Britbike forum Forums General discussion The Rod and Tappet Be Careful Out There!

Paying more attention to her phone than to traffic on a crowded highway!? Sorry but I have no tolerance for such stupidity. That's why they have Darwin Awards.
Sounds like you were trying to avoid a squirrel, constantly changing directions. Glad you are okay.

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

As a pedestrian or on the road you should never go when someone beckons you on. Only go when you see it is safe. The amount of times I have been beckoned on by someone in two lane traffic when there is someone else racing up in the other lane. I don't like being beckoned on when I am waiting to come out of a side road when it is their right of way. It makes me feel uneasy and confuses the matter.

Mobile phones are a menace on the road.

It is a shame the tooting your horn has become a sign of anger rather than a warning but it is still a good idea if you don't trust what someone is up to.

Dave

I can’t see where you say what speed you were doing.

Perhaps you are wise not to.

Gosh, when I posted this I didn't expect The Spanish Inquisition into my apparent reckless riding.


Its a 40 limit and I never exceed it on that stretch as its in town in the UK. I had rolled off the throttle as there is a roundabout coming up (irrespective of the proximity of pedestrians). So an estimated 30 at the point she stepped out. Using google Earth I estimate the distance from impact to me being stationary was circa 8m to 9m at most so (luckily for her) I couldn't have been going that fast at the point of contact.

Have you ever met someone coming towards you when walking along a corridor or on a stairway and you both dodge the same way to avoid each other and then both dodge the opposite way to avoid each other again with the end result you end both up in front of each other face to face. Well, as I explained in the first post and again further down, that was the situation here and verified to the police by the numerous witnesses (including an off duty Paramedic).

The point of my post was just to say be careful because sometimes other road users do unbelievably dumb things.

It was said earlier that maybe I learned something from the incident. The answer is of course I did, I learn stuff every day.

Plus I have learnt from this post that whenever there is a pedestrian next to the highway I need to slow down and ride at walking pace to ensure that if they step out literally under my front wheel I am able to stop before I hit them.

I guess I need to re adjust my commute time from 35 mins to 3 hours each way.

John

I used to commute on a Honda CD185 fitted with a pair of megaphone "silencers" . Pedestrians used to look past me to try and see where the powerful, speeding motorcycle was.

The point of my post was just to say be careful because sometimes other road users do unbelievably dumb things.

A couple of years back I was out for a ride on my WM20 I was riding on a main road following a van which turned left at a a crossroads next thing I know there was a cyclist in my path in the middle of my lane I side swiped the bike which broke the frame and injured the cyclists leg my first words to him were where the f*ck did you come from, it was like he had been dropped from the sky straight in front of me my reactions were to brake hard causing the wheels to lock mostly rear. Turns out he had earplugs and also had both his feet locked into caliper style peddles so when he saw the van he just kept going instead of looking both ways for traffic because it was a pain to stop to remove his feet from the peddles (his words). I later found out he was a member of the police force and they tried there hardest to blame me for the accident, like saying I was overtaking at a crossroads , skid marks confirmed I was.nt , even tried to nick me for no insurance as I have a riders policy with several bikes on but only has the one main bike reg named which was,nt the WM20, should of seen their faces when I produced my docs. There was no way I could of avoided this A**hole. I have total sympathy with John on this one we all have to ride defensively but not a snails pace to avoid the idiots outhere.. Dave

Bicycling asses run stop signs (and even LIGHTS) all the time.
It's gotten so bad here that the mayor of a town in my area has ordered the police to ticket every one of them they catch doing it.

George.....I probably came off as condescending and if I did, I apologize.

I don't live in the city. So I had a hard time picturing putting myself in your situation.

Comparing a deer running out of the woods to a woman standing at the curb......does not make any sense to me. I live in the woods.....you are asking for trouble if you DON'T slow down when a deer is standing on the side of the road.

That woman was in the wrong.

My point is/was.......you saw her, lets say by the time you noticed her and could see she was distracted she was 100' from you. It takes you 2 seconds to cover that 100' at 40 miles an hour. IF......when you noticed her you had slowed down to 10 mph......you'd do 100' in 7 seconds.

You lost 5 seconds by slowing down to 10 mph until you were past her.

(disclaimer......the math probably isn't exact but it's close enough)

PLEASE don't take this as the wrong way........it's just the way I look at it.

I've always enjoyed your posts......still will. If we were sitting across the table at dinner......I'd be saying the same thing. It wouldn't change a thing.

Hopefully our paths will cross one day............and I promise I'll give you plenty of warning.

George—- I sympathise with you— there are people out there with no road sense who go through life as though they are due a charmed existence.
Yes— if you go slower you might avoid some accidents.
Although if you go slower than the stream of traffic you probably cause some accidents.
We truly have to behave as if other people are idiots.
On the other hand we all live busy lives and need to go places.
There is no going back 500 years to the time when most folks had to walk to get anywhere.
I guess the sensible approach is to go at a speed which is sensible in the circumstances — particularly when other people are about with cell phones walking or driving.
No easy answer— we all have to find the right balance for ourselves.
Just my two cents worth of course.

Unaccompanied children, loose dogs and cats are bad, I find. They could do almost anything. I was going along behind a child on a pushbike who was riding at the edge of the road. I kept behind him. He signalled left with his arm but turned right in front of me!

Dave

dave j, that happened because you people in England drive on the wrong side of the road.

I don't think anybody was trying to single out women on their phones, everybody is just as bad. Where I live we have light rail transit and over the last few years a few people have been killed by walking in front of the LRT completely immersed in their phone. I've followed car and truck drivers I thought were drunk,no they were texting.To me you have to ride as if everybody is trying to kill you because some of them are.

I just hang a gremlin bell off the rear axle and ride like a lunatic.

Fair enough, thanks Gordon.

I dont live in the city either, although I do commute to the city for work.

Where I live isn't as rural as some places in the USA but for the UK its pretty quiet. My nearest neighbour is 1/4 mile away and having deer wander around on our lawn is not uncommon.

UK roads are generally narrower than USA roads. The lane of the road where it happened is about 11 feet wide so it only takes two strides for someone to be almost in the middle of the lane.

I mentioned the incident to some work colleagues and one of them recalled the following situation he witnessed:

"I was on my way into work (pre covid) from the bus stop I have to cross over the road at the end of Fishergate* (two pelican crossings** with a centre “refuge”). I watched a young woman approach one of these, on her phone, press the button and wait. She was so engrossed in her phone that she failed to notice the lights had changed and the traffic (bus) had stopped 5 feet away from her. She only noticed it had stopped when she looked up, realised she was about to miss the crossing and then ran across the road in front of the bus as it moved off (as the lights had changed back), giving the bus driver a heart attack."

* = A road in the city of York
** = A pedestrian crossing where the pedestrian presses a button and a traffic light stops traffic and a red or green signal tells the pedestrian when the can cross.


John

Some of the towns in my area have those pedestrian crossing lights.

Problem is: many of those buttons don't work, and never get repaired.

In Tennessee pedestrians have the right of way where there is a marked crosswalk and no other traffic signal. But this situation only exists in small towns and tourist destinations. There is such a crosswalk in front of the courthouse here.
One still must be careful to avoid cars driven by those who don't understand this law.

Agreed, whether they are or not. That's how I ride.

A quick look at an intelligence bell curve advises us that half the earth's population is below average intelligence and many of those are very much below average. Ride safe.

And compounding the problem is that in a recent survey over 95% of drivers considered that their driving skills were "above average"!