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

Thanks for posting, good piece. Reading the initial dangerous driving report (link posted in above article) I note she has an update that upon appeal the conviction was reduced to "careless driving", 5 penalty points and a €500 fine. Goes to show it's near impossible to get a dangerous driving conviction in ireland.

Not fun. I got a bee stuck behind my sunglasses coming off the Galibier last year - thankfully not the steeper bit of it, but still doing about 60 admiring the view. I did get stung, and to this day have no idea how I managed to stop and didn't go off the edge/over the bars or come to some other horrible form of cropper

Yeah but but but you should've been in the cycle lane...

And I bet you weren't wearing hi-viz either.

I haven't seen any statement that he wasn't signalling. Be that as it may, while I'll personally always try to use hand signals entering or on a roundabout when safe to do so. being able to take evasive action and/or brake to avoid a stupid prick will always trump waving my hands at said stupid prick who will almost certainly ignore them anyway.

That's an utter shocker. What's particularly bad is that the truck is already passing 2 cyclists on the other side who should have been visible to the bell-end in the red car. The truck should really have been giving more space as well which would have closed the door if done in a timely manner and I suspect having left it too late MGIF had already started the manouever (the truck does swerve out later) - and there's an oncoming car. They need the book thrown at them

A threat or advice ? I have no legal background so feel free to correct me, but would it be the case that once the video evidence is submitted along with a statement the Gardai are obliged to follow up on any other illegal acts that the footage shows ? The clip shows the driver is clearly in the wrong, but what else happened before that or how did the cyclist behave when they decided to block traffic and "marshall" the driver back out of the bus lane ?

I'm sure the driver and their solicitor would insist that the cyclist be charged with any offences they may have committed in the full footage.

Perhaps he was done the favor of being advised of the legal action he might face if the evidence was submitted, and given the choice of pursuing it or dropping it. Or maybe, as some have suggested he was threatened with retaliation for making the Gardai do their job. I've had limited experience with the Gardai in my life, but I've never been given the impression that they would rather make threats against me than do their duty.

Just my 2 cents based on the info I saw in the linked post.

Is it just me, or is that video now no longer available

If he changed his road positioning he would run out of footage and wouldn't be able to rage post on Twitter all week :D I'm all for highighting the poor and dangerous actions of drivers / cyclists / pedestrians that we all experience but many of the dedicated posters on Twitter seem to thrive on the attention and over react by aggressivly chasing drivers, getting into aguments with them etc. I've watched some of their video's (can't remember if it was the chap linked above) and they've been outright dangerous in their pursuit of the "offending" driver and seemed to care about nothing other than catching up and gettting into a confrontation. They will defend their "right" to do so in the comments and refuse to acknowledge that any of their own actions were dangerous. I think many of these posters make cyclists look just as bad as the drivers.

You are spot on with the road positioning. I used to be guilty of sticking to the inside edge of the lane etc, but after getting knocked off on a roundabout a few months back I have started taking a much more assertive position on narrow roads / roundabouts and at junctions. It has made a noticeable difference with cars approaching from behind and also puts me in a better position to react to drivers pulling out in front of me. Roundabouts are still dodgy as 99% of people seem to have no idea how to navigate them :D.