Nearly squashed by a bus

L'Enfer du Nord

Was cycling through Bray on Saturday, heading south in little Bray, across from a gym just before a bike shop (Everest cycles?). Coming towards lights which were green, there was a Dublin bus stopped and not moving even though the lights were green. I couldn’t see, but I assumed that there was a car in front of the bus waiting to turn right. So I come up to the back of bus in the cycle lane and decide to filter past it on the left. Just as I’m doing this the bus decides to go around the left of the car waiting to turn right and moves into the cycle lane. Luckily I was half expecting this and had slowed right down. I’m still towards the back of the bus when he pulls this manoeuvre so he just misses me. If I’d been going a bit faster I would have been squashed against some railings. I got his reg. number
Three questions. Am I entitled to filter around the left of a bus? Is a bus ever entitled to pull into the cycle lane like that? Who should I complain to?

Thanks

penexpers

Filtering left of a bus like that is a pretty silly thing to do - cycle lane or no cycle lane. What kind of cycle lane was it (broken or non-broken white line)?

rob1891

He should have indicated and checked his mirrors before crossing into the cycle lane. If it was a solid line, he shouldn't have attempted to move into it at all. Your situational awareness kept you safe, never second guess yourself, if it looks dodgy, stay behind the truck/bus/car.

Gavin

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Was cycling through Bray on Saturday, heading south in little Bray, across from a gym just before a bike shop (Everest cycles?). Coming towards lights which were green, there was a Dublin bus stopped and not moving even though the lights were green. I couldn’t see, but I assumed that there was a car in front of the bus waiting to turn right. So I come up to the back of bus in the cycle lane and decide to filter past it on the left. Just as I’m doing this the bus decides to go around the left of the car waiting to turn right and moves into the cycle lane. Luckily I was half expecting this and had slowed right down. I’m still towards the back of the bus when he pulls this manoeuvre so he just misses me. If I’d been going a bit faster I would have been squashed against some railings. I got his reg. number
Three questions. Am I entitled to filter around the left of a bus? Is a bus ever entitled to pull into the cycle lane like that? Who should I complain to?

Thanks

If the line was solid, no he wasn't allowed in. In my opinion, It was a bad choice on your part to go up the inside. You should have just waited. Particularly when there were railings there. Lethal.

Yeah the bus driver was in the wrong and certainly complain about him. Find the station the bus operates out of and call it and ask to make a complaint.

niceonetom

sounds like he was wrong is the legal sense (failure to indicate, possibly illegally entering the cycle-lane etc) but it also sounds like you were wrong in how-to-not-die sense.

don't go up the inside of buses. especially if there are railings between you and any escape. being legally entitled to filter past on the left does not mean it's a clever or safe thing to do.
[/soapbox]

you could complain to the bus company (dublin bus?)or trafficwatch, if you can see a point to it, and you really feel the driver was behaving dangerously/illegally. i'd just take it as a lesson learnt and move on with my life tbh.

Lumen

Struggling with reconstructing this in my head, but...

Think of this from the reference frame of a static observer.

The back wheels of the bus follow the front, right?

So the only way you're going to get squished is if you're moving so fast that you actually drive into the side of the bus.

If you're going slow enough, you can't get squished because your "plan B" is to come to a complete halt as soon as you see the bus starting to pull left. It will then pull in front of you.

So the lesson is, if you're going to filter, do it slowly. (?)

penexpers

Lumen wrote: »

So the lesson is, if you're going to filter, do it slowly. (?)

If you're going to filter a bus, stop and don't do it.

ChipPanBuddha

niceonetom wrote: »

sounds like he was wrong is the legal sense (failure to indicate, possibly illegally entering the cycle-lane etc) but it also sounds like you were wrong in how-to-not-die sense.

+1

Bunnyhopper

@Lumen
When he says he'd have got squished if he'd being going faster I don't think that he means he'd have been moving so fast that he'd actually have driven into the side of the bus. I think he means that if he'd been a little further forward than he in fact was then the bus would have turned straight into him and squished him.

It does sound as if the bus driver might well have been in the wrong (in the legal sense). Even if s/he was generally entitled to move across the cycle lane (dotted line etc.), and even if s/he indicated, s/he still shouldn't have moved when there was a cyclist on the inside of the bus. A polite call to Dublin Bus pointing out the particular risks at that junction might do no harm, I suppose.

However, the main point I take from all this is the one penexpers makes: if you're going to filter inside a bus, don't.

Lumen

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

@Lumen
When he says he'd have got squished if he'd being going faster I don't think that he means he'd have been moving so fast that he'd actually have driven into the side of the bus. I think he means that if he'd been a little further forward than he in fact was then the bus would have turned straight into him and squished him.

