Just a quick check to make sure I'm not going mad.

I managed to come off my bike here today, nice wrist fracture which will probably involve an operation on Monday to fix. Six weeks of freelance work cancelled.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6413784,-1....3312!8i6656

The whole thing was caught on CCTV so little dispute about what happened.

I was travelling in the direction of the camera e.g had priority. Two vehicles approached the chicane from the other direction. Vehicle one decides to chance it and floor it through so I ease off. Car two hesitates so I commit to go through. At the last moment they decide to try and floor it through too. I slam on the brakes but too late and miss their offside wing by a few inches alongside the last driveway on the left by the wooden fence.

The CCTV shows would 100% of collided with the car if I hadn't braked and come off.

Car two driver says that there was no impact so I fell off my bike independently. Promptly scarpers before the police arrive.

Will post CCTV when I get it. In a situation of either cancelling lots of work for six weeks (expensive) or getting taxis everywhere (expensive, I work on four different sites 30 miles apart plus would be significantly inhibited with a cast anyway). Would welcome thoughts as to whether insurance is likely to be simple or if they will also drag their heels due to no actual impact.

This post has been edited by notmeatloaf: Sat, 16 Jun 2018 - 17:18

So you're saying there is no point to the give way?

Salters hill was a ridiculous Honey trap and not at all comparable to this (which isn't asking a question on civil penalty anyway but liability) where the grey car had a clear line of site to the cycle if they chose to use it. There is also a difference between causing someone to brake slightly and leaving them no room to avoid a collision as they cannot stop in the distance available due to your actions.

Whose actions IMO the cyclist could see or should have seen the car in the chicane once its there it is for the cyclist to stop. The car does nothing wrong if it enters the chicane before the cyclist reaches the sign and IMO that is what happened

I would disagree with your interpretation, they have failed to give way which is something wrong.

On your interpretation millions of give way signs become meaningless and we would have our own equally chaotic version of 'prioritee a droit'.

If you think for a second that makes no sense. The signs are typically placed a few metres before the pinch points. If you didn't have priority until that point you would have to approach every one significantly below the speed limit, the stopping distance at 20mph is still 18m.

By that logic if a car pulls out in front of you at a side road you are at fault for hitting it because your priority ends once they are in your path. Except here the driver is also on the oncoming side of the carriageway too.

It still looks like the OP has ridden the bike towards the chicane at a speed that shows no caution in the approach to that chicane.

You can see that the second vehicle that is in the collision has committed to driving through the chicane before the OP comes into view. The driver of that car could have observed the road ahead and, as the OP is on a pedal cycle and is a small object at the observed distance the driver of the subject car is committed to the chicane in a reasonable way.

The OP on his bike is able to observe the larger objects, a big white people carrying van and the car behind in the same way as the diver of the subject vehicle is expected to do. The cars, being larger objects, are easier to spot at the observation distance than the bike. So why is it not unreasonable to expect the same observation from the cyclist as that expected of the car driver?

The OP is familiar with the chicane, it appears, and as a road user should have some thoughts about vehicles following a leading vehicle through that chicane as the road sign and priority is not a guarantee, the incident makes obvious, that there will be no following vehicle.

I still say poor observation and cycling by our Lycra-clad hero. Cyclists, good ones, know they are vulnerable and difficult to see, especially in this sort of situation, so why gamble with the priority sign? Very poor.

If this was on the world cup TV the video ref would be saying "dive".

Lucky to be alive the OP should really have a think about exercising his right to passage based upon a traffic priority sign when he is a lot softer than cars, vans and other motor vehicles.

The OP may not like this opinion but as it is open to comments I think mine is reasonable and fair.

Cyclists have a duty to spot cars because they are big and cede priority as required?

Must have missed that part of the Highway Code. It indicates that your opinion is worthless because apparently you live in a world where cyclists should be going slow enough to evade any collision. It is nonsensical.

The whole purpose of having priority at all is to allow the vehicle with priority to proceed at a speed where they would not be able to stop if a vehicle pulled out at the last minute, which is why you can pass side roads at the speed limit be that 30mph or 60mph.

This post has been edited by notmeatloaf: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 - 15:48

You have confirmed my opinion of your suicide mission.
You have seen the second vehicle, realised it is coming through, then have excecised your “priority” when there was little chance of the car driver avoiding you. The collision could have been avoided by you not riding through a gap you knew was not there but you continued. That is what happened isn’t it?

I was always under the impression that if you caused any other vehicle to take action to avoid a collision then you were at fault.
If you cross a give way line and don't clear the pinch point before another vehicle reaches it, or has to take avoiding action, then the car crossing the give way is at fault.
That's regardless of whether the other vehicle could have stopped. Its seems quite foolish to treat a give way with a first come first served ideology.

