Paul Smith
in [UK Drivers]
|
From: Rob Morley on 20 Dec 2007 21:52 In article <f46dnXJAEpmUaffanZ2dnUVZ8uidnZ2d(a)bt.com>, Brimstone brimstone520-ng01(a)yahoo.co.uk says... > Can you offer a scenario in which someone gets crushed in which they are not > even faintly responsible? > Me riding on a fairly narrow country road with a high stone hedge to the left and a woodland to the right, approaching a right hand bend. Truck starts to overtake me as we turn into the bend, sees something coming the other way and pulls over on me, presumably in the belief that once I'm behind the cab I must be gone. Actually I was nearly under his back wheels, with nowhere to go. There was just room for me to pull back level with the cab and thump the door rather hard, he did an emergency stop and I squeezed between the cab and the hedge. If I had been a less confident cyclist, or not fast enough to keep up with the truck, they'd have been scraping me off the road. If I had been squashed, would it have been my fault?
From: Peter Clinch on 21 Dec 2007 03:03 MrBitsy wrote: > Peter Clinch wrote: >> Brimstone wrote: >> >>> "Keep clear" to a person of average intelligence means doing what is >>> within your power to give yourself and the lorry enough space to do >>> what you both want to do. >> It means "keep clear". Keeping clear means staying away from. Not >> "doing one's best to stay away from". >> >> And in any case, there are numerous cases where i'll go close and >> be happy in the knowledge that I'll be safe. > > By jove I think he got it! I always had it. What I've been saying is that "keep clear" is not very good advice, especially as the good advice of asserting space by taking the primary position is actually, and very clearly and obviously, very different to "keep clear". Had it been "Keep clear of blind spots of lorries" then I wouldn't have had an issue, but that wasn't the advice, it was if you're much smaller keep clear, period. Which is Plop. Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net p.j.clinch(a)dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
From: Peter Clinch on 21 Dec 2007 03:06 Rob Morley wrote: > In article <MaudnRvCldLnP_fanZ2dnUVZ8s-qnZ2d(a)bt.com>, Brimstone > brimstone520-ng01(a)yahoo.co.uk says... > >> "Keep clear" to a person of average intelligence means doing what is within >> your power to give yourself and the lorry enough space to do what you both >> want to do. >> > "Keep clear" could mean anything from "don't approach" to "don't > clutter" to "run away from". In the context of a cyclist stopped at a > junction who is then approached uncomfortably close by a large vehicle, > it could easily mean "get off your bike and on the pavement". This is > clearly an unreasonable expectation, and makes the exhortation to "keep > clear" pretty meaningless. What Rob sez. "Keep clear" is not the unambiguous thing Brimstone claims. And of course "get off your bike and on the pavement" is clearly at odds with taking the primary position (very specifically *getting in the way*), which is the good advice given numerous times elsewhere in this thread with the givers apparently labouring under the misapprehension I don't know about it. Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net p.j.clinch(a)dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
From: Peter Clinch on 21 Dec 2007 03:12 Ekul Namsob wrote: > It will slow down in my experience. But perhaps closer than you'd like, in a place you don't consider yourself well clear of it... You don't get the choice. <snip> > At this present moment in time, I do not see any circumstances where I > would need to dally in the blind spot of a 40-tonne vehicle in > free-flowing traffic. Nor do I. But then I never said you did. Note that "dallying in the blind spots" and "keep clear, period" are not unambiguosuly the same thing. Which is rather my point. Pete. -- Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net p.j.clinch(a)dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
From: David Hansen on 21 Dec 2007 03:16
On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:12:29 +0000 someone who may be JNugent <not.telling(a)noparticularplacetogo.com> wrote this:- >> Do you condone cycling on pavements? Many cyclists have put their >> 'self-preservation' skills into effect and decided that they would be >> better off there. Indeed, I believe that fear of injury is a defence for >> people charged with pavement cycling. [1] > >Fear of injury would be just as "good" a defence for the shooting dead >of an armed police officer by the criminal he is confronting. Or of >the murder of the victim of a mugging "just in case" he or a member of >his family comes after the mugger. Your comparison would only be valid if cyclists were to kill motorists "just in case". -- David Hansen, Edinburgh I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54 |