My point is that buses don't move sideways.

rubadub

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Three questions. Am I entitled to filter around the left of a bus? Is a bus ever entitled to pull into the cycle lane like that? Who should I complain to?

niceonetom wrote: »

sounds like he was wrong is the legal sense (failure to indicate, possibly illegally entering the cycle-lane etc) but it also sounds like you were wrong in how-to-not-die sense.

+1.

You are "entitled", to walk down an alley full of drunken scumbags wearing a boyzone t-shirt with €50 notes hanging out all your pockets, but I would not advise it.

Treat all people on the road as imbecile, blind, homicidial maniacs, who are ignorant of all traffic laws. It is just easier & safer that way.

You see in some threads people moaning that cyclists do not signal, I never bother much since I am just ignored, but also feel it is quite unsafe to steer with one hand. However I expect these are moaning about cyclists pulling out in front of them, I never do this, I just expect no car to give me way, its much safer just to not trust them. I see some cyclists "exercising their rights" and just feel it is incredible dangerous and possibly biting off their nose to spite their face.

L'Enfer du Nord

Lumen wrote: »

My point is that buses don't move sideways.

I'm moving straight, bus is moving diagonally, if I was moving faster we would have intersected. The bus wasn't turning left it was filtering around an other vehical that was turning right.

I agree it was a stupid move on my part, but only in the context of other road users having no regard for cycle lanes. However the cycle lane was red, whats the point in having cycle lanes if other traffic can move into it without looking?

Lumen

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

I'm moving straight, bus is moving diagonally, if I was moving faster we would have intersected. The bus wasn't turning left it was filtering around an other vehical that was turning right.

I agree it was a stuip move on my part, but only in the context of other road users having no regard for cycle lanes. However the cycle lane was red, whats the point in having cycle lanes if other traffic can move into it without looking?

Indeed. I prefer to avoid cycle lanes altogether, and keep with the traffic flow. This means going fast. Whilst I am in no way a "fit cyclist", there are lots of cyclists who will not or cannot cycle this fast (my mum or wife, for instance).

So what do you tell them? Stop in the cycle lane every time a bus stops in traffic to your right? That's madness. You'd end up with pile ups in the cycle lane.

I believe that filtering is safe, provided that you do it with great care and at minimal speed. Buses are less dangerous than cars in this respect - they can't swerve into your path in slow moving traffic, because they have such a long wheelbase.

Where buses ARE dangerous is when passing you at speed. In that case, you can't stop as fast, and may get knocked off. Stories on boards of people getting side swiped on the N11 scare the bejeesus out of me. But this is not the same situation as undertaking a stationary bus at 10mph in central Dublin.

scottreynolds

rubadub wrote: »

+1.
You are "entitled", to walk down an alley full of drunken scumbags wearing a boyzone t-shirt with €50 notes hanging out all your pockets, but I would not advise it.

Certainly not in Bray.

spadder

Never, Never, Never go up the inside of a large vehicle.

L'Enfer du Nord

Lumen wrote: »

Indeed. I prefer to avoid cycle lanes altogether, and keep with the traffic flow. This means going fast. Whilst I am in no way a "fit cyclist", there are lots of cyclists who will not or cannot cycle this fast (my mum or wife, for instance).

What do you do when the staffic is stopped or crawling? I don't cycle much in Dublin but I imagine filtering by bicyle in bicycle lanes or otherwise must be going on all the time.

In my case I can see it was stupid because I did with a bus, which would have moved off soon anyway. Although I wasn't to know long it would be, it had been stopped at the green light for a while before I got there, the lights hadn't just changed to green, so I had no reason to believe it would suddenly make a move. It didn't know why it was stopped, although I suspected there was a car infront of it.

Lumen

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

What do you do when the staffic is stopped or crawling?

I usually filter between lanes, with extreme care. Cars are used to this with motorbikes, and in my experience it's safer than filtering in the cycle lane.

It's also often illegal.

RoundTower

I've heard (anyone have a source?) that more serious cycling accidents happen here than in any other single situation. Just go round the outside of the bus instead.

It sounds like the bus driver was in the wrong, but I'd expect to be laughed at by the guards or Dublin Bus.

brayblue24

scottreynolds wrote: »

Certainly not in Bray.

LOL

Bunnyhopper

Lumen wrote: »

My point is that buses don't move sideways.

Not solely sideways, of course, but if the bus moves diagonally with respect to the fence on the cyclist's left, converging on the fence, then the space available for the cyclist (even a stationary one, even one frantically trying to reverse) will decrease. It may decrease to what we might call The Squish Point. In effect, and relative to the fence, the bus is moving sideways, it just also moves forwards: there is a sideways element to its motion relative to the fence.

yaddayaddayadda

The points I'd reiterate are that the bus driver should have looked and not moved, and the cyclist shouldn't have been there in that particular situation.

