It is easy to get into a war of words between motorists and cyclists: who is responsible and who is not; who is right and who is wrong; who abides by road traffic law and who doesn’t…
The internet is full of such arguments and slanging matches and really they are all moot points. What it all comes down to in the end is: do you have respect for your fellow human beings?
When I am riding my bike, I do so with the aim of being aware of those around me, whether they be motorists or pedestrians, and I give them the respect that I would expect to receive myself.
If a car slows down and gives me space as it passes me I try to acknowledge that with a wave, just as I would say “thank you” if someone held a door open for me.
If I am riding on a shared use path I slow down for pedestrians and give a friendly “hello” as I pass. If I pass other cyclists I give them a friendly wave.
I have been fortunate over the years and the reactions I have had from other road user when I am cycling range have been generally benign. On the odd occasion I have been spat at and had verbal abuse hurled in my direction, but these have been very rare exceptions.
There is, however, one area of riding my bike that I do find distressing and that is when a vehicle passes me, usually at speed, very closely. On a number of occasions this has been close enough that I have been clipped by the wing mirror of the vehicle.
I am sure that a lot of these incidents are down to lack of driver awareness and attention, but a few are more malicious than that. One incident involved a large car, heading towards me on a long straight road, leave its own side of the road and swerve towards me, just missing me before it sped off with its horn blaring.
On a recent job down in England I was cycling through the industrial area of Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees. It was early on a Sunday morning, the roads were flat, straight and wide with good visibility, but every single car that passed me did so within inches of my elbow. There have been a number of campaigns over the years to highlight this issue; you may have seen the Cycling Scotland “Give me Space” posters on the back of buses.
In Ireland there is a Staying Alive at 1.5 campaign that aims to highlight that a safe pass of a cyclist should be at a minimum distance of 1.5 metres. In England one police force in the West Midlands is taking that a step further and stopping drivers for unsafe overtaking of cyclists. Drivers will be offered a road-side educational input on safe overtaking but repeat offenders − or anyone deemed to have driven dangerously close to a cyclist − can expect to be prosecuted and taken to court. It may seem an extreme measure, but in the West Midlands between 2010 and 2014 there were 530 incidents where cyclists were killed or seriously injured and 84% of them were due to collisions with cars.
If you have never experienced a close pass on a bike by a fast moving vehicle, then a picture doing the rounds on social media illustrates the point perfectly. The image is of a railway platform with the yellow “do not cross this line” safety line set a few feet back from the platform edge. The legend below states, “If you believe that passing a person riding a bike within 3ft is safe try standing between the yellow and white line when a train is passing”.
It is important we get the message across. To a driver, the cyclist slowing them from getting from A to B for a moment may be an annoyance to them, but to someone else they are a son or a daughter, a brother, a sister, a mother or a father.
Where to ride: Carter Bar: Jedburgh to Newcastle
Terrain: Hilly on road ride
Description: Start:Jedburgh town Centre
Distance: 62 miles
Description: This ride starts initially on the A68 from Jedburgh heading south to Otterburn. What might seem like the initial challenge of the climb of Carter Bar is actually a well-surfaced and steady climb. The summit of Carter Bar is on the England–Scotland border at an elevation of 418 metres. From there a steady descent will take you to Otterburn where the A68 turns into the A696. A pleasant deviation just after here will take you onto the B6341 at Elsdon and a network of roads will take you south to Newcastle via Scott’s Gap.
