Any good advice (or links) about Cycling safety in Traffic would be gratefully received.
Lots of posts on specific points here but there are some more widely applicable points to make. First, though, a bit about my road c.v.:
Just back from a 4000km
tour of western Europe with my wife and our baby daughter; I cycle-commuted for several years in and around Edinburgh and still use the bike for daily transport; keen MTBer. Former volunteer with Sustrans. I’ve also taken a couple of cycle leader training courses and helped out on group rides in the past. Twenty-plus years driving artics; car and motorbike licences since 17 yrs old; I used to race motorbikes.
Now for the advice:
First point: try to make sure you have a clear picture of what’s happening all around you and for as far ahead and behind as you can see. With a clear picture of what’s going on you will be able to keep yourself out of trouble. How you do that is the second point.
Second point: be positive. Think about each hazard before you get to it (if you find yourself without sufficient time to respond to a hazard than you were likely either going too fast or were not looking far enough ahead), plan your response to the hazard in plenty of time, inform other road users of your intentions if you need to and then carry out your planned manoeuvre. A quick example: you spot a pedestrian refuge half-way along a street into which you have just turned. You are in a twenty zone and are late for work so you’re making good progress; there is therefore not much difference between your speed and that of the cars around you. You can see that the refuge creates a pinch point: there isn’t room for a car and a bike to pass it at the same time so your plan is to move to the centre of your lane in order to prevent cars trying to squeeze through in-between you and the refuge. On approach you keep a check on cars behind you and when you see a suitable gap you move across, having both signalled to, and made eye-contact with, the driver of the nearest car behind you. After the hazard you check over your near-side shoulder and move back to your normal position, preferably thanking the driver with a brief wave as you do so. Clearly, if your check behind reveals a psychopath doing 50mph in a laden artic you’ll likely stop rather than attempt your planned manoeuvre, which leads me to point three:
Third point: never ever insist on your rights. If the other guy is stupid enough to cut you up/otherwise endanger you then sticking to your rights is unlikely to make him see sense and if the worst happens then the fact that you were in the right will be of little consolation when you wake up in the back of the ambulance. (Maritime law has this one dead right: if you are involved in a collision when you were in the right but could have taken avoiding action then you are just as much to blame as the guy who was ‘in the wrong’.)
Fourth point: every rule has exceptions (apart from this one, of course). I’m really talking here about the kind of rule given to cyclists in books such as Cyclecraft, rather than traffic laws. The general message is to adapt intelligently to the circumstances rather than rigidly following some notional ‘best practice’. Incidentally, speaking of Cyclecraft, whilst there’s some worthwhile reading here the book is far from faultless. In particular the tone is sometimes a little too combative—see point three.
Last point: enjoy it! You can be a responsible rider and still have fun. At the very least you should have a warmly smug glow caused by the thousands of pounds you’re saving yourself and the good turn your doing for everyone else on the road by not driving a car to work. Not to mention the global environmental benefits and very possibly the good to your heart as well (shame about the lungs, choke, splutter).
I hope this helps.
