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

Dumbfounded today by this old wan who decided it was fine to swerve onto my side of the road to pass out a cyclist. And still not giving 1 metre space. I had to come to a dead stop to avoid collision. It's just the case that some drivers seem to panic when they have to deal with slow moving cyclists. Granted he was hugging the kerb, and may have discouraged this pass if he'd been more assertive and owned the lane. FYI, this area next to Cahir Castle is due to be redeveloped - the whole stretch should be made pedestrian priority, only a matter of time until some tourist is injured.

Fair play, most people ignore stuff to get on with their day. Gardai don't like to be interested if it doesn't directly involve you as a victim I've noticed so hopefully the driver pursues it.

To this day I still remember the time I came off the bike at ~40kph once and landed off to the side at a junction of a housing estate and cars just drove past because I wasn't in their way. Had to crawl off the road and call my mam to come get me. I was more angry than hurt!

There was a dash cam video doing the rounds a couple of years ago, where a car was stopped at a junction somewhere in the city centre. Some scrote slowly cycled off the footpath, hit the car and collapsed on the ground. The occupants, who weren't shy themselves, started shouting at him that they had the whole thing on video, whereupon he made a miraculous recovery and walked away.

Yep there are some who don't think they're doing anything wrong, and there are some who want to put manners on you.

I think that's a large part of it alright... goes back to why hugging the kerb is a bad habit to start off on, even though for some new/ very casual commuter cyclists it may seem like the safe/ correct option. Bad drivers (in my experience) just take it as the cyclist accepting their inferior status and as an implied invitation to squeeze past.

Agree completely.

That driver was annoyed you came up the inside and "got in his way". Made sure to give you an extra squeeze with the trailer as he passed. Very few people towing trailers about the place are poor at observation (with the exception of many horsebox towers).

And yep hugging the kerb also allows bad drivers to think they'll "fit" past you.

Luckily its been awhile but I just had to post two useless must get in fronts driver I had in one day. Was able to eyeball the Jones Engineering driver for another 30 sec after the clip till I turned away to work.

The line of traffic was visible from a long way back. No reason to this

*Edited with better links

Did similar myself outside doing the school drop off this morning.

Gave the mother and daughter a cheery "Hello" as they took up the whole bike path to create 4 abreast across the path and bike path.

Scooted around the grass. Sure what harm.

Some people just want to be upset....

Assuming you weren't flying past them I don't see the issue. I've done it myself a few times on shared pedestrian/bike paths when they're ignorant to their surroundings. I slow right down as I'm on a road bike.

I happened to be on my bike which does not (yet) have a bell. I always ring it on my hybrid.

Is there a bell you can get that you can put beside the gear shifters on a road bike? Part of the reason I don't have one on that bike is because the only ones I can find you have to position on the horizontal bar. I'd have to take my hand off the brakes to ring it, which isn't the most ideal or safest.

Trigger bell, basically a bell with a cable tie like attachment so you can stick it around the shifter hood

Thoughts on this pass from this morning, please?

Front view:

Rear view:

I thought it was particularly bad but I know the people in the red car that came around the bend towards us, and I asked them about it this evening. They didn't even recall having noticed it.

Thanks both. This is part of a 1km stretch which has 5 blind bends, with 4 reasonably straight stretches between them, but which has a solid white line the whole way. I know that nobody is going to stay behind me for the whole 1km so I normally move towards the centre approaching the bends and move back into the side on the straights. It's mostly the same drivers every day, some are my neighbours and some are rat-runners. I like to think I'm training them to wait for the straights to overtake me (and others).😉

Yesterday morning I was further in than I would normally be at that point. Maybe because I didn't want to start moving out as the van was passing and I could then see the oncoming car and didn't expect the Ford would try to overtake.

I guess what I'm asking is what people's thoughts are on the likely outcome if I report this one to Traffic Watch?