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On the soapbox, all the blame is squarely aimed at the driver.
Under the fleur de lys, I’d be saying the same. Regardless gender/age/experience, a lot of riders really do fail to anticipate.
I actually broke the golden rule the other day on the F3.
Somewhat tired from greenlaning the day before.
Long line of cars crawling along sub-walking pace through a village with a 20/30 limit. I filter/overtake in the oncoming lane, barely above their pace and looking ahead and to the left asking myself “why the holdup?”
Of course, right at the front of the queue is a junction on the left, and the car gives way to one waiting to pull out.
The car pulling out was hidden by the car giving way, until the very last second.
I saw a flash of bonnet and flicked the bars right then left, and carried on.
They must have seen the flash of bright yellow bike (and coloured leather jacket) as they crept forward, only just taking a slam-full of brake inches from my thigh.
Totally my fault I couldn’t see them.
Golden rule. Never overtake at junctions.
Second rule, use all available space.
Should have been even further from the wingmirrors to give me the best view ahead, I believe I was a bit closer because of oncoming cars.
Anyway. Days later and I’m still reeling from that awful error in judgment. Could have been an off.
pdlouche-
And all because you were tired? This is often when we let ourselves down. My worst crash as a courier was when I was pissed off by being sent well north of the North Circular for nothing. I was steaming back south on Green Lanes, badly wanting some work, fast filtering past two lanes of stationary traffic. I failed to notice a small gap in front of a bus. It had stopped to let a car out. The car pulled out sharpish without looking and turned towards me. Wheeee, a proper head on. My knee armour saved the day. The car required repairs. It was 3 days old. The driver started swearing at me while I was still spreadeagled on his windscreen. All the passengers got off the bus to shout at him that it was his fault. Which it was, technically, but what does that matter when the driver is comfy in his steel safety cage, and my kneecap is on the chopping block? I should have seen the gap opening up. And 99.99% of the time, I do. Don't bike angry. Take some breaths. Do the floppy chicken exercise.
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I've told this story before on here but I had a very similar one except I was passing a coach that was stationary for no apparent reason. About half way along I saw a van emerge from in front of the coach (no junction, he was pulling off a driveway).
I got on the front wheel all the way to the van where I stopped, still vertical, the fairing touched the side of the van and I ruined the whole thing by dropping the bike.
After that I had more experienced sports bike riders telling me I should learn to steer on the front wheel alone, then I could have gone around the van!
This is just to say that it's not only junctions where this can happen.
nick_h.
Airhead
I don't want to be unfair to the rider, but my suspicions are that she was a new rider (because small bike) and just didn't observe well, or brake at all. She was following another bike, so probably focused on keeping up, rather than making her own decisions about positioning etc. It's all great fun, until you nearly die.