Near Misses Volume 2 (So close you can feel it)

Remind me - legally what can or can't motorists do with the various bike "lanes". I know there are different types of lanes, but are cars ever allowed to park in them, even temporarily? Sometimes I'm tempted to shout at people parked up in bike lanes but hold off in case I'm wrong and they're allowed to park out of hours or something.

Car stopped indicating left with a wheel on the pavement here this morning blocking the bike lane, I signal to move out and to go around and while still indicating left they make a U-turn, I stop in the middle of the road and they tell me to have some patience!! I tried to explain they were blocking a cycle lane, parked opposite a white line and making a u-turn on the crest of a hill but it was all my fault! I cycled around them and then realized I hadn't turned my camera on! I'd a near miss with an An Post van 5 minutes later I'll review and see if its worth posting when I get home.

An Post this morning facing the wrong direction, opposite a white line on a bad bend, starts indicating as I'm approaching then pulls across in front of me then stops, to pull in on the wrong side again!! https://streamable.com/q6038b I'm going to send this to their fleet office for comment.

Seeing as we're talking about mandatory cycle lanes and their abuse, the silver polo straddled the lane for at least 1km as for the red car this is a common occurrence at this location usually saving just seconds if anything as there are lights at the top https://streamable.com/ykzxv6

The only problem with it is that the phase between orange and red for the cycle lane is really short. slower cyclists (my wife for example) often struggle to clear the junction as you are also going uphill. You could go through on green and just about make it before the main traffic starts moving again. I did email the council about it shortly after the lights went in. It was on my daily commute but not anymore so I haven't checked it recently. Maybe it has improved.

So all this pent up anger at motorists pulling into non-mandatory cycle lanes has been misdirected. Should be pointing the finger at the engineers!

It will actually make my commutes a lot less stress inducing if I just tell myself that the driver is not in the wrong here. All those years of dirty looks at them were for nought!

It’s likely that I would have experienced a sudden bout of exhaustion immediately after passing the red car, causing me to slow down in the cycle lane.

It’s in the hopes that they can miraculously slip up the inside of the lane, despite the fact there’s zero chance of there being enough room. See it all the time in East Wall, single lane that has a filter light for left turn, so if there’s any car turning right they’re getting stuck behind it, but drivers insist on making sure they’re as far over to the left as is absolutely possible

It took me a little while to find someone in An Post to complain to, I didn't have time to try their live chat in hours so resorted to guessing email address and the way back machine to find addresses! In true Irish fashion, the response I got came from an address with an auto responder configured to say it was unmonitored!! That aside they couldn't have been more professional I got two calls to apologize one from the driver's immediate manager to say it was taken very seriously and was far below what was expected. I thanked them for the reply and said I'd be happy if they were shown the clip from my perspective and realized the dangers of their driving/parking.

After my own incident, can empathise with arriving over the handlebars. Funny how quick you can stop a bike at times!