Avoiding close passes

A few months back I was trying to think of a way to get motorists to give us a little more space when overtaking us. There isn’t really much we can do that would be legal, which makes; flame throwers, paint guns and window breaking pins out of the question.

The one thing we do have in our arsenal is our arms. I’ve started to indicate to my right if i suspect a driver is going to give me a close overtake.

And from my unscientific research it seems to be working. An indicate to the right is making drivers either stop their overtake or they give me more room. Either way it is putting the doubt into the mind of the driver about what I’m going to do. Which is something the highway code suggests anyway

213

Motorcyclists and cyclists may suddenly need to avoid uneven road surfaces and obstacles such as drain covers or oily, wet or icy patches on the road. Give them plenty of room and pay particular attention to any sudden change of direction they may have to make.

A fair percentage of drivers don’t seem to think about this and overtake at a distance which many cyclists do not think is safe.

This is only executable when you think someone is going to overtake far to close, sometimes it’s hard to even be aware of the moment when you are about to be clipped by a wing mirror!


One thought on “Avoiding close passes

  1. Interesting that you’ve started to do this. I have been doing the same when approaching a pinch point and I think a motorist is about to try to overtake, but I rotate my hand upwards with the palm facing them and that seems to stop most of them in their tracks. Doesn’t always seem to work with big fat Chelsea tractor drivers, though.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.