london cyclingThe other day I was cycling towards Hammersmith and first time I spotted her was on the pavement. Cycling in and out of pedestrians and then back out unto the road without much looking around.

I was cycling in the bus lane, near Charing Cross Hospital and came to a halt when a massive big coach was stopped behind a few other road users at the red light. On the outside there was a long queue of stationary cars and there was not enough room for me to filter between the coach and the cars, so I waited.

Only to be overtaken by the pavement rider who then tried her best to squeeze into the gap between the coach and the cars. To make room for her handle bars and not to scratch the cars. She put her handle bars into the wheel arch of the coach, can you see what is going to happened here …

Yup the coach started to move forward and only by leaning onto the stationary car, she and her bicycle was not dragged along with the coach. Lucky the car couldn’t move forward before the coach had moved away and she could take her weight of the car and continue.

This happened on the same day that I read about the petition ‘Cyclists THINK! Watch out for HGVs‘. Which is all good but don’t go blaming the LGV and HGV drivers, we are all to fault here, we all need to learn how to interact with other road users in a save and sensible way.