Near miss....

I nearly ate bonnet last week.....

The oncoming driver simply couldn’t see me, it was a difficult situation as a car had pulled out from the (B383) on the right, right in front of me as I travelled east on the A329 London Road and then turned left onto Buckhurst road. There was an oncoming car facing west waiting to go right onto Buckhurst Road (so following the car that went left).

In Hindsight I could have backed off leaving enough space to be visable, I obviously didn't do this (the car should have waited before pulling out in my opinion)....I kept my speed and was too close to the car hence why the oncoming car turning couldn’t see me.

It was very close BUT not the turning drivers fault as he simply couldn’t see me. I needed to take some of the blame in this instance and thats my point, its all about what you can influence, if i’d have hung back and reduced my speed the whole situation could have been avoided. It’s about being clever enough to position yourself correctly in every situation.

Amazing what a difference our split second decisions can make...

Lesson learnt, no blood spilt.

As a cyclist there are elements of potential accidents that you can influence as in this case. I could easily have blamed the driver that pulled out in front of me but if there had been a collision that driver would have been long gone and ignorant to it. It seems to be commonplace that cyclist aren't taken into consideration when a car driver considers pulling out onto a main road, your simply not part of the equation until its too late.

I’m just lucky the westward facing driver saw me when he did, if he wasn’t looking directly in front of his own car i would have been over the bonnet and off the bike.

I am now uber aware of everything around me and every potential situation when I approach junctions especially ones like this....I've also purchased some LED's for my lid to make me more visible when stuck behind a car. Every cloud eh?!