Country road hazards

Right… so you leave behind the big bad city with all of it’s murderous white van men, kamikaze cyclists and supersize bendy buses and head for the country, rejoicing in comparatively hazard free riding…

Hold it!! Hazard free? No, just different hazards. Different ways in people will try to kill you.

Case in point: look at this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xkANU8Elfg

This nearly happened to me in Norway a few weeks ago. Out cruising with my girlfriend. Big slow lorry in front of us on a two lane blacktop, one car behind it. No oncoming traffic, great visibility. Get ready to overtake – rear obs, signal, manuevre… accelerate to get past the car + lorry ahead and LO AND BEHOLD THE CAR STARTS OVERTAKING TOO as I am ALREADY NEXT TO IT!!

Luckily I reacted in time, threw the anchor while veering hard left, and got back behind it with inches to spare between my front wheel and his back bumper, and also inches between me and the grass verge on the left of the road (right hand traffic).

Eventually I overtook the car, flagged it down and told the woman calmly “Hey, sorry but you nearly killed us back there.” She’s like, huh? I said, “You know that lorry you overtook.”

“Yes.”

“Well we were overtaking it already.”

Her jaw dropped and she was super apologetic and vowed to check her mirrors before pulling out in the future.

Guy in the video: not so lucky, saw it too late and clipped the car. The lesson to you: EXPECT cagers to do this. Either build up so much momentum you can shoot clear past before they can come over, or be ready to throw anchor and abort the manuever. Coming off at 70-80mph while overtaking would be pretty bad, so remember to not only look at the oncoming traffic (which is obvious the biggest threat to you) but also forget not to keep on eye on WHAT YOU ARE OVERTAKING!

This has happened to me (not the crashing part). I’ve learned to go a third way you didn’t mention after a close call - don’t overtake until they’ve finished their manouevre (real or imagined). This may mean sitting behind them because they can’t drive for sh!t but it’s better than having what happened in that video happen. It sucks because if you don’t overtake I can guarantee they will sit there but if you do overtake, they’ll probably go for it too. I imagine some unpleasant individuals will do it on purpose.

Hell, I had a Ducati Monster overtake me whilst I was overtaking a stationary traffic queue. I was already out there, so it’s not like I didn’t see him. I guess 30mph past stationary traffic wasn’t fast enough for someone of his prowess and obvious skill.

EDIT - I got to agree with you, there’s as much danger out in the sticks. Learning in London did not prepare me for farm muck on the road, horses, long overtakes on single carriageways and frantic “I know these roads like the back of my hairy in-bred palms” drivers.

It is possible the car he overtook might have started signalling, the indicator was certainly going when he hit it. Couldn’t tell as the biker was between the camera and the indicator.

OWWW! Thats a painful video