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When I was in London a few years ago I used to cycle to work and the buses were the worse. Taxis would beep or gesture at you, but at least they gave you space.

When I was in London a few years ago I used to cycle to work and the buses were the worse. Taxis would beep or gesture at you, but at least they gave you space. One time I was stopped at a set of traffic lights waiting for them to turn green. It was on a tight bend and I was about 20cm from the line, and 50cm from the inside of the road. A bus came up and decided for whatever reason he had to get in front of me (even though there was a stop directly on the other side of the junction). There was enough space for a car, but definitely not for a bus as it was on a bend. He slowly kept creeping forward, and the side of the bus kept getting closer and closer. I starting banging on the window as he got next to me, but no he kept going. I was far enough back that I was out of his blind spot. In the end I had to move onto the pavement. I then walked to the front and banged on the door, gave him a few choice words and the driver just shrugged.

brandur 11y ago
I see this sort of strong arming happening in San Francisco pretty frequently. It all makes a lot more sense when you consider that the drivers know that even they accidentally push it a little too far and kill someone, there won't be any serious repercussion [1] [2]. [1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/02/muni-driver-acquitted-in-2011-crash-that-killed-23-year-old-woman-in-san-francisco-crosswalk/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/02/muni-driver-acqu... [2] http://hoodline.com/2015/10/muni-bus-hits-kills-cyclist-on-market-street http://hoodline.com/2015/10/muni-bus-hits-kills-cyclist-on-m...
- lmm 11y ago
  Car drivers get away with killing people as well though.
  - sooheon 11y ago
    Maybe slightly less of a professional desensitization to the potential to kill another?
  - eru 11y ago
    https://www.vice.com/read/you-can-kill-anyone-you-want-with-your-car-as-long-as-you-dont-really-mean-it https://www.vice.com/read/you-can-kill-anyone-you-want-with-... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to... https://nextcity.org/features/view/how-much-is-a-cyclists-life-worth-anyway https://nextcity.org/features/view/how-much-is-a-cyclists-li...
shawabawa3 11y ago
I'm not sure if much has changed, but I cycle daily through central London and buses are great. Usually give plenty of space and never try and run you over on left turns. The worst in my experience are trucks, and even more so, pedestrians (almost every day I have to pre-emptively break before someone walks into the road without looking)
- lmm 11y ago
  I cycled through London (not the absolute centre) until a year ago and found the lorries fine, they're courteous and give you a lot of space (much more than the buses, who were worse than cars - cars would give you space, whereas buses seemed to pretend you didn't exist). Worst of all was people-carriers, especially around start/end of school hours.
- dspillett 11y ago
  I don't know about London specifically but with regard to cyclists I get the impression that bus and lorry drivers have become more careful these days for one reason: the growing number of cyclists with cameras mounted on their bikes or helmets, and in cities even more so due to the number of CCTV cameras that could also catch dangerous behaviour. Furthermore some buses in bad areas have their own cameras watching the road recording in case of dispute (hooked to the same recording equipment that records inside the bus to capture events where passengers attack each other or the driver). The average bus and lorry driver always was pretty safe on the roads and courteous with it, of course. They haven't changed. But there were a lot of idiots out there in all forms of transport who were not so careful and got away with it because "who was going to know?". If it came to an argument it was the cyclist's word against theirs and if it came to court they could threaten to sue for damage to professional reputation if the case was lost by the cyclist. Now with a helmet cam the cyclist has evidence so it isn't just word against word. In most jurisdictions a single helmet cam recording is not sufficient for a prosecution (and may even not be directly admissible as evidence in court) but more than one complaint is usually enough for the bus/lorry company to investigate further (which they will as there are potential fines for not and in some places that threat has teeth) and evidence from official CCTV and on-bus recorders is usually admissible (the former because it is operated by the authorities, the latter because the driver has consented to being recorded). If there is a chance you will get caught and successfully charged with dangerous driving (or the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention) then bad/aggressive/otherwise-unsafe drivers are likely to put more effort into being less bad as it can get them reprimanded by their employer, possibly sacked, possible prosecuted, and it can harm their ability to get driving jobs in future. So the average carefulness of large vehicle drivers is improving because of monitoring, the perceived average even more so because we never notice the good drivers as much so the bad ones look more statistically relevant than they might actually be. I have had a "near death incident" or two, so the situation is still far from perfect, but these days I see more complaints about large cars (SUV types and people carriers) and private vans, than buses or lorries.
vhold 11y ago
Same with MUNI in San Francisco, I can have a bright flashing light, be in the bike lane, and be able to see the driver in their sideview mirror, and they'll just drift over without ever even glancing in the mirror and almost kill me. As expensive and trouble prone as street cars can seem, it's one thing I really like about them, they stay on their tracks. I completely avoid ever being next to them now, I'll just stop and wait if there's any chance

