Police 1 - Cyclists 0

[Lum]

#1: Cycling along a main road with cars parked along the side, car door swings open a few metres in front and I slam into it.

If you were in a car you would, technically, have been deemed to be at fault for that one, unless it is a narrow street. Assuming there is sufficient space it is the responsibility of the moving vehicle to leave sufficient space for people to open their doors.

If it's too narrow then the responsibility shifts to the person opening the door, but as you were on a bike I doubt it was too narrow.

had a cyclist do that to my car door once while I was parked in a layby. I didn't swing it out on him as I'd walked to the car, put my coffee on the roof, loaded my shopping onto the back seat, got in, wound the window down and was about to reach out to get the coffee of the roof when some kid of about 14 went at full whack straight into my door, then he tried to blame me for it when I went to check if he was alright.

So I told him to go ---- himself and got the details of a few people who were standing around in case he decided to take it any further, nothing came of it though. Personally I didn't care as it was my crappy old Passat and there wasn't that much damage.

I'm just glad we don't have the "no fault liability" rule that the Netherlands have, else I would've been paying for the little git's personal injury, front wheel, new helmet etc.

 

[No-One]

The thing that gets me around here is on the main road into town there is a cycle path that is separate from the road. The road is a very busy NSL road but still loads of cyclists insist on cycling on the road instead. So you end up with a queue of traffic at less than 10 mph becauses there isn't suficient space in the traffic coming the other to safely overtake. I know it isn't a legal requirement to use cycle paths but when the safe path is there why put themselves in a more dangerous place and obstuct the flow of traffic?

 

[DanF]

this might make the hordes of bike haters in this forum chuckle, well for a bit James Martin, Tesla and cyclists

 

[Lum]

The thing that gets me around here is on the main road into town there is a cycle path that is separate from the road. The road is a very busy NSL road but still loads of cyclists insist on cycling on the road instead. So you end up with a queue of traffic at less than 10 mph becauses there isn't suficient space in the traffic coming the other to safely overtake. I know it isn't a legal requirement to use cycle paths but when the safe path is there why put themselves in a more dangerous place and obstuct the flow of traffic?

Non-cyclist here, but even I know that most Cycle paths are basically unusable.

What basically happens is you know how on unused bits of road (ie. hatched areas, certain parts of roundabouts etc.) they fill up with stones and debris which makes that bit of road frankly dangerous to drive on. The reason this happens is when stones end up on the bit of road that is driven on, car and truck tyres flick them off to a new location, this will keep happening until each individual stone has landed in an area that nobody drives on.

Sincy bike tyres don't really do much to move the stones around any more, the cycle path just fills up with stones and makes it dangerous to ride on, I mean really dangerous, they have quite narrow tyres (especially road bikes) and you can easily come a cropper.

Of course, councils never bother to clean all the stones off the cycle path. They only put them down because government targets and EU funding typically require them to have xx Kilometers of cycle facilities they don't actually give a damn about cyclists.

And that is why the cyclists end up having to ride on the road instead.

 

[Draeger]

And that is why the cyclists end up having to ride on the road instead.

Agreed. 99.9% of cycle paths in my area are unsafe to ride upon for those very reasons.

Some cycle paths are put in place as a "token gesture". A brand new road and bridge opened up near me recently and I was pleased to see during the construction of it that they were putting cycle paths in. This was to be applauded.

However, when said road and bridge opened up fully, it became immediately apparent that the cycle path was only useful in one direction. So I either join a busy dual carriageway coming off a motorway and cycle for maybe half a mile until I can actually get onto the cyclepath which for some unknown reason starts halfway along the road or I cycle along the opposite side on the cyclepath on the other carriageway which is supposed to be designed for cyclists coming the other way and then have to dismount and try and cross the same busy dual carriageway to get to the other side of the road to continue my journey.

Bizarre planning, no idea what they were thinking of there.

 

[Lum]

Agreed. 99.9% of cycle paths in my area are unsafe to ride upon for those very reasons.

