Matthew's Journal

I wrote so with one notable exception I manage to stop or swerve and thus avoid a crash which needs clarification. I have on all but one occasion managed to avoid accidental crashes.

Unsurprisingly I have less often been able to avoid crashes where the driver is deliberately driving at me, but in these cases I have always (so far, touch wood) avoided injury, although there has been damage to my bike. Unfortunately, nowadays part of defensive cycling is managing these confrontations in a way that minimises risk of a seriously bad outcome.

For example, when being tailgated I tend to slow down gradually (while signalling clearly that the driver should keep back) and in a number of cases this has resulted in a slow speed ramming from behind. (Most recently, after the taxi driver rammed me, he got out and asked me "why were you waving me away?". Obviously I don't regard the collision as an "accident" - he deliberately disregarded my very clear signal.)

But I count that as a successful outcome compared to the alternative which would often be to allow the driver to sqeeze past without enough clearance, or make some other risky manoeuvre myself such as diving onto the pavement. I'd prefer to take a large risk of yet another trashed rear wheel than a small risk of a life-changing injury.

But why am I forced to make this choice, many times a year ? Because drivers can attack people with their vehicles with almost complete impunity.