penexpers

So every day on my 8 mile ride to and from work there is at least one (and often times) more times when I'm nearly run over by cars. I'm in Dublin, Ireland and driver education is not the best around here and it's pretty glaringly obvious that this is the case.

Anyway this morning, I was cycling down the road at a reasonable (20mph) speed and there's a left turn. I cycle this road every day so I'm familiar with it. Anyway, a car wants to make this left turn so the driver decides the best thing to do is to overtake me about 10 metres from the turn and then try to turn in front of me. The law here states that a cyclist on the inside has right of way in situations like this but this was lost on this driver and by the time she realised that I wasn't going to stop there was about 3 inches between the car's bumper and me.

I couldn't help but notice 2 things
1. it was a learner driver.
2. it was a nervous driver.

I think these two things combined caused her to make this amateur mistake and nearly caused a pretty serious accident.

substructure

Same darn thing happened to me one day. Lady bolts in front of me and slams on her brakes to make a right turn. I Conan my brakes to avoid hitting her bumper and tip over when I couldn't unclip in time after losing my balance. As soon as I hit the ground she turns and leaves me there. I finish my ride home bleeding and shaken up. I couldn't get a plate number or anything because she was in such a hurry to leave me for dead.

gear

Ah, the famous "Right Hook" maneuver or "Left Hook" for those of you on the other side of the pond.

Funny how you no longer exist once you are out of a drivers' peripheral vision, its like magic, poof their gone.

jyossarian

I try not to hug the right or left curb when approaching an intersection because of the possibility of right & left hooks. Instead I take the lane until I'm past the intersection. If someone speeds ahead of me, I pull out behind them to pass them on the non-turning side. Doesn't always work, but it works most times.

A_Str8

Errrr, you do know that law or no law, if you guys had hit, you would have gotten the bad end of the bargain, right? I'm really hoping you weren't going to stop because you didn't know she was going to turn, though it didn't sound lik ethat from the way you explained things.

When riding, you have to deal with unpredictable peestrians AND drivers. At intersections, I always pay attention to the cars around me so I can figure out who's going straight and who's turning so i don't end up in anyone's way or being surprised when someone cuts me off. When I took driver's Ed, I was taught to hover my foot over the break when i came to intersections. The same works for biking - be ready to stop.

JeffS

No driver training you say?

You should come to this country and see how little training/testing it takes to get a license.

alanfleisig

Don't mean to jack this post, but I think I may have just inherited a house in Kerry. From a pure road cyclinlg point of view, do I want to move to Ireland?

penexpers

No probs

I don't have too much experience of cycling in Kerry, but I get the impression the roads would be alot quieter than up in Dublin so alot better for cycling. I'm fairly sure there's a few active cycling clubs down that way too, I'll see if I can dig up some info.

The Figment

When I got my DL I took my road test in Arizona...once around the block,never broke 12 MPH,and in Az.you only have to test once in your life,a dl is good from the time you are 16 till your are 65!! All that is required is that you update your photo every 12 years.
This is in a state that has a 75 MPH speed limit,more old folk than Carter has liver pills,and SnowBirds in RV's that are blind as bats!!

AggieWheeler08

Very true. I was almost in my first bike-ped collision today on campus. I was traveling down the bike lane and a girl blindly stepped off the sidewalk, into the bikelane a few feet in front of me. After she had stepped in, she saw me coming at her at about 20 mph and just froze. I grabbed my front brake and leaned my bike to the side to miss her by maybe an inch or so. She kinda looked back at her friend and laughed, but an inch the other way and she would have gotten a bar end right in her stomach.

So yeah, people are unpredictable.

penexpers

That's what irks me the most - when pedestrians don't reliase how close to being seriously injured they have come. I once nearly ran over a guy who crossed the road at traffic lights when they were green. I said a gentle "Please pay attention in future, you could have been seriously hurt." and he responded with a long line of explitives (sp?)

UmneyDurak

Oh hell, drivers around here are even worse. I was making a left turn. There is a blind turn few hundred feet ahead. I was about to cross the double yellow line when I was hit by a car. Apparently this lady decided it was perfectly ok to pass me on the left, crossing a double yellow line, with upcoming blind turn! She did stop, but already came up with rational about how it wasn't her fault in her little crazy head. Worst part there were people at a stop sign, who just elfing drove away. So no witnesses of her idiotic behavior that almost got me killed.
This is going to piss a lot of people off, but around here the worst drivers are (in the order from worst to "best"), asian women, women, everyone else.

penexpers

Hah, I agree with this statement.

AGGRO

License? Who needs a license? We got 20 million non-US folks here so guess 2 of 4 don't have a license. We don't need no stinkin license.

A_Str8

And the descent into ignorance begins. I'm surprised you didn't preface that with "I'm not racist but..."

DataJunkie

100% of all horrible drivers are human.
Ha!

chipcom 

So you're saying Zsa Zsa Gabor is human?

DataJunkie

How about

UmneyDurak

Just call it as I see it. Most of the time when I see people doing stupid stuff behind a car it's woman. I see males and other races do a lot of stupid stuff also, but on average it's usually Asian women.
Besides if you want to get technical my post was sexist not racist. lol.

bikedaddy

I'm not some crazy feminist but perhaps the reason you only see bad women drivers is because you only choose to see those particular bad drivers. Here in the land of soccer mom I've seen plenty of horrible male drivers.

UmneyDurak

It is possible. Plus my view is probably skewed because two times I was hit by a car, and three or four occasions that I cam came really really close (and I am not talking about buzing) it was woman driving. I have seen male and other ethnicity's do some dumb ass stuff also. Chances are if I someone is tail gating me and I look in to my rear view mirror it's some white guy.

CTAC

I was riding around the neighbourhood today pulling a trailer with two daughters an my son and my wife riding behind. We were crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing very slowly when this person would not even slow down, almost hit me, even though she could clearly see us passing.

ECDkeys

This morning I had a driver pass me on my left so that she could turn right into a driveway just fifty feet ahead of us. She signalled, stopped in her lane to wait for me to pass. The fact that she did this persuaded me to stop and wave for her to complete her turn. (I didn't want to pass on her left as there was oncoming traffic.) At least she knew of the possibility of the right hook.

Cyclepath

I've never had a problem with any female drivers but one in 40 years of riding. They are always, always, under 40 white males, usually driving pickups. I ride only on side streets now because its just too dangerous on the road here & there is little policing. I got at least one near miss almost every time i went out on the main arteries.

And these were never in peak traffic times since i avoided those; there was no good reason for them to be coming near the shoulder. A very high proportion of the incidents were deliberate IMO. The section i refer to has 4 wide lanes & this type would normally be in the fast lane.

UmneyDurak

Well in your neck of the woods it's white guys that are the worst drivers. Every place has their own "worst drivers".