Ant

spadder wrote: »

Never, Never, Never go up the inside of a large vehicle.

+1

My biggest problem with buses is the drivers who overtake me (on my right) and then proceed to pull in to the kerb immediately after. I generally tend to be cycling just a little under the speed of the bus and end up hitting the brakes to avoid being forced off the road. And yeah, when both the bus and the cyclist are moving forward at (close to) the same velocity, the absolute diagonal movement of the bus appears - from the perspective of the cyclist - to be a sideways motion. Basic relativity!

Thankfully they've never done it to me when there are railings along the side of the footpath. Now when I hear a bus behind me and see a bus-stop just ahead of me, I pull out to prevent the drivers from doing this to me.

Civilian_Target

It's been said. The bus driver would have been wrong, but you would have been flat. Lets all be glad it's only a would have been. Don't try repeating it!

Much more dangerous, this morning I was coming along this stretch of road here http://maps.google.fr/maps?q=Biot,+Alpes-Maritimes,+Provence-Alpes-C%C3%B4te+d'Azur&oe=utf-8&client=firefox&ie=UTF8&hl=fr&cd=2&geocode=FeGymQIdjlJsAA&split=0&sll=43.648447,2.518822&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ll=43.613822,7.122509&spn=0.00065,0.001089&t=k&z=20
(on the road, since the cycle lane there is a bit of an obstacle course) and a 6-axle Slovakian truck decided to overtake me.

Happily, he left me a lot of space, a good metre, which positioned him square in the middle of the road, and positioned the cars coming the other way... mounting the pavement very quickly! Incredibly dangerous, never seen anything like it! When he was gone, the entire line of traffic in the other direction was stopped, and facing the kerb.

BostonB

Heres a crazy idea. Why not just stop and wait for the bus to do something.

ROK ON

At least some folks here have been overtaken on the correct side.
I was knocked down the other day because some lunatic overtook me on the left after mounting the foopath. He then clipped me, then after I remonstrated, he then swung the car and careered into me.

My left thigh took the brunt of the collision and I hit the ground with a splat, shoulder taking the brunt. (Bike seems fine).
Got his reg and reported him to Gardai. Thats all I can do. Gardai were helpful, but I have no witnesses, which means its my word against his.

So as well as overtaking me on the left, riding a fotpath, clipping me in the process, then careering into me, he then refused to stay at the accident scene when I screamed at him that I was calling the Gardai.

I just count myself lucky that the entire thing happened in a backstreet, with no other traffic at a very slow speed.

concussion

ROK ON wrote: »

her day because some lunatic overtook me on the left after mounting the foopath. He then clipped me, then after I remonstrated, he then swung the car and careered into me.

Thats shocking stuff, I'd be quite insistent with the Gardai on this, it's not like he just overtook you a bit close, he basically rammed you off the road. This sort of person shouldn't be driving!

Ryaner

It is pretty much a hit and run which holds a much higher sentence so they may take it up. Especially if you are in any way injured.

ROK ON

concussion wrote: »

Thats shocking stuff, I'd be quite insistent with the Gardai on this, it's not like he just overtook you a bit close, he basically rammed you off the road. This sort of person shouldn't be driving!

I intend to. However without evidence, would the DPP bother to take a case?
If not I may seek a civil action. Not that I want compo (I certainly don't), but to make his insurance company aware of who they are insuring?

ROK ON

Ryaner wrote: »

It is pretty much a hit and run which holds a much higher sentence so they may take it up. Especially if you are in any way injured.

I never thought of it like that (hit and run). Shoulder is very sore, but no (hopefully) more serious injuries.

blorg

The gardai should at least formally interview him under caution in the investigation of the crime. This will at least put the spooks up him, and you never know what he might admit to in that circumstance. Don't downplay the injuries, it is a lot more serious if you are injured in any way. Even basic bruising is an injury. Possibly best get a doctor's report, this adds more weight.

Tayto2000

ROK ON wrote: »

he then swung the car and careered into me.

:eek:

That's ridiculous. Hope you get some satisfaction from the gardai.

concussion

You should definately get a doctor to check you out - any injuries should be recorded and hey, you should get a medical once a year anyway
Seeing as there's no witnesses it may be a bit tricky, it might be worthwhile speaking to a solicitor about it. At the end of the day, this is a hit and run and you have his reg.

brayblue24

ROK ON wrote: »

I intend to. However without evidence, would the DPP bother to take a case?
If not I may seek a civil action. Not that I want compo (I certainly don't), but to make his insurance company aware of who they are insuring?

Of course you should report it to gardai. Also, with a civil case the onus of proof is not as watertight as it is for a criminal case. If you have been wronged and suffered a loss or injury you should absolutely seek compensation from the wrondoer. If nothing else it might make him cop on a bit.