How to make the roads safer?

I was going to start a new thread but this seems as good a place to post my recent observations.

Yesterday evening I had the misfortune of being stuck in some very heavy and slow moving traffic on Clapham Road and I have to say I was truly appalled at the way some cyclists were riding, literally putting their lives at risk in their rush to get home. I actually saw 2 VERY near misses right under my nose and in the space of 5 minutes, both involving a right turning vehicle and a cyclist filtering recklessly fast up the inside of stationary traffic.

I was driving a Transit van and heading west towards the Common, roughly at about 7pm. On both occasions I was, and had been for some time, stationary and with a turning immediately in front of me to my left. Also I had stopped in a manner that left the junctions clear so that traffic coming from the opposite direction could turn into the junctions and traffic wishing to turn right from the junctions could do so too.

Both near misses occurred as a result of a vehicle turning right into the path of a fast moving bike filtering up the inside of me. The first bike, I estimate, was doing in the order of 20mph and only stopped with inches to spare after a very scary back wheel in the air type heavy braking session. How he didn’t go over the bars I’ll never know. On both occasions the drivers of the right turning vehicle spotted the bikes and stopped also.

What appalled me so was the dangerous way some cyclists were dealing with major hazards. OK so a junction on it’s own is not a major hazard but surely becomes one when there is a risk of traffic turning into these junctions across their path, when undertaking at speed and when 50% of their view of the junction is obscured by a large panel van. Yet these riders were not slowing down at all.

Reading about the daily accidents involving cyclists saddens me. I know careless drivers cause many but, given what I witnessed last night, I suspect a fair few are in fact the cyclists’ fault. So, come on guys and girls, put your thinking heads on before setting out on your journeys. Always assume someone will turn into your path and prepare to stop accordingly.

I know this will not apply to the majority of you but, if posting this saves just one of us from injury or worse, then I am happy.

Footnote. At no time did I indicate to the right turning vehicles that they should go. The traffic was so heavy I was mostly watching the world go by. I also did not have enough time to give a warning on the horn, which I would naturally have done so given the opportunity.

Ride Safe!

Exactly. people are very quick to damn the driving of every car/van/motorbike in london, but to be honest i think alot of cyclists make the roads more dangerous themselves. Im glad my commute is a pretty quiet one, down relatively quiet roads with few other commuters on them (yay for living north west!) I actually dread the days i head down south to visit friends straight after work during rush hour, not because of cars and heavy traffic, i can deal with that, but actually due to other cyclist commuters doing fucking stupid things that put ME in danger not to mention themselves! One that really sticks in my mind was the very first time i ever cycled down south lambeth road during the commuter rush. Not a particularly trecherous road, but due to the sheer quantity of bikes riding completely unaware of what was going on around them it felt like havoc.