at the end of the bus lane in front of New Cross station, i almost crashed into a mini blue van who suddenly decided to swerve into bus lane without indicating, both of us had emergency brake, my shoulder touched his side mirror. i saw the driver put his face in his hands, a gesture of regret, i suppose. so i rode away without saying anything.
Hope he learnt his lesson:w00t: and hope u had a change of underwear!
your lucks in today…guess your guardian angel was awake;)
on friday morning about 0630 riding along the A40 by baker street, a lad pulls up alongside me on the speed triple, give a nod and that and he rides off in front of me…
both of us in the bus lane and suddenly a white van turned in on him and off he went. No indicator, no nothing.
He was very fortunate though as he landed in the middle of the pedestrian island and avoided two lamp posts! I stopped as did one other van and a pedestrian to give him help, call the bizzies and get some witnesses for him as he was clearly in pain and on the deck. The bizzies got there quick sharp with the ambulance and he was helped up and into the ambulance. I gets the people details, give them to the bizzy and get a call later that night from the lad who said that with the exception of heavy bruising down his left side he was ok which was great news.
Too be honest, i prefer riding in the outside lane and perhaps taking it a bit slower than riding in bus lanes, just too many dicks out there in cars and vans that dont look before they move
That’s a dangerous spot there. So many cars, busses (some go right at the busses only way) and vans seem to change lanes there without looking too much. There’s always loads of cyclists in both lanes as well. All too often I see near misses there in the morning.
Glad you’re ok!
It’s the end of a bus lane so shouldn’t you expect this kind of manoeuvre there?
Expect the unexpected and believe all drivers are idiots;)
lucky 1, though you must ride as if some1 is gonna do exactly wot he did.
Glad you’re ok, BBSMonk. Sorry to hear of this near miss.
We should all ride slow on bus lanes and to expect this kind of thing to happen. And be ready to brake quick and sound the horn at any moment.
Whilst I have had cars and vans (usually vans) swerve into and across the end of bus lanes I have been in I have not had anything I couldn’t anticipate and safely avoid. It is not always possible to avoid everything but most of the time if you keep your speed down and your distances up you shouldn’t hit anything. Always expect cars to enter your lane when the bus lane restriction ends, just like you should always expect every stopped van or bus to be hiding a pedestrian about to launch themselves acros the road without looking!
I certainly prefer the bus lanes to sweezing between the cars whilst hoping nobody turns right or pulls out to race up the wrong side of the road instead of sitting in the queue.
Good job your fine mate…
this is probably the 4th lesson i’ve learnt by a near miss: the 1st is overtaking a slow vehicle giving way to an emerging car; the second is, to look out for pedestrians emerging between stationary buses; 3rd. cannot remember…:D；4th is this morning in bus lane, esp. at the end of a buslane
I agree
Good job you are okay. First rule of bus lanes is to keep speed down and be fully alert for end of lane changes and junctions/bus stops and assorted cyclists/pedestrians.
Do I detect a slight ‘shadenfreuder’ KML? Glad you and the other biker are okay.
BBS In theory… probably best not to ‘undertake’ moving traffic when you’re in the bus lane- if they are moving just hang back and go at their speed- when they stop in the traffic jam you carry on- job done. In practice… much easier said than done!
The day bus lane riding became legal for PTW’s I had a nasty moment at the end of a lane on the South Circular. A good lesson learned early.
I’m super carefull when the lanes come to an end. Folks expect to find 14 tonnes of big red things, but they are not yet conditioned into expecting small fast things.
“shadenfreuder”:D, after some googling, a new word learnt
Had a car turn right across a cyclists and my path in the bus lane the other day, (Fulham Palace Rd). The traffic left him a gap to turn and he couldn’t see a big red box thundering down the road, so he just shot across the bus lane. We had time to react thankfully.
Definitely going to watch my speed in the bus lane from now on.
Never heard that word before either! pleasure derived from someone elses misfortune is the definition I found.No pleasure taken from that incident from me though and I think it would be sick to take pleasure from it? Relief perhaps, because it so easily could have been me. It’s horrible seeing someone come off a bike and after seeing enough people come off over last summer and an endless number of bikes on the deck, regardless of whether someone is not injured, it is still horrible and spoils the day.
Glad your still with us Mr Monk! ;)
im not using the bus lanes until 100% are open for bikes and they had a big advertising campaigns.
if they dont
i’ll carry on filtering