This morning's commute and other commuting stories

There's 'enough room' to physically fit through, and 'enough room' to safely fit through.

Not if his safe passage was basically down to luck.

He might well have. Doesn't make it any less of a stupid thing to do.

Does a car overtaking you within an inch of your elbow constitute a safe manoeuvre if no one gets hurt? The unsafeness comes from the increased likelihood of a problem due to the lack of room to use in case of unforeseen circumstances.Such as one of the involved parties changing speed or direction due to a previously unnoticed hazard like a small troll jumping out from under the bridge they are passing over or some stray sharp flapjack crumbs dropped from the window of the bus.

COR!

Free flapjack?

He might also lube up to ensure a frictionless passage.*

#SafetyFirst

Edit* Passage between vehicles. Not any other passage.

But his skill level is not the only variable. Snotter has nailed it in his usual eloquent way.

That's bullshit, even if the other cyclist has Joseph Gordon-Levitt type bike skills, the bus and other rider might be shocked by the closeness of the pass and fall over, if a bus falls over a lot of people could get hurt. If I practice throwing knives blindfolded at a beautiful assistant everyday for 11 years until I am a knife throwing supermaster it wouldn't be OK if I started throwing said knives into a busy children's soft play area, no matter how good I am in other situations.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt type bike skills

That was such a good documentary.

Aah, and when you judge other cyclists it's against your ninja like, super bike skills and every near collision moment is actually everyone else on the road being so damn good at the game of bike they can pull across 4 lanes of traffic on their phone without incident.

Sorry?

Fine, we forgive you.

He may of thought it safe but it did endanger both of us. Had I had to move across slightly to avoid something in the road then I would have closed the gap and the speed he was going he would have either hit me or the bus.

All he had to do was slow for about 30 seconds and there would have been ample room for him to over take. I just felt given the conditions last night it was dick move.

i'm really good at driving and using a phone - i've had loads of practice and only nearly killed a handful of people, therefore i should be allowed to drive and use a phone.

^^ 'have'

If we go back to my years of grueling knife throwing training, add another 5 years of sold out shows across the world without so much as a pin prick in my beautiful assistant (his loss). Say one day at my fifth night in Vegas a stagehand moves the mark I use to stand 30mm to the left whilst I perform a bit of stand up to warm up the audience, (I got Russell Howard to write it, people only come for the knife throwing, I'm that good) this time beautiful Stavros gets a face full of my blade, his beauty ruined forever. In the much less predictable world of riding around on bikes surrounded by vehicles not leaving plenty of room around you and others to account for unforeseen circumstances is unsafe.

"but it did endanger both have us"

Makes no sense.

But he did put someone else in danger.

How can you tell if they put you in danger? You judge then don't you, you massive judgelord.

of

I'm fine with that as long as they don't put me in danger.

I assume you use your patented, scientific dangerometer to ensure you know how much danger someone has put you in without resorting to estimations using your brain, or judging as it is also known.

I know he didn't actually use the word "danger" but it's right there in the subtext, plain as the nose on your face.

I give it ten posts before MMA is mentioned

So danger is only a confirmed hit? I take it you don't mind cars that haven't seen you pulling out in front of you as long as you manage to stop just before hitting the side of them.

Driver drives past me texting. Meet him at the lights, tell him to stop, he puts it down, apologises. Drives past me again, I can see the phone in his dashboard and him tapping away. I tell him I can see him, he hold his hands up (stopped in traffic) saying "I'm not doing anything". Report or not report?

Well he probably does it every day and he didn't hit you so clearly he's not causing any danger.