadier" t-shirt?

Ooh, now there's an idea (the Christmas drinks, not the t-shirt) 

Almost certain to lead to tears before bedtime.  Don't road.cc readers use up enough police time already?

Having said that playing "guess who" could be wild.

Christmas *ride* however... can't recall whether Rendel's impressive fundraiser was open to all comers but I'm sure there's a bunch of Zwifters could get together.

chrisonatrike wrote:

Christmas *ride* however... can't recall whether Rendel's impressive fundraiser was open to all comers but I'm sure there's a bunch of Zwifters could get together.

It wasn't but that's certainly an idea, thinking about this year's (which will be the last for the time being, don't want to compassion fatigue to set in!) at the moment, will add that to consideration...

But what if I told you that being the change I want to see and needlessly obstructing motorists are the same thing?

I want to see less cars on the road, and if I know humans that means making them less convenient than something else.

IanMSpencer wrote:

As ever not condoning the driver, but given the rider is aware of the road, was moving to the front of the queue, in the knowledge that they would then claim the lane specifically to impede following traffic, appropriate behaviour? It's hardly defensive riding to put yourself into predictable conflict in that way. If I was naturally at the front of that queue I would have held a strong line, so the pass was wrong, and the implicit condoning of the punishment pass was wrong by the police. However, I do think the cyclist was riding without due consideration to other road users, just because filtering is legal does not make it appropriate in all circumstances.

What do you mean "aware of the road"? First time I've been to Wallingford - this is my view as I started filtering.

But, as a general point, do you think it is safer to have further vehicles join the queue afterwards and then attempt to get through the lights before they change again? Why do we have ASLs?

Watching the part of the vid where you had the close pass, the very narrow bit is about 80m long and took around 14 seconds.

ISTM that you were smoewhat to the left of centre. Would it have prevented the overtake, do you think, if you had gone absolutely down the middle?

(Accepting that it is difficult for me to judge from the video.)

OK, I got confused by other posts and gained the impression it was a regular route. Apologies for that.

I still think though that if you don't know what your exit is, then filtering is not a good idea. It is a view I've expressed several times here, that filtering is only filtering if you have an exit that does not impede the traffic you are passing. As soon as you have to put yourself in the same stream of traffic it is not filtering, it is overtaking. It is why I don't think ASLs outside extremely heavy trafficked areas work because the perception is unlikely to be going to the front to safely cross a junction (the design intent) but instead it will be perceived as queue jumping, even though it is legitimate - and often the queue of cars will have just past you (probably closely!).

My local example is the Knowle High Street, where the lane width is such that there is no room to pass with oncoming traffic, and there is always traffic. There is usually a queue struggling to get through due to crossings and the road just before is wider, creating an area where I could filter. Along the High Street I can normally maintain the traffic speed, in fact I am usually held up by cars from my pace due to them slowing for ramped crossings that I can take without slowing. I could often pass 5 to 10 cars, but in the end, they will all be behind me and all be slightly aggrieved, even if I don't really hold them up. Instead I hold station, take primary and stay with the flow. How much time does it cost me - not a lot. How much grief does it save me - from the punishment passes I get just for existing on the road when I don't filter (so before I have given them an "excuse") - lots.

When you have temporary traffic lights, there is a lot of driver anxiety about getting across before they change, and also some funny psychology about supporting your teammates behind, so the perception is likely to be that you have stolen a space from the people behind and as a cyclist you are going to stop other drivers getting through the lights - it may not be fair or even reasonable, nut that is the typical thought process. The same would apply to a motorcycle, that by diving in at the front, it has pushed everyone back in the queue.

I'd probably have done the same as you, but I think that's just a sad reflection of where we are, that motorists have any legitimacy at all in such circumstances. Our default remains "the car must get through, and pronto too, and they've already been kept waiting".

It's a (historic) high street, it's not a destination for motor vehicles, neither isn't up to the task of accommodating through traffic. But we just bow the knee - it's a motor vehicle, make way or suffer their predictable, nay justified, ire.

I'd like to imagine that our kids would look back on this scenario with the same discomfort we feel when we look at old TV comedies and realise, my parents thought that was OK.

I'd probably have done the same, unless there was a long queue and the light had been red long enough that I thought I might not get to the front before a change to green.

Have to agree - cars (particularly of the contemporary variety) are the invasive species, especially on older urban infrastructure like this.

I feel the conflict is largely inevitable, but it's due to the nature of the road and the way people drive. Even if you dont filter in those situations at some point you've got to ride through there with a vehicle directly behind you, and a driver who likely is frustrated from being delayed by the queueing, your only hope is really sticking to the vehicle ahead of you then because then the driver behind doesnt see the gap.

But as soon as theres a gap,or you leave enough gap, its into conflict again.

Absolutely. It's degrees of conflict, minimising rather than avoiding, unfortunately.

Yep, the only barging was done by the pickup driver, pushing the cyclist out of the way because they think they should ride in the gutter and 1.5m is just advice (not helped by the cycle lane though). It should be safe to overtake before you carry out the manoeuvre, you shouldn't be relying on other traffic to get out of your way.

Imagine if they ran over a pedestrian on a zebra crossing because they were walking too slowly. Can you imagine the police saying to the victim, well you had plenty of time to cross if you'd walked a bit faster?

I think the "barging" comment tells you all you need to know about the sympathies of the investigating officer.

I was in two minds about this close pass. On the one hand, another cyclist might have felt there was room enough and moved closer to the kerb. But the point is, in this instance, the cyclist did not.

By saying that the cyclist put himself in danger, the police are saying that if the driver behind disagrees with the cyclist's road position then it is OK to overrule the cyclist even to the extent of endangering his life. I can't think of any circumstance where that's the case.

Hilux is more expensive than a bicycle many bicycles though - poor driver probably had no money left after he had to buy one and put fuel in it.  Unfair cost of living war on the hard-pressed working entrepreneur, innit?

 Not gonna happen.  Wallingford has only 2 crossings over the Thames one a couple of miles south of this one through another set of winding streets.

A quick look on Google maps shows the stretch of road and the river crossing is woefully inadequate for through traffic. No amount of wishful thinking changes that. They've already marked it as unsuitable for HGVs - truth is it's unsuitable for all motor traffic.

Had to double-check that really was a cycle lane. This shockingly bad bit of infrastructure was a bit more visible back in 2008...

Love that they've made it wide enough to fit double yellows in.  That's a smart designer right there.

Wonder how they fit the horses in the "advisory horse lanes" when they first introduced charabancs though?

EDIT: and there's no way John Bull could have got down that pavement on the left, even before dinner.

HoarseMann wrote:

I'm afraid that was a council approved close-pass, did you not see the clearly marked cycle lane??!

Honestly, I had no idea until right this second!
But I was thinking exactly the same point about the RLJing.