I don’t know why, but it seems an increasingly common experience for motorists to turn right into a road just as I am cycling along. I presume they feel they can turn right and still not hit you because a bike should be one foot from left hand curb. But, it feels quite threatening when a car appears to be heading straight towards you. The motorist may have seen you and have no intention of knocking you into the gutter. But, I never want to assume anything like that. When a motorist is turning right straight into my path. I always shout at them. It’s the only defensive mechanism we have – A cyclist has no air bags, crumple zone or even horn.
Invariably the motorist responds with aggression and foul language. But, if it happened to them, they would understand how unpleasant the experience feels.
All for the sake of 2 seconds!
Of course writing about it won’t change anyone’s behaviour, but, it makes me feel just a little bit better….
I think some motorists are in a world of their own sometimes
Very timely post. Just bought a new winter jacket and this time I decided to go for white instead of black, so that i’m more visible. On it’s first outing (in daylight) two cars turned right in the space of three minutes. Managed to get out of the way for both but like you say that feeling “this is going to hurt” is not nice at all. I’ve still not perfected shouting in English yet. Currently it’s just noise, so the driver in question tends to look at me as if to say “that cyclist’s a bit weird”.