So today I'm approaching a crossroads with traffic lights that I ride straight through nearly every day. It's the crossing between the main ring road and secondary road. I ride straight over on the secondary.
Now, there are ASLs at the lights and a filter lane on the left. Normally I would approach lights like these in primary position and filter on the right if necessary. But for this one I've dropped into secondary as I'm just about to get in the filter lane (the lights have just turned red).
This is the point at which an idiot a car in front of me decides to pull fully on to the pavement on the left. First thing that crosses my mind is "door zone". So a quick shoulder check and I begin to move back into primary. Now this moron hasn't given me enough time to move completely back to primary so I'm going to pass him a little closer than I would have liked but I can actually see the driver at this point so think he *must* have seen me.
Thinking that was the stupidest thing I've done today as the idiot slams it straight into reverse without looking and reverses round the corner into a private driveway. The nose of the car is fully across the filter lane and considerably into the main lane. Luckily I only have to move a bit to miss the nose. If I'd have stayed in the filter lane I probably would've bounced off the car and be half way across the road into traffic.
So yeah, just my personal experience of riding defensively paying off. Lesson learnt: you *never* know what idiots are going to do.
Now, there are ASLs at the lights and a filter lane on the left. Normally I would approach lights like these in primary position and filter on the right if necessary. But for this one I've dropped into secondary as I'm just about to get in the filter lane (the lights have just turned red).
This is the point at which an idiot a car in front of me decides to pull fully on to the pavement on the left. First thing that crosses my mind is "door zone". So a quick shoulder check and I begin to move back into primary. Now this moron hasn't given me enough time to move completely back to primary so I'm going to pass him a little closer than I would have liked but I can actually see the driver at this point so think he *must* have seen me.
Thinking that was the stupidest thing I've done today as the idiot slams it straight into reverse without looking and reverses round the corner into a private driveway. The nose of the car is fully across the filter lane and considerably into the main lane. Luckily I only have to move a bit to miss the nose. If I'd have stayed in the filter lane I probably would've bounced off the car and be half way across the road into traffic.
So yeah, just my personal experience of riding defensively paying off. Lesson learnt: you *never* know what idiots are going to do.
saved yourself some harm and a bit of bike worry to boot.