5-4-3
Four rides in the space of five days. 3 near misses.
I ride defensively. You know the kind of stuff, making eye contact with drivers/riders/peds and covering the brakes at junctions, looking ahead, looking for escape routes, assuming the primary at pinch points, the stuff most of us do.
I've still had three butt-clenchingly close calls recently. I'm not talking the 'battleground' that London is oft portrayed, but sleepy, rural Hertfordshire,
All three on my commuter/shopping bike, a hybrid bought from Tim C of this parish, that has a hub dynamo, LED lights always on.
The incidents
1) Daytime, dry, passing through crossroads on road with right of way. Cars waiting to cross/turn on both side roads. I'm within 4 feet of the junction when the driver of the car in the RH side road floors it and then slams on the anchors, stopping 2 feet to my right halfway across the junction. He shouts something indecipherable at me and waves his arms around like a mad man. Female in passenger seat looks shocked.
2) Daytime, damp, crossing mini 4 exit roundabout on edge of town. Two lane entrance to my left, first car (turning right) stops, car to her left (going straight on) does not stop at give way line. She was still entering roundabout at some speed as I cross her path, and given that I'm towing a trailer, I fear the worst. She hauls up in an intermittent screech of ABS assisted braking.
3) Nightime, frosty, 4 way traffic lights, I'm waiting to go straight on at red light. I am wearing an Altura Night Vision jacket. Another, lit, cyclist pulls up behind, same lane. We have a brief chat about ice before lights turn green. Halfway across the junction, driver of car turning right from opposite direction doesn't give way, forcing braking from me to avoid having my front wheel taken out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to become part of the next 'War on Our Roads' doco. Most of my fellow road users have been nothing but considerate, waiting for good places to pass or conceding way even when though don't have to. There again, these are not the run of the mill close passes or other aggressive but (sadly) accepted behavior from less vunerable road users, but driving that's been fractions of seconds/a few feet from me being wiped out.
Hopefully I would have had witnesses to all 3 incidents had a collision happened. Next time I might not be so fortunate.
I'm a bit shaken tbh.