What with holidays and getting covid I missed this thread.

I don't understand the huge, huge anger from some car drivers. I just really don't.

We do not have an unalienable right to drive cars unimpeded in NZ. Hell, 200 years ago there were no cars in NZ. My great grandfather was a member of the Provincial Council and as such attended meetings twice a year. Depending on conditions, it took him 2-3 days to walk the 60 miles to attend. Now we seem to get upset about a 30 second delay in traffic.

I'm 70 this year, got my driver's licence the day I turned 15, but had my hand-me-down bicycle many years before that. Did the big OE, and ended up cycling 8,500 km through Europe. The first 15 years of work saw me drive or cycle the 20 km to work, probably 50/50. Eventually work got in the way and at peak I was driving up to 100,000 km work mileage a year, but still managed the occasional cycle ride. One of the companies I worked for put all its high mileage drivers through a defensive driving course, and since then that is how I drive. In all that time I've probably had 4 vehicle accidents, all low-speed minor dings. These days I probably drive 15,000 km a year and cycle 3-5,000 km.

But what about cycling incidents. Here are a few of my more memorable ones, no major injuries except where stated.

 

1. Taxi did not give way when it was coming out of a side road. Hit and broke my rear wheel.
2. Cycling up the coast of Jugoslavia (as it was then) with a fellow cyclist when a gust of wind blew my friend right to the other side of the road, fortunately no traffic coming. We were young, fit and strong, there is nothing he could have done about it. Car drivers please remember this, it is just one of the reasons the Road Code says you should give cyclists 1.5 metres clearance when passing.
3. Ended on the bonnet of a car that did not give way entering a roundabout. It hit my front forks and downtube. For those of you who do not know what the downtube is, it's about 50 mm in front of my leg. Phew!
4. Side swiped by a drunken driver. I fell into the lane of traffic (dual carriage way), following cars having to take evasive action. Bad grazing and minor internal bleeding. The surface of the road was smooth hot mix, 3 week later it was given a layer of chip seal. Oh yum. Good timing.
5. Open road, fast left hand bend, run off the road by a huge truck and trailer unit. If I hadn't exited stage left, believe me I would not be here writing this. In fairness to truck drivers, the vast majority give me plenty of room and will slow down where necessary. (I do live in the South Island 😁)
6. Last year a car drew level with me and then proceeded to sharp turn into a supermarket carpark. I had to turn in with it, even if I had hard braked, I would have been under the back wheels. The excuse given "but I had my indicator on". Really? Would the driver have done the same if I was a motorbike or car? (Rhetorical question.) Police report got nowhere.
7. Just yesterday, I was doing a rural ride. A car was approaching me from the other direction, another came up behind me and squeezed past about 30 cm away from my elbow, brown trouser time. See #2 above. Then another small car came up behind me and passed, crossing the centre line to give me plenty of room. Then another 3 cars approach from the opposite direction when other car comes up behind me, me thinking here we go again. But no, the driver patiently sat behind me for the 30 seconds it took for the slug of traffic to disappear. She got a friendly wave. Courteous drivers do exist, if fact they are the majority. I always acknowledge courteous driving.

Do I think we should have cycle lanes? Hell yeah. We are frigging vulnerable, there is no huge case of steel protecting us. Any sort of accident hurts, sometimes a lot. So slow down, give us room and be patient. It costs you nothing other than a few seconds time, to not do so could cost us our lives.