I think the car driver has to take most, if not all of the blame. Any blame on the cyclist is probably bargaining between insurance companies.

When the car cmmitted to the chicane the cyclist was about 100m away. When the drivers oservation was made the cyclist was probably further away than that. How long should he have waited and would the cyclist be visible to the driver of the car?
It’s not a reasonable scenario for the car driver to sit and wait for 200m visibility of nothing coming.

The cyclist must have been able to see the car coming, the CCTV certainly does.

The cyclist/OP is barging through to excercise a priority and that was foolish.

This post has been edited by 122basy: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 - 16:08

I am not sure about your last paragraph. After all a green traffic light doesnt mean "go". These things are all slightly tinged with "if safe to".

The video doesn't do many favours. Its perspective and short focal distance. It gives no clue as to what it looked like from your position. Whether you had any visibility of the grey car or not.

The speed humps you mention seem to suggest to me that it isnt really envisaged those with priority will simply attack it unabated.

I would rather exercise caution. Somehow feels better than an epitaph of "Here lies Slapdash. It was his priority".

But considerably more blame lies with the grey car. He chose to proceed when he couldn't have had sight of you or clear space.

On the contrary. There was approximately 100m of clear space and there was sight-lines at the aspect between the car and the white bus in front of it at the time the car committed to the chicane.
A push-bike is a small vehicle and at that distance may not be highly visible. SO with more than 100m of clear road in front of the car what would you do at the chicane, wait or go through?
I had a pal when I was an apprentice who always used to step into traffic when at a zebra crossing, long before it had stopped.
"Here lies Slapdash" was the result there too.
The OP has demonstrated just above that his intention was to take his priority in the face of an oncoming vehicle. If you expect the car driver to see him then the OP should have seen the car, light does travel in straight lines.
The video also looks to show the OP diving to his right to hit the car. He should be wary of using this in his case IMHO.

That looks nothing like 100m to me, I think your forgetting the foreshortening effect of most CCTV, given the house sizes that’s probably circa 50m.

However the car was behind the van, your not meant to (legally) have to second guess what someone else may do THAT THEY SHOULD NOT even if self preservation may say otherwise.

The cyclist was there to be seen, course and speed were constant, the car driver should have given way as per the signage, he chose to blindly (literally) follow the van through.

This post has been edited by The Rookie: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 - 17:04

And the cyclist chose to blindly ride on at full tilt assuming (erroneously as it happens) that there'd be nothing behind the van in an area he couldn't see. Nobody's covered themselves in glory here.

You have a duty to avoid a collision, the same as everybody else. How much you're able to do so will vary depending on the circumstances between "none" and "completely". Even if a driver has "right of way" (apparently a contested term) they cannot necessarily absolve themselves of all responsibility for a collision if they could have avoided it. All too often, on this forum and elsewhere, I see people banging on about "right of way" etc as if this is a complete answer to the question of liability. It rarely is - the test is normally simple negligence and driving/riding like a tw@t will often mean running afoul of that test regardless of having the "right of way".

Looks completely the car driver's fault to me.
The car driver has assumed it's clear and went through on a guess and failed to give way at the give way junction.

The cyclist would have no idea the car had also pulled out behind the van seeing as it wouldn't be visible.

Not sure about the police prosecuting side of things, but insurance will surely rule 100% in the cyclist's favour.
Car driver failed to give way at a give way.

As I said earlier, in such scenarios if someone has gone through then the following vehicle often takes a 'punt' assuming that if anything was actually coming they would have already given way. (Even if they are a bit irate in being 'forced' to stop)

This post has been edited by Jlc: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 - 17:39

If the OPs 15mph is correct then in the 7 seconds from van pulling out (not car) to impact he travelled 51m, actually less of course due to the braking.

Using google measure 55 metres from the house with the camera to chicane. but on looking again the cyclist was still pedalling right up to the last moment. Not good

In terms of getting his insurance details askmid roadside might be helpful

So if this was a side road junction with give way markings, your responsibility would be to complete your manoeuvre (pulling out) without obstructing traffic already on the main road. There wouldn’t be a debate about ‘getting to the line first’ or ‘how close do they have to be before you have to give way’. If you can’t complete your manoeuvre before the oncoming car gets to you, you don’t start.

So how does that differ with this give way line? Why would it be ok to enter the pinch point, knowing you’ll still be in the narrow section when an oncoming car arrives at their end of it?

Isn’t it the ‘giving way’ cars responsibility to judge the speed of oncoming traffic and only cross the give way line if they believe they can complete the manoeuvre (i.e. exit the pinch point and move to their side of the road) before the oncoming car arrives?