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Near Miss Head-On Parriwi Road Mosman
For those of you who commute by bike to work in the city, or use Parriwi Road to train on or access/return from Manly Dam, I have a favour to ask.
Background
It seems to me that since the RTA's changes to the traffic flow arrangements at the entrance to Parriwi Road, the amount of vehicle traffic going up this road in the morning has doubled or tripled. It used to be 80% people entering against the sign, whom the cops would regularly ping. Now part of the increase seems to be coming from people stopping for coffee in the slip lane outside Catalina Anchorage, and the majority from others "gaming" the traffic signals by entering off the bridge and doing a U-turn in the Spit East Reserve carpark to access Parriwi Road.
I'm finding now that most mornings when I do hill repeats I have a close call with some muppet who is too impatient to wait for a safe passing opportunity, and just barges out to overtake with scant regard for oncoming traffic. Here is a typical example from earlier this week:
http://youtu.be/HAAyMgbMgAg
I'll be reporting this to police and will change my hill repeats venue, but I also want to write a story for the local paper (Mosman Daily) as I'm concerned about the frequency with which this seems to occur. I reckon a head-on between a car and bike is only a matter of time.
What you can do
I'm looking to hear from other cyclists who've had the same experience or witnessed similar incidents. If you are a resident of Mosman, that would be even better. Some sound bites to quote in the article would be brilliant.
Please PM me if you can help.
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There is plenty of other places to do hill repeats, try riding all the lookouts into the city. Or do what most in mosman do and train at 5am!
U have ur lights on?
Could have been a whole another story had you been going faster.
Mental note to self...........I'll be slowing down on the commute home, had a few interesting moments coming down there, but not as close as that.
Glad ur safe and all good.
I would say that they have not even seen you John too busy overtaking those other riders-now if you were in a large SUV he would have seen you then!!-I stick to dirt trails or cycleways(that have minimal roads) to do riding-it is just to scary.
I can't see from your Garmin how fast you were travelling although it looks as though you were close to the speed limit... 50K's?
Reason I ask is that if you were in a car, with those conditions (lots of bikes, narrow road, high probability of car coming up the hill) then to be doing 50k's and "hold your line" with a vehicle coming the other way would be irrisponsible.
This seems to be a case of either take the risk with the reward (fast speed, need to have close calls) or slow down and give way just like other traffic would need to do when encountering this situation.
@jdb, the lookouts sound interesting. Got a garmin connect or strava link you could share?
My plan at this stage is to take daveh's tip and shift the venue to the climb from the wharf back of Taronga Zoo. I'm a bit limited by an ongoing lower back issue, but it's gradually improving so long as I take care not to exceed my limits too much.
My concern is that someone else is gonna cop it. This footage has some power to grab attention I think, it would wrong not to use it to potentially save a life.
Why didn't you hit the picks when you noticed the vehicle approaching? He may have been on the wrong side of the road, but you still have to "see and avoid". I'm no lawyer, but legally I'd expect you'd be a % up the creek if there'd been a collision...apart from the physical aspect...which would hurt...a lot.
@daniel, GPS has me doing high 30's through that section.
@pancakes: I did ... although not immediately. I'd already staged my fingers on the brakes - that's the little hand movement at the beginning.
I didn't realise for the first second quite how far he was over onto my side, however my instincts were that we weren't on a collision path, so my reaction was to focus on threading the gap and keeping my options open. Hit the brakes too hard and it becomes a bit hard to steer out of the way when you're sliding along on lycra.
Would I choose differently next time? A good chance I would. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Do you have the magnet on the rear wheel of your MTB or just use the Garmin GPS? If its the latter, then chances are its incorrect as the Garmin GPS is pretty inaccurate.
In anycase, I am with jdb, Parriwi isnt really long enough or steep enough to constitute a hill rpt, I can go up there in 3 1/2mins and prolly can go quicker. Have not tried recently. I would move to a different area to do hill repeats like around Balmoral as suggested.
Personally, I think we all have a right to be safe on the road etc, however I also think we need to be sensible, yes the driver made a mistake and overtook where he shouldnt, however it might of been worth throwing the anchors on as well.
I put the magnet and sensor on the rear wheel last week.
The issue as I see it is not that the driver made a mistake - we all make them from time to time - but that such "mistakes" are so common on this stretch of road that has a high volume of cyclist traffic. Frequently they involve crossing double centre lines on blind corners. That is less a mistake than simple lack of care, impatience, and stupidity.
The point some respondents seem to be missing is that this is a long way from being a once-off. Wouldna' bothered even keeping the vid if it was a once-off without a decipherable rego number.
