I didn't see you

While out enjoying a quite Sunday ride (see my other blog here) an annoying thing happened - a twat in a van backed off a one lane bridge and into my bike and me stopped well back from the bridge.

After my major sounding off to the young guy driving the van I got the standard "I didn't see you". (Think this is an automatic response for most car drivers when they clobber a bike). "You mean you didn't see the big blue bike with it's headlight on, the rider wearing black helmet and riding gear with fluorescent markings in the broad light of day?"

I would have much preferred to hear the truth, "I panicked when I saw the other car on the bridge and just threw the van into reverse without looking". He didn't even mention that he didn't here my horn or yelling at him to stop either - hard to hear over his stereo I know.

What can you do about this? This is the 2nd time I've been backed into by someone in a car. Both times were when the driver obviously hadn't been concentrating on what they were doing to begin with - it's not normal to have to stop and back your vehicle up when driving, generally reversing is for getting out of driveways or into/out of car parks. There are definitely some people who are not capable of reacting calmly and thoughtfully when something out of the ordinary happens to them. They drive around thinking that everyone else out there is a good driver/rider so they'll look out for me.

There is a solution, but not the obvious one of poking their eyes out so that next time they'll be able to honestly say they didn't see you. The solution is for more people to ride bikes or maybe even make riding a bike or scooter for a period of time before getting a car license. When you are on a bike you are putting it right out there on the line - you have to look out for number one because there are people out there trying to kill you. You learn to look everywhere for trouble and to not trust anyone else on the road. It would also have another benefit, because there would be more bikes on the road, car drivers would get more used to looking out for bikes and spend less time cutting them off etc. Hell, 99% of truckies on the road are excellent at this - they're always looking in their mirrors and pulling over to let you past.

Maybe this'll could stop it happening to me a 3rd time. I sent the guy on his way (after getting his details etc) with the warning: "You won't make that mistake again, will you?" Here's hoping he learnt something - I just had a reminder not to take the possession of car keys and a licence to mean competence to drive. Shame it had to happen that way - now I'm without a bike for a while...