OT: New driving laws and cyclists etc

Agreed, if she didn't have clipped-on pedals she could have just stuck her foot down.

You're supposed to leave 1.5m when passing a cyclist. I think they have just made this the law, or changed the highway code or something.

I think this is because, unlike a car, cyclists move from side to side, and are more at risk in a collision.

You can think of it a bit like you shouldn't tail gate cars because they may stop suddenly.

You have to be careful of horses too.

Did you watch the video? The vehicle and cyclist were approaching each other, not the vehicle overtaking the cyclist, the vehicle had pulled *right* to the verge.

I didn't watch the video, but am perfectly certain the cyclist was at fault here.

there was always an unwritten rule when overtaking cyclists that you give them room to fall off.

No objections from me.

And it's not an overtaking manoeuvre as per the news article - useless journos.

TMH's spirit agrees with you:-)

THM's

the vehicle wasn't 'passing' a cyclist, he was travelling in the opposite direction with no possibility of leaving a 1.5metre gap.

I assume that neither the front cyclist nor rear cyclist (who was taking the video) fell off, only the one in the middle. I wonder why.

Having said that, the driver was going too fast.

As it says in the article, the correct action would have been to stop until the cyclists were past. That road simply wasn't wide enough for a Land Rover at speed to pass oncoming cyclists safely. Had the cyclist wobbled the other way, it could have ended up as a fatal collision.

And travelling too fast.

The driver passed the cyclist. He didn't slow down. It was dangerous.

What would you think if it were a horse, instead of a cyclist?

Right first time surely? ;-)

Tim

My impression from watching the video is that the Land Rover was not going dangerously fast. Maybe a few mph more than he should but not dramatically. And the clearance from the cyclist who fell over was nowhere near touching her. It looks more that 1.5 metres, but it's difficult to tell from a video. Sadly the camera panned away at the crucial moment, but the cyclist seemed to fall over after the car had passed her, maybe (just maybe) because she took one hand off her handlebars to gesticulate at him. And did she fall off completely because she was riding with shoes that clipped to the pedals and couldn't disengage them quickly enough when she stopped?

On narrow roads I tend to pull over if it looks as if there may not be much room for oncoming cyclists. I probably err on the side of caution. And as a cyclist I tend to look out for gateways to pull into, so if I reach a pulling-over spot first, *I* can be the one who waits. When I'm driving or cycling, I hope that the other person will be able to pull over first, but I'm prepared by looking ahead in case I'm the one who happens to get to a passing place first. I get the impression that cyclists assume that the oncoming car/lorry should *always* be the one to pull over, even if the cyclist has a pulling-off spot that they could use (*). I tend to give a left-turn signal if I can see I've got a passing place close to me (just as I flash my left indicator when driving) to tell the oncoming driver "I can stop here, so you keep coming".

When cycling, I also try to be aware if there is a car coming up behind me, so I can pull over to let him past, if I know that I won't be able to cycle as fast as he will want to drive. Sadly there is a band of cyclists who don't do that. I once followed a racing cyclist along a twisty lane with high dry-stone walls on both sides. On the straights, he didn't move over (I probably wanted to do 10-20 mph faster than him) and he only pulled over immediately before blind bends. At one bend he gestured frantically for me to overtake, probably fed up that I'd not already overtaken at all the (stupid) places where he'd pulled over, but I'd already spotted the red roof of a Royal Mail van which was about to come round the bend; the cyclist was "taller" than my car and would have had an even better view, so it was very remiss of him to signal me to overtake when he must have been able to see that I would hit the oncoming car if I'd trusted him. Moral: trust no-one! If I can't overtake, I may think evil thoughts (inwardly) but I try to be patient and keep down to their speed until I can see that I really am safe.

(*) Part of the belief that "I'm a cyclist. I shouldn't have to stop for anything. Zebra crossings and red traffic lights don't apply to me." Sadly it only take a few idiots like that to give all cyclists an undeserved bad reputation.

That's what I was taught 60+ years ago.

I would tend to slow down and pass more widely for a horse than for a cyclist, because horses are more likely to get spooked by situations that cyclists can rationalise. (*) I tend to wait until the horse-rider had looked behind him/her, so as to show that they are aware of me, and I am guided by any signal that they may give - either beckoning me on or holding up a hand to say "stay back". One horse might be fine with a car passing a couple of metres away while another might not tolerate even a vehicle that gives plenty of room. I assume that young riders, especially when accompanied by an older rider, may be "learner drivers" and so will need greater clearance.

I once followed a horse rider and she pulled onto a verge and stopped, and waved me on. So I drove past slowly, giving plenty of clearance, and the horse skittered sideways, first towards me and then half-way down a ditch. I stopped a safe distance beyond to check that everything was OK, and the horse rider was very apologetic: she had forgotten that the horse she was riding (not her normal horse) was scared-stiff of traffic. But she was glad I'd taken the trouble to stop and check.

(*) What I mean by this is I give cyclists wide clearance, and horses even wider clearance, maybe hanging back for a horse when I might have overtaken a cyclist.

If you look at a picture of the Land Rover after it has gone by, you can see the road is just not wide enough to have allowed 1.5m, basically he should have stopped and let the cyclists pass him.

I think the gesticulation was from the third cyclist. Also, the "clipped pedals" is the type of story dreamt up by someone who doesn't ride using that type of pedal. I can't be sure, but my guess would be she fell over because the verge dropped away a couple of inches. She tried to put her foot down and there wasn't anything there, when she expected it, so she toppled over.