As for Parriwi, I hear ya Logan but gotta start somewhere: a bit under 4 1/2 minutes presently
That seems to be the biggest problem at the moment, infact a few commuters demonstrated this last week, I came off on Tuesday at the bottom of the Harbour Bridge on the city side. Nothing major, I picked up some scratches and a bit of road rash, however I got abused by about 5 fellow cyclists for coming off and getting in the way.
I have not had much luck recently got cleaned up last Saturday by a driver, he just passed weigh to close to me and hit my right thigh and bars, got lucky that I managed to save it and didnt get collected by another car on the Pacific Highway. Probably would of been killed if another car had been coming through at 60kph, as I got sent across 2 lanes of traffic.
Which all reinforces my belief that bad things happen on bitumen and the less I ride on the road the better. Nearly got collected by a doofus on the wrong side of the road this arvo on the way home from the dam. They weren't overtaking anyone, just a sh*thouse driver. :rolleyes:
@ Logan, can't believe a cyclists first response when seeing a fellow rider down would be abuse rather than checking they were ok. I guess this is a consequence of lots of new riders who aren't "cyclists". Unfortunately more riders means we become less of a community and more like everyone else.
That's just unbelievably rude. You ALWAYS check on how they are - no exceptions - even if the stack was the guys own fault. Sort out the blame game later, FFS.
I must admit I like that down-ramp with the little banked bit at the bottom
What happened, dude?
Reminds me of an incident about 5 years ago when I saw a cyclist go down hard on some oil at about 40km/hr. The road was so greasy we could hardly stay on our feet. He was obviously not a well boy, and dazed from the hit on the road, but the first thing the motorists did was stand on the horn and abuse him "Get orf the road"
Bloke in front of me didnt really make up his mind if he was going out or not as there was a truck moving very slowely, he hesistated a few times about going and then when he did stop, he stopped rather abrupty and didnt call it (I guess you dont need to, although when I am riding in, I do call stopping or slowing) I managed to stop myself from hitting him, but didnt catch myself from going OTB. One of the PT's there had a first aid kit and helped me out.
Accidents happen, definitly could of been avoided if he had been a bit positive in his actions, as in made a decision and stick with it and I should have given myself more room to stop.
I try to avoid commutting into town anytime after 7.45am, it just gets to busy. Unfortunately I have seen some fairly serious accidents from people treating the cycle lanes like their own individual crit track, have seen 3 three people being attended by a paramedic on a motorbike. 2 guys over cooked it on the cyclepath where the underpass is, another on the metal bridge which goes over the Cahill before it joines the Harbor Bridge heading North. Had another cyclist cut the corner on that 90 degree corner on the same bridge and almost hit me head on as well, even though I was hard on the left hand side.
I stay away from that whole bike path mess. That green paint they've put over the tiles on the underpass is diabolical in the wet
and the whole start/stop thing with the traffic lights and bikes being at the bottom of the lights' priority order drives me nuts. I agree some people's sense of risk assessment seems to get suspended when they're on those paths. Some acquaintances have stopped using the Epping Rd bike path section through Naremburn for similar reasons.
SO coming off the bridge, instead of going left past the observatory and up over the Cahill overpass I turn right, heading down to either Hickson Rd -> Sussex Street or go via Barangaroo towards Pyrmont. Far fewer traffic lights and less traffic.
I heard that there were police booking cyclists riding on the road next to the Pyrmont corner bike lanes the other day. That would imply you have to use the green slip traps. The King Street lights have pads on them so if you are riding up the hill and adhering to the rules you will guarantee to have to stop. The bike lanes are really good but there are obviously some problems still.
@ donkerr My understanding is they were booking riders without helmets and those running red lights. I can't believe how many riders I see not wearing helmets, wearing earphones and with crappy lights!
Hey Don
You heard right. Apparently it is illegal to ride on the road if there is a bike lane present.
Phil
Off-road bike lanes like Clover's ones in the city are optional. The technical reason is they are on a road-related area, not the road proper.
On-road ones are optional only if their use is impractical, for example if too close to a car door or there is glass or oil. Otherwise yes they are compulsory.
However, to be a bike lane the on road ones MUST have a sign that contains a bike symbol and the word "LANE" according to the road rules. Simply having a marked lane with a painted bike symbol and no "LANE" sign doesn't meet requirements. Not that non-cyclist drivers would know the difference, so you'd need to be prudent to avoid pissing someone off.
I can point you to the exact road rules when i get home later if the interest is there.