Lorry and I - Far Too Close For Comfort

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
irc
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Re: Lorry and I - Far Too Close For Comfort

Post by irc »

horizon wrote:The road illustrated by the OP in his video is the sort that I personally dislike: too wide to take an effective primary position, too narrow to really take a safe left hand position and too fast to have a reasonable influence over traffic. In particular,


Agree completely. Even when the oncoming traffic saw the overtake happening and moved as far left as they could there still wasn't a safe gap for a cyclist. Despite the HGV being dangerously close to the oncoming traffic.

For safe cycling this road needs to be 4 or 5 feet narrower or at least 6 feet wider. At present it is right at the unsafe sweet spot. Locally I deal with roads like this by avoiding them. I can't see a safe way to cycle them. My best guess is to ride at least 1M from the kerb while watching the mirror so I can move let for close overtakes.

overtake.jpg
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Vorpal
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Re: Lorry and I - Far Too Close For Comfort

Post by Vorpal »

irc wrote:For safe cycling this road needs to be 4 or 5 feet narrower or at least 6 feet wider. At present it is right at the unsafe sweet spot. Locally I deal with roads like this by avoiding them. I can't see a safe way to cycle them. My best guess is to ride at least 1M from the kerb while watching the mirror so I can move let for close overtakes.


I used to ride a road like that fairly regularly. It was on my commute. There was an alternative, but it was hillier and longer; more than I wanted to add to a 28 mile commute (didn't cycle every day). After some trial and error, I learned to ride in what I will call a strong secondary. It wasn't quite primary, though it was a bit further out than I would typically ride, otherwise. I think that because the road a bit a wider, secondary was just a bit further out than I was accustomed to. I experimented with primary position, too. While it tended to get me a bit more space in overtaking, it also got me a higher proportion of eejits doing eejit stuff like yelling and honking or deliberately cutting me up.
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