This was one of those near misses that isn’t that close in terms of feet and inches, but was close in terms of choices made…had I done what I was planning on doing, this could have been either much closer or a straight accident.I had been banging around Beckton practicing getting my knee down on the roundabouts down that way, not the best roads in the world, but the best roads for practicing leaning the bike over near to where I live.
I had been going quite fast, but not excessively fast, I don’t believe you need to be going that fast to lean the bike right over, when I was coming up to the last roundabout before I was about to head home, and there was a right knob of a cab driver in front of me driving at like 23mph, so I created a bit of a gap between me and him getting ready for the roundabout, was about to gun it through and see how much lean I could get, and was really going to go for it since it was the last one before heading home, when I thought, you know that cab driver is just going soo slow, I don’t want to end up right up his chuff as I come off the roundabout, so I decided not to go for it and just rode the roundabout easy, this was quite a late decision as you can see from my road position, I took up the position to go for it, but just didn’t open the throttle…
And lucky I didn’t open the throttle, as these three idiots came onto the roundabout from my left, where I have right of way over, and were unable to stop, due to the weight, and probably lack of any proper driving experience, had I gunned it through the roundabout, as i had planned, I am not sure what would have happened, none of the three guys on the bike had a helmet, or any biking gear at all, I think someone could have been seriously hurt.
Here is a short video of it, as I say, not that close in feet and inches, but another choice made.
Good call.