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@lardboy
Monday morning, heading to work. Going North along Bedford road towards Clapham North. The silver Renault in front of me indicates that she is going to turn left into a side road just before the bridge. Cool, I'll just scrub off a bit of speed, and let her pull in then go past. She doesn't pull in; instead, she comes to a complete stop. So I grab my brakes a lot more, but no response.
"Oh shit"
I end up rear-ending her at about 15mph, going over the bars, smash my head (encased in helmet, thankfully) into the rear windscreen, and crumple to a heap on the pavement on the left, landing on my left arm first, so crushing my upper rib cage in a rather painful fashion. Thankfully no broken ribs, but some mashed muscles.
I was certainly going faster than I should, but the brakes just didn't do their job. When I wanted an emergency stop, they didn't. Ouch.