Know Your Enemy 4: The Left Hook Loser

You’re riding along in traffic, and a car overtakes you:

Sometimes they don’t even completely pass you before continuing on their Very Important Journey:

If you’re lucky, it’ll be an ambulance that cuts you up like this - they’ll be able to scrape you off the road and take you to the hospital after:

And don’t think that this is a UK-only phenomenon:

So how do you avoid this sort of problem?

  • Be aware of the traffic around you - use your ears. It’s rare for a car not to slow down before turning at a junction, and the change in tone of their engine can give you warning of what’s about to happen.
  • Ride more assertively past junctions. Novice cyclists often drift closer to the edge of the road as they pass junctions - you need to be further out, making yourself more visible to drivers
  • Make eye contact. Approaching the junction, look over your shoulder before you move to that more assertive road position. Make eye contact with the driver behind you.

Filed under: Assassination Attempts, Bike Culture, Self Preservation Society

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5 Responses to “ Know Your Enemy 4: The Left Hook Loser ”

  1. Kevin Love on October 17, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    Take the lane!

    Always, always exercise lane control and ride in the primary cycling position in the lane.

  2. Kim on October 17, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Can I offer a some thoughts on cycling safety.

  3. KarlOnSea on October 17, 2010 at 7:04 pm

    Kevin - never a truer word!

    Kim - that’s a great post. But it could do with editing into several more bite-size pieces!

    It’s also worth remembering that when we consider these things that can go wrong, they’re actually very rare. I’ve only had one really serious attempt at a right hook, and that was nearly 20 years ago!

  4. Kim on October 17, 2010 at 9:33 pm

    Thanks for the advice Karl, I will have to think about recycling it into a number of smaller posts.

  5. Phil on October 18, 2010 at 9:06 am

    Excellent posts from both Kevin and Kim *thumbs up* I would like to see adoption of driver liability laws as well, where the driver is legally assumed to be at fault in collisions with cyclists and pedestrians unless it can be proven otherwise. That would encourage drivers to observe traffic laws and pay attention to their surroundings, which the bad ones do not. Whilst I’m still off in the land of dreams, I’d have every driver retested for their licence every few years, to make sure they are still competent to handle the vehicle according to the requirements of the law, and nobody should be able to buy a car unless they can prove they have somewhere to park the damn thing safely *breathes out*