Last night, cycling home, I had a very near miss - nothing new really,
but bear with me...
My commute is dark, quiet, country lanes. On one downhill stretch I was
follwed for some time by a driver unwilling to pass. Fair enough, and I
was doing about 20-25mph. However, when he did decide to pass (with his
left indicator on), luckily I realised in time that he hadn't actually
pulled out and I swerved into the verge. Bizarrely, _after_ passing me,
he moved across to the right, and continued on the right until he
reached the humpback bridge 300 metres further on.
He then continued at around 25-30mph, weaving around on the road,
through the village (where he stopped on a blind bend causing a car to
pass with difficulty). He gradually got further away from me, my
thought being that he was clearly over the limit. Then, about a mile
further on, he veered over to the right towards an oncoming car, the
driver of which steered up the verge, but they still managed to scrape
sides and lose wing mirrors.
Only a minor incident, in reality. I could have just let it go, there's
plenty of poor driving on the roads.
I told the other driver about the earlier erratic driving and he agreed
the man was clearly a liability, to himself as well as others. He was a
bit shaken up because he realised he had been close to a head-on
collision. So I phoned the police and waited for them to arrive.
While waiting I thought - life's too short, let it go. But if I had,
maybe next time the cyclist wouldn't be so lucky and life would be
shorter. I felt a bit sorry for the old chap, he hadn't been drinking,
he was just too old. But as cyclists, we are very vulnerable to
people's inability to control the heavy machines they are in charge of.