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

That's a good result. Fair play for the effort in following up. Good to hear a positive experience with the Gardai. Hopefully the stress of having Gardai knock on his door, having to engage solicitor and barrister, deal with the paperwork, take time off work to attend court, wonder if a Judge will come down like a tonne of bricks, the cost of defending the prosecution and the fine, and the penalty points and the endorsement on his record, the impact on his insurance premium will give him pause to think next time he decides to treat the roads as his personal race track.

I had that one day. Was on one of the Dublin bikes and a guy in a work van did a very dangerous manoeuvre. He just started shouting at me that I had no high vis or helmet. It is just deflection and being unable to accept responsibility of their actions. Fairly minor issue in your case so bit weird that she made an issue of it.

On the bell issue I tend to give it a ring when well back to alert people of my presence. 9 times out of 10 they have headphones on or head in phone and they don't hear it or react.

They could say the same thing.

She's legally not required to be aware of her surroundings if she's operating a mobile phone whilst walking. He's clearly visually impaired - hence the sunglasses on such a gloomy day.

as an aside, amazing quality footage… have heard mixed reviews about cycliq cameras - has reliability improved in recent times? A bike camera is next on my shopping list

You’d be wrong.

46. (1) A pedestrian shall exercise care and take all reasonable precautions in order to avoid causing danger or inconvenience to traffic and other pedestrians.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1997/si/182/made/en/print#article49

Your argument would be correct if I had moved off from stationary and they were already crossing per:

(2) When starting from a stationary position a driver shall yield the right of way to other traffic and pedestrians.

I was always taught that when approaching a junction if there are pedestrians already crossing, they have the right of way. (BBut It may have said uncontrolled junction, I just treat all the same)

Is that saying the driver must act in accordance with the bye laws, or the pedestrians?

One that didn't involve me for once. Anyone who knows this stretch knows it's lethal for drivers pulling out across the cycle lane without looking.

Look for the cyclist coming in the opposite direction (with the flashing light). The Audi pulls straight out across his path and collides with the cyclist. The actual collision looks to be minor - presumably because the cyclist got on his brakes asap.

I didn't actually realise at the time they the two had collided, I thought she had just cut him off and the two were having words.

Notice though how the driver gets out and immediately starts berating the cyclist for the collision - eventhough she is very clearly in the wrong. This is the mindset we are up against daily. Could you imagine the same collision but with two cars? The driver who had pulled out on the road wouldn't even dream of blaming traffic already on the road.

They really should have a stop sign before the cycle lane, not that excuses her from what she did.

In fairness, a) he was probably surprised by someone pulling straight out like that… usually you can spot them as they slowly nudge out, and b) given how forcefully she drove straight out into the bike lanes he possible expected that she would continue on and clear the lane in time for him to pass. Split seconds, he may have made the call not to haul on the brakes to accommodate the ignorant cow.