Utube cycling

[davidphilips]

Seen this on utube and thought i should post this to show just how quick a cyclist can be involved in an accident no mater how safe they feel they are on a bike or how much they take care when cycling.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-uhomvf2Lo

 

[Cycleops]

Shocking, andillustrates how selfish some drivers when they know they are no longer fit to drive.

 

[lazybloke]

Absolutely dismayed to hear "the case against the driver was dropped because they would never drive again".
It a continuing casual erosion of road safety.

Enforcement and punishment need to be stepped up, regardless of age.

 

[ColinJ]

Shocking, and illustrates how selfish some drivers when they know they are no longer fit to drive.

Unfortunately, sometimes they do not know that they are no longer fit to drive...

My sisters and I had to hide our father's car keys to stop him driving once it became obvious to us that he wasn't able to drive safely any more. He simply couldn't see that there was a problem.

He became quite aggressive to my sister until she said that she would report him to his insurance company as being unfit to drive, and then to the police if he drove without insurance.

Yes, it is a great shame when old people's independence is taken away from them - my dad pretty much never left the house again, except in an ambulance. But, as the man in the video said - better that, than someone losing their life.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Years ago a mate and myself were out on a ride when we came across an elderly driver waiting to emerge. He was holding a mirror in front of him angled so he could see traffic approaching along the major road, obviously he couldn't turn his head and had limited peripheral vision. By the time we'd passed him and stopped he had pulled out and was too far away for us to read his registration plate.

Shocking really, he should never have been behind the wheel.

 

[ColinJ]

...we came across an elderly driver waiting to emerge. He was holding a mirror in front of him angled so he could see traffic approaching along the major road, obviously he couldn't turn his head and had limited peripheral vision.

That was one of the problems that my dad was having.

The other problem was that he was NOT holding a mirror to see traffic approaching - he just started to pull out without looking. I screamed at him to stop for another car that I had seen, which he hadn't.

The biggest problem was that he didn't think that not being able to see other cars coming was a problem...

 

[fossyant]

That's the sort of 'incident' that happened to me, broken spine later. As with others we had to make FIL see that he was not fit to drive - he was even wanting to go out with an oxygen tank next to him in the car (not covered on insurance). His eyesight was terrible.

 

[Bollo]

I remember when my dad’s dementia accelerated a couple of years ago. He was a pretty good driver but didn’t enjoy it at all, so was quite happy to give up his license and my mum would never have let him drive if she didn’t think he was safe. It took the DVLA over a year to eventually revoke it despite repeated requests. In that time he could have jumped into a car at any time and be perfectly legal.

Although I didn’t suffer the same injuries as @fossyant, my big one came at the hands of a lady in her 70s. It was probably down to the details that it didn’t put me in a wheelchair. Luckily the attending plod had been dragged off the M3 and were experienced traffic officers. I had an interesting chat with one of them post incident and they‘d made it clear that the choice was give up her license or be prosecuted.

 

[presta]

I was nearly killed twice in 2-3 days by the same elderly woman.

The first incident was here, I was waiting at the line to turn right, and she was waiting about where that black car is to turn right into the road I was leaving. She didn't see an oncoming Transit van, and turned straight into its path, so the van driver was left with two options: keep going and hit the car, or steer left and hit me. Fortunately for me, she saw him in time and stopped, so the van rattled through the remaining gap with about a millimetre clearance from my from wheel.

A few days later the same woman pulled out of a side road in front of me about a mile away.

 

[Juliansou]

I think it’s important to reiterate that no one has the ‘right’ to drive a car. We all drive under licence, and when we are no longer fit to drive, that licence should be revoked. In my view, there should be mandatory basic health checks from the age of 70 and automatic licence withdraw for failure. I appreciate this may mean more elderly people become isolated, but I’m afraid a privilege to drive does not trump someone else’s right to use public spaces safely.

 

[Milzy]

I’ve said it before that OAP’s should be regularly tested or banned. It certainly ruffled some feathers but that’s just how I feel on the matter.

 

[tom73]

It’s not just cars of course a lot of older drivers still have c1 rights. Unsafe driving in a car is one thing but in a big lump of a moterhome is another. Health can affect anyone’s ability to drive safely maybe everyone needs health checks how often they are needed may depend on age or clinical need. Current health check and shelf declaring needs a rethink.One is currently too early to do with little checks on clinical standards the net is full of companies offering it and the other is a total joke.
What ever checks we have or changers we bring one thing is clear they can’t and should not be free or expect a GP to carry out. How much and how it works is a debate is for another time.

 

[matticus]

I was nearly killed twice in 2-3 days by the same elderly woman.

Sorry, but I had to laugh at this.

 

[matticus]

Seen this on utube and thought i should post this to show just how quick a cyclist can be involved in an accident no mater how safe they feel they are on a bike or how much they take care when cycling.

Thanks. I'm sure your post has made the world a better place.

 

[Cycleops]

They don’t need to be driving a motor home to be a serious danger as the OPs clip illustrates.
There are over 5m driving licence holders in the U.K. over the age of 70. Only a fraction may be incapacitated to drive. I don’t know how you would compel them to submit to a test of some sort or a medical. Might be politically unwise to implement such a thing and could be seen a form of age discrimination.