If you need more reasons check out the Warrington Cycle Campaign's Cycle Facility of the Month page, which contains gems such as this:

and obviously insane designs that no sensible cyclist would ever consider using, such as this:

 

[Hotwired]

If you were in a car you would, technically, have been deemed to be at fault for that one, unless it is a narrow street. Assuming there is sufficient space it is the responsibility of the moving vehicle to leave sufficient space for people to open their doors.

If it's too narrow then the responsibility shifts to the person opening the door, but as you were on a bike I doubt it was too narrow.

had a cyclist do that to my car door once while I was parked in a layby. I didn't swing it out on him as I'd walked to the car, put my coffee on the roof, loaded my shopping onto the back seat, got in, wound the window down and was about to reach out to get the coffee of the roof when some kid of about 14 went at full whack straight into my door, then he tried to blame me for it when I went to check if he was alright.

So I told him to go ---- himself and got the details of a few people who were standing around in case he decided to take it any further, nothing came of it though. Personally I didn't care as it was my crappy old Passat and there wasn't that much damage.

I'm just glad we don't have the "no fault liability" rule that the Netherlands have, else I would've been paying for the little git's personal injury, front wheel, new helmet etc.

Since when does swinging out your door without looking on a main road count as good practice? Checking the mirror then cracking the door to check is good practice...

Your example is entirely that muppets fault as your door was open for some time already. This guy just swung it fully open metres in front of me.

I don't hug the cars like some limpet but no cyclist expecting that motor vehicles will be trying to pass him on a main road will be so far out a fully opened door could clear.

We didn't argue about it. He got his door flattened the wrong way back along his car, I had some minor damage to the bike (tyre must have absorbed most of the impact) and bruising along my side.

If there had been a car behind me I might have been run over into the bargain too. Then again, the larger presence of a car may have been easier to see and he'd have waited.

and obviously insane designs that no sensible cyclist would ever consider using, such as this:

So whos up for trying that manoeuvre on a busy day?

 

[Lum]

Since when does swinging out your door without looking on a main road count as good practice? Checking the mirror then cracking the door to check is good practice...

It's not good practice, but when some idiot does it, the person driving into the door is usually deemed to be at fault by the insurance due to not leaving sufficient gap.

I don't agree with this at all, but that is what happens

 

[DanF]

It's a criminal offence to open a car door to danger. You always have to make sure that it is completely safe before opening your door, it's just insane to even think that it isn't like this? How could anyone else around you know your going to put them in danger?

The only time I've had a serious injury while being on a bike was when some tit opened his door right in front of me, no warning, clear weather, sunny conditions, me doing 20mph 1/2 meter out from the parked cars. The top corner of the rusty door cut straight in to my shoulder down to the bone, it was with enough force to take me off my bike and put me in the other lane of traffic where luckily there was no other traffic to run over me (and this was the middle of London on a Sunday).

Turned out this guy had borrowed his mates car to take is bird to the bus station, he was uninsured and had no license. He also gave false details to the police at the scene to give to my while I was in the back of an ambulance. Last I herd he was getting done for no license, no insurance and opening a car door to danger.

All the posts about bikes hitting cars and just cycling away, I can tell you when there's usually a bad collision it's almost always the other way around. This guy was trying to get this car started to drive off while I was sat at the side of the road with blood covering my t-shirt. Luckily the car was dodgy. Another mate was knocked off his bike, cycling along the road in the designated cycle part and a car turned left and knocked him off, the car also ran straight over his leg but luckily didn't break it, and yep just drove off. Another was hit by a taxi over in Bristol, pushed in to a ditch, he slowed down and saw that my mate got up and just tried to drive away. My mate wasn't to bad and jumped back on his bike and caught him up at the lights. The taxi driver just didn't want to know and just swore at him and drove off again. Luckily a pedestrian saw the whole thing and was witness for him to claim off the Taxi drivers insurance, of course they paid straight out.

Bleh, bloody car drivers :s