Accident report (Edinburgh)

Bicycle hit broadside by car turning right out of side road. I bounced
off the bonnet and somehow ended up very quickly on my feet, not sure
how.

I had noticed the car nosing out to see past an obtrusively corner
parked Landrover, which I was passing, so I braked so as to be able to
stop if the car made a break for a traffic gap. But the car stopped so
I lifted the brakes and carried on. As I was almost on the car, a
little closer to its nose than I would have liked, but constrained by
traffic in a narrow road, the car leapt forwards and smashed into me
broadside.

Minor grazing and bruises, no significant injury. Bicycle
suffered bent front wheel, some snappable bits snapped off, severely
bent rear carrier which was carrying heavy photographic gear bag. Only
damage to gear inside the bag was a flash unit, probably the most
fragile thing in the bag, and possibly under the point of impact.

Driver admits liability and is willing to pay for the damage.

Photographic documentation here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_m...7610172771136/

Shows site of accident and bike damage, but stupidly not the actual
accident itself. Despite the fact that I was carrying a bag of
photographic gear, in my shocked state the emergency of having bits of
bike and my valuable camera gear bag strewn in the middle of a busy
street had me quickly dragging everything to the safety of the
pavement before I realised I should have organised someone to stop the
traffic and taken photographs of where everything was.

So that's photographs of where it happened, and the damaged bike, but
fifteen minutes later and not in situ.

Lessons learned:-

1. If physically able after accident, don't start rescuing things,
take time to calm down and think things through, don't lose witnesses
and evidence.

2. It was the driver's fault, but could I have avoided it?

Yes, very easily. I felt uncomfortable at passing so close in front of
a vehicle obviously wanting out of a side road. Since the side road
was empty and he not only placed to turn right but well nosed out, I
could simply have swung into the side road and gone round behind him,
avoiding the risk. My discomfort was because I would pass too close to
take avoiding action if he shot forwards. In other words I knew I was
taking a risk. A small risk of the rather unlikely kind. But if you
take risks like that every week for decades it stops being a small
risk in the long term. It's about thirty five years of semi-annual
cycling since I was hit by a vehicle, but that doesn't lessen the odds
of a risk going bad.

So the lesson is: stop being complacent and become more positively
defensive again.

3. I could also have drawn the driver's attention to me by wobbling
from side to side, thus moving laterally in his vision. There was
plenty of room to wobble to the left after passing the Landrover, and
I had a small winking white LED on the front because the light was dim.

4. In the city I often rely on small "see me" winking LEDs, plus
plenty of reflective patches on the bike and my clothing, even
reflective tyre sidewalls. That works well after lighting up time
when cars have their lights on. But this was before lighting up time,
but rather dark and overcast, so only some vehicles had their lights
on. Anyone with lights off wouldn't see my reflective patches, and
because it was still light, though dim, my light was dimmer by
contrast than at night. So I need a better lighting strategy for
dim-but-not-dark conditions.

Suggestions for more lessons to learn gratefully received :-)

--
Chris Malcolm