CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

Today's Rubbish Passenger

(16 posts)
  • Started 11 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
  • Latest reply from kaputnik

No tags yet.


  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Heading along Melville Drive from east to west this morning at a reasonable lick with a tailwind. Traffic ahead queueing. Already wary of a white car that has its left indicator on and seesm to be edging to the kerb. Then indicator goes off and the car straightens back up. Only for the door to start to open as I'm less than ten yards away.

    Lucky I can shout loud, which saw the door pulled 'slightly' to as I brake, swerve, unclip, which was even hairier by the convenient placement of a drain cover in my swerve path.

    'Sorry' says the passenger as I, impressively expletive-less, simply cry, "Jesus!" in a blasphemous fashion before carrying on my way. Interesting to see if the camera makes it look as scary as it was.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Oh that's happened to me 2 or 3 times before on Melville Drive with school-kids getting decamped. Parents stuck in traffic so they tell the kids to abandon car into the cycle lane, with nobody checking mirrors.

    Interestingly the radio in the changing rooms this morning had an advert aimed at drivers telling them to check up the left side of the car before making a maneouvre, incase there was a cyclist on the inside of them.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. sallyhinch
    Member

    There's this as well

    http://www.whatmattersmost.org.uk/index.html

    Surprisingly non-annoying for a road safety campaign

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. MeepMeep
    Member

    Kappers: I get the muffled impression of songs on the radio through the wall in the ladies changing rooms but can never make out the waffling. Ask the fella to turn it up a wee bit!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Bit of a coincidence that kaputnik.... And sally, while there are some niggly little things in that campaign, for the msot part it's better than a lot we see!

    Interestingly I was told on Twitter that Dutch kids are taught to open car doors with the hand furtherst away as this naturally makes you turn round and look over your shoulder. By 'taught' I don't know if it's an actual official thing, or in their equivalent of the HC, or just a cultural thing.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @Meepmeep Ask the fella to turn it up a wee bit!

    As soon as his back is turned, I usually turned it off!

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. crowriver
    Member

    Aye, had one of these this afternoon on McDonald Road as I was in the cycle lane filtering up to the ASL at the lights (on red). Luckily I spotted it from afar, so as the lady in question got out, I was able to quip "Y'know, maybe you could look where you're going?" in an exasperated tone. At least she said sorry like she meant it.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    This was the near dooring...

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Plugins

    Posted 11 years ago #

  9. cb
    Member

    If the nearside of the car hadn't actually been in the cycle lane you'd have had an extra 20cm of wiggle room.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  10. cc
    Member

    I'm glad you lived to tell the tale!

    That lane looks too scary for me - going that close to cars I'd constantly be expecting an imminent dooring. I reckon if I dared to use that lane at all I'd go very slowly and I'd ring my bell continuously all the way along it to attract attention.

    But really I just wouldn't cycle there. This was the Meadows? I'd go on one of the several quieter parallel roads or paths nearby so I could avoid the cars as much as possible. It's a bad design - the lane is simply too dangerous to use as far as I can see.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  11. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    In fairness that's only happened 3 or 4 times in about 5 years of commuting that route off and on. And the parallel routes are a pain I find - shared use paths which, at that time of the morning, are full of commuters and schoolkids - Melville Drive goes exactly from and to where I need in the most direct and practical way.

    But yes, I'm constantly hovering over the brakes and keeping an eye out for what's going on ahead.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  12. rust
    Member

    If the nearside of the car hadn't actually been in the cycle lane you'd have had an extra 20cm of wiggle room.

    But I reckon the positioning of the car would have triggered my ****wit radar.

    WC, had you registered the car before the door opened?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  13. Min
    Member

    Yes it did. It is in the opening post.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  14. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Indeed, as Min says, in the original post.

    I'd slowed down from a higher rate of knots precisely because of the positioning.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  15. ARobComp
    Member

    I ride along there most days - it's (un)surprising how often this happens and I spotted which car it'd be the second it came on screen (saw this on twitter first) You get people drifting pretty badly on this part of the road as well as they are on their phones/chatting etc.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  16. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Today's (yesterday evening's) rubbish passenger almost doored me as I was approaching the ASL on the inside.

    I was saved this fate however as the passenger happened to be holding a Hi-viz vest in the hand that was moving across to open the door and I caught this out of the corner of my eye and managed to do the mental maths quick enough to pull left and around the door.

    No cross words were exchanged, merely "nice" advice about checking mirrors before opening doors.

    So, mandatory hi-viz for car-passengers I say.

    Posted 11 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin