Squirrel wrote:
This happened today...
NSL dual carriageway, I'm doing a safe speed (where I can stop in the distance I can see to be clear). Couldn't give an exact figure as I was watching the road, not my speedo...
Side turning on the near side. A car was waiting to pull out. There was nothing behind me in my lane so I figured driver of said car would wait until I'd gone past.
Ah.. but were you?
Always a chance that the person at the junction may under-estimate your speed of approach.
Quote:
(I was in the left lane, there was a Peugeot 307 about 1/2 car length behind me on my offside. I'll just mention that at this point when I say "1/2 car length" I mean that his front end was that far behind my rear bumper.
OK ., the Pug driver was a SMIDSY to the chap at the junction as he cannot see through metal.
I would have eased off to help the overtake here.
Quote:
Driver of car in side turning looks straight at me when I'm about 3-4 car lengths from the turning. By this point I was down to around 50mph and dropped to 4th (6 speed box), not sure of exact speed but RPM was around 2,200, right at the point of max acceleration. Driver pulls out, no chance of me stopping!
But as Roger points out - you could have eased off .. allowed the other chap to pass and then entered L2 with a much imporved safety margin.. and a feel good factor for having dealt with this other muppet safely.
No one is saying the person at the junction behaved correctly - given he pulled out into a fast road with a car approaching
But that you could have given yourself a better margin by just making sure the chap sitting on your offside bumper actually passed you . sooner rather than later.
On the other hand .. you say you had got down to 50 mph .. which leads me to wonder why the Pug driver was still so levelly behind you?
Quote:
Only one thing for it... hit the loud pedal. Accelerated very rapidly into the gap to my right. Normally that would be the end of it. Except...
Cue lots of abusive gestures and headlamp flashing from the driver of the 307 (male, early 20s). Initally I'd thought this was directed at the driver of the car that had pulled out, but no, 307 man proceeded to sit on my bumper and mouth abuse.
In the event I just ignored him and dropped back into the LH lane, but one has to wonder how he missed the events that led to me having to pull out that close in front of him to avoid a collision? I do notice this type of behaviour a lot from younger/less experienced drivers, they seem to only observe what's happening straight in front of them.
I know exactly why 307 driver reacted in the way he did. In his eyes I'd pulled out into "his" lane and invaded his space. Clearly he hadn't seen (or cared about) the other car pulling out into my path on a collision course.
However had I been in the position of the 307 I would have been observing the side turning, noticed the car, expected it to pull out in front of the car to my left and either dropped back to leave room or floored it to make room depending on the road conditions.
Any comments?
Two or three wrongs never maketh one right
You should have encouraged his overtake of you. He should have taken this encouragement - since you say you had slowed to 50 mph on what I am led to understand might have been NSL... and he was still the same distance behind .. assuming you were at 50 mph here
Muppet at the junction should have known better too.
I would perhaps have rid myself of the MLM sitting in a blind spot earlier..by either letting him overtake or simply accelerating up to create a space to move into long before reaching the junction
Would depend on all the COAST skills as to how to deal with and diffuse the potential danger.