brandur 11y ago

I see this sort of strong arming happening in San Francisco pretty frequently. It all makes a lot more sense when you consider that the drivers know that even they accidentally push it a little too far and kill someone, there won't be any serious repercussion [1] [2]. [1] http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/02/muni-driver-acquitted-in-2011-crash-that-killed-23-year-old-woman-in-san-francisco-crosswalk/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/02/muni-driver-acqu... [2] http://hoodline.com/2015/10/muni-bus-hits-kills-cyclist-on-market-street http://hoodline.com/2015/10/muni-bus-hits-kills-cyclist-on-m...

lmm 11y ago
Car drivers get away with killing people as well though.
- sooheon 11y ago
  Maybe slightly less of a professional desensitization to the potential to kill another?
- eru 11y ago
  https://www.vice.com/read/you-can-kill-anyone-you-want-with-your-car-as-long-as-you-dont-really-mean-it https://www.vice.com/read/you-can-kill-anyone-you-want-with-... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to... https://nextcity.org/features/view/how-much-is-a-cyclists-life-worth-anyway https://nextcity.org/features/view/how-much-is-a-cyclists-li...

shawabawa3 11y ago

I'm not sure if much has changed, but I cycle daily through central London and buses are great. Usually give plenty of space and never try and run you over on left turns. The worst in my experience are trucks, and even more so, pedestrians (almost every day I have to pre-emptively break before someone walks into the road without looking)

lmm 11y ago
I cycled through London (not the absolute centre) until a year ago and found the lorries fine, they're courteous and give you a lot of space (much more than the buses, who were worse than cars - cars would give you space, whereas buses seemed to pretend you didn't exist). Worst of all was people-carriers, especially around start/end of school hours.
dspillett 11y ago
I don't know about London specifically but with regard to cyclists I get the impression that bus and lorry drivers have become more careful these days for one reason: the growing number of cyclists with cameras mounted on their bikes or helmets, and in cities even more so due to the number of CCTV cameras that could also catch dangerous behaviour. Furthermore some buses in bad areas have their own cameras watching the road recording in case of dispute (hooked to the same recording equipment that records inside the bus to capture events where passengers attack each other or the driver). The average bus and lorry driver always was pretty safe on the roads and courteous with it, of course. They haven't changed. But there were a lot of idiots out there in all forms of transport who were not so careful and got away with it because "who was going to know?". If it came to an argument it was the cyclist's word against theirs and if it came to court they could threaten to sue for damage to professional reputation if the case was lost by the cyclist. Now with a helmet cam the cyclist has evidence so it isn't just word against word. In most jurisdictions a single helmet cam recording is not sufficient for a prosecution (and may even not be directly admissible as evidence in court) but more than one complaint is usually enough for the bus/lorry company to investigate further (which they will as there are potential fines for not and in some places that threat has teeth) and evidence from official CCTV and on-bus recorders is usually admissible (the former because it is operated by the authorities, the latter because the driver has consented to being recorded). If there is a chance you will get caught and successfully charged with dangerous driving (or the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention) then bad/aggressive/otherwise-unsafe drivers are likely to put more effort into being less bad as it can get them reprimanded by their employer, possibly sacked, possible prosecuted, and it can harm their ability to get driving jobs in future. So the average carefulness of large vehicle drivers is improving because of monitoring, the perceived average even more so because we never notice the good drivers as much so the bad ones look more statistically relevant than they might actually be. I have had a "near death incident" or two, so the situation is still far from perfect, but these days I see more complaints about large cars (SUV types and people carriers) and private vans, than buses or lorries.

vhold 11y ago

Same with MUNI in San Francisco, I can have a bright flashing light, be in the bike lane, and be able to see the driver in their sideview mirror, and they'll just drift over without ever even glancing in the mirror and almost kill me. As expensive and trouble prone as street cars can seem, it's one thing I really like about them, they stay on their tracks. I completely avoid ever being next to them now, I'll just stop and wait if there's any chance