Expect them

alphabeat

you BMW driving d1ckhead , who waeved into the cycle lane and bumped off me on kimmage road at 6 tonight , and kept going.

Even while i was lit up like a xmas tree.

not hurt , just a fright

but round the corner was a parked guard in a squad car , so i gave your reg and details to him , he noted it all down and he happily said youll be getting a vist .

maybe youll open your fcuking eyes and share the road in future .

TheBlaaMan

Good for you..........what a fcuker

Canis Lupus

Least you're okay. Cycling to work today I passed a cyclist being attended by an ambulance. Looks like he'd been creamed... 'luckily' it was just outside a hospital (of all places to have an accident eh?)

Then 15 mins down the road a jeep pulled into the kerb on top of a fella crunching him a bit. Lots of roaring but seeing as that chap had just broken a red light he didn't hang around. I was looking at the ground stopped at said light so I can't say who was to blame specifically for the accident.

Stay safe folks.

Zyzz

weaved*

mossym

Zyzz wrote: »

weaved*

some spots in ireland you'd have "waeved into him", and waved your middle finger too...if you spelt it like they said it..:)

Surveyor11

What a tosser, had a brush by myself the other night, lit up like a tree on a wide road with no oncoming traffic, some drivers obviously find this entertaining. ended badly for one cyclist in Galway last night, another fatality. Rip to him and condolences to his family. Stay safe folks

Arthurdaly

Sorry to hear that, had a youngish guy intentionally pull across me twice in succession recently whilst overtaking, literally a few cm each time, trying to teach me a lesson! First time on a bike I was absolutely livid, swearing and foaming at the mouth! Thank god I was unable to catch up with him.

It's only then you realise how vulnerable you really are. If that guy had hit me I've no doubt he would have drove on and nothing would have came of it but injuries for me.

fat bloke

Fair play to you for managing to get and remember his reg. I find the modern telephone number reg's very hard to catch on the fly.

Mugser

I think maybe us cyclists have a knack of attracting the most stupid drivers on our roads, perhaps the fact that we are amongst the most vulnerable road uses doesn't help.
Just last Monday afternoon while cycling up a slight incline, which would have probably been doing around the 20kph mark, on a country road a dopey woman in a jeep decided to pull out onto the road from a farmyard lane to my right, just as I was coming upon the spot. Ended up in the ditch on my ass. Unfortunately I was too busy falling to get her reg. And continued on her merry way. Could have been a lot worse I suppose.
But we can never be too careful; a tonne, tonne and a half of metal with ABS, airbags, and whatever other safety system they may have, V's a cyclist on a 10kg bike with a plastic helmet for protection???? Only one looser there I'm afraid.

rollingscone

Cycling is safe, but the better a cyclist you are the safer you are.

Since I have discovered you can't fix the motorists, these are the lessons I've learned since my first tremulous, cycle journey a couple of years back.

They have made me much much safer. The only thing that could make me much safer than this (apart from more mad skillz) would be mandatory fitness tests for those car dependent sloths.

Key points:
1. Awareness, always be aware of exits, traffic lights ahead (I've had a few close calls when the traffic int he city centre stopped in front of me in wet conditions and remember, the first rule of defensive cycling club is think of the stupidest most reckless thing a motorist/cyclist/pedestrian could do and assume that's what they will do.

Keep doing life savers (checking over your right shoulder) I find this helps a huge amount with point 2:

2. Spatial awareness and holding, resist the urge to melt into the left hand kerb when cars are passing you by.
It's one thing to be polite, it's another to reflexively jerk to the left as a car zooms by, this way lies madness and hitting the kerb/obstacle.

Get comfortable with passing close to stationary objects and cars and (gulp) buses passing close won't be such a pantfiller.

Hold your own on the road.

3. Power = Control: try and keep your drive train engaged (i.e. spinning and generating forward propulsion) so that you, rather than gravity or inertia are in control of the bike. This gives you a greater ability to deal with the unexpected.

4. Be comfortable with your feet off the ground. I can't trackstand but I do try to stay sitting or standing on the pedals for as long as I can before setting foot on the tarmac. If you're comfortable balancing on the bike you are again more in control and able to deal with surprises.

5. Don't be an idiot*. Red light jumping, Salmon cycling and ninjitsu (as well as footpath cycling by anyone who is not under 12/over70/disabled or accompanying same all contribute to the bad conditions cycling in Dublin traffic.

Motorists not being able to predict where cyclists will come from discourages them from thinking about us as normal road users and gives them licence to say "sure if they don't have to obey the rules...".

Also, don't be a hazard to other cyclists, check over your shoulder before overtaking.

*There's some young lad cycling to Belfield most days at the moment on an MTB that literally screams continuously on its dark red drivetrain, I saw him hit another cyclist by undertaking and then suddenly jinking right around a car.

t'bear

Was approaching work location this morning, exiting a roundabout and on the centre of the left line on the exit, car comes from the exit to my left, speeding by the looks of it (ie not slowing), goes onto my left and as she passes I see her on her mobile. I took the reg number - she seemed completely oblivious to my presence.

rp

what rollingscone said ^^^, all good advice.
I did read something recently that seems a bit contradictory, by Grant Petersen, but it might be true:

"Don't be predictable! Well, I mean that research has shown that motorists give wider birth to bicyclists who are wobbly and don't look they know exactly what they're doing, so if you want a bit more room, look noobish."

SerialComplaint

Mugser wrote: »

Just last Monday afternoon while cycling up a slight incline, which would have probably been doing around the 20kph mark, on a country road a dopey woman in a jeep decided to pull out onto the road from a farmyard lane to my right, just as I was coming upon the spot. Ended up in the ditch on my ass. Unfortunately I was too busy falling to get her reg. And continued on her merry way. Could have been a lot worse I suppose.

I had a similar one this week - bit of a skid to stop, but managed to keep my ass on the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPhtduHV4s

She just shrugged her shoulders and drove off.

The Big Lebowsky

SerialComplaint wrote: »

I had a similar one this week - bit of a skid to stop, but managed to keep my ass on the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPhtduHV4s

She just shrugged her shoulders and drove off.

Good job at least one of you were wide awake. Ive had a few close calls myself over the years. Will be investing in good a helmet cam myself soon. Apparently PVR footage its admissible as evidence in court, only if the camera has a date and time stamp...Yours has this, but many cameras don't have this function

SerialComplaint

The Big Lebowsky wrote: »

Will be investing in good a helmet cam myself soon. Apparently PVR footage its admissible as evidence in court, only if the camera has a date and time stamp...Yours has this, but many cameras don't have this function

Mine is very cheap yoke, from 7dayshop - less that €20 iirc. There is no on-board clock, so I have to keep resetting the date and time. I found a little app to write the text file with the date and time, but it seemed to only work half the time. Now I just don't bother, and all my vids are dated 1/1/2008.

I haven't seen any hard rules about whether such vids would be accepted as evidence. To be honest, my experiences in reporting stuff to the Gardai has been fairly poor, so now I just don't bother. Nice to know I have a visual record available if something big did happen.

alphabeat

Zyzz wrote: »

weaved*

get a life

happytramp

alphabeat wrote: »

get a life

I happen to know this user leads a very fulfilling life. It mostly consists of logging onto web forums to read peoples rants about what happened them on the way to work that day.