Irresponsible Driving by a Brightwater Driver

[Aushiker]

G'day

Just sent this wmail to the Brightwater Group following an incident this morning involving one of their trucks.

Regards
Andrew

Dear Brightwater

I regretfully have a driver "incident" on Curtain Avenue, Cottesloe, WA this morning involving a Brightwater truck whilst riding my bicycle in a legal manner.

A Brightwater truck caught in traffic at the Grant Street pedestrian crossing on Cutain Avenue between 7:15 AM and 7:30 AM this morning February 20,2008, decided that I should not be able to pass on left in the dedicated cycling lane and attempted to block me by moving into the lane just as I was approaching the rear of the vehicle. There was NO legitimate reason for the driver to do this and in fact the driver crossed over a solid white line doing this. The driver did pass me further on down the road, again reinforcing my view that this was a malicious act by the driver.

Thankfully I was able to safely flick to the truck's right, pass and move back in front of the truck into the cycle lane without further harassment. However, I should not have had to do so nor should I have been deliberately targeted in this way.

I got out of it okay, but it was not a nice experience to suddenly have a truck moving over to try and block one's path. The whole behaviour by the driver is quite unbelievable given the incident the day before.

With the rush of the incident and my desire to get away from the truck before being subject to further harassment or worse, I didn't get the truck's number, only having time to identify the name on the side.

I consider the actions of his driver to be not only illegal, plain and simply STUPID but also dangerous. I have no desire to be hurt or worse killed. Therefore Brighwater Group Limited should take this email as due notice that should I experience another incident of this nature with one of your vehicles I will without further notice proceed to take appropriate action via the Police and/or civil courts.

I suggest that you take appropriate steps to ensure your drivers are familiar with the rules of the road and apply them. That they should be made to understand that "cyclists" are sons and daughters, mums and dads and brothers and sisters and should be not targeted in such a manner.

Regards
Andrew Priest

[Kalgrm]

Sorry to hear about the incident Andrew. Gotta start looking at those number plates ....

Cheers,
Graeme

[Aushiker]

Sorry to hear about the incident Andrew. Gotta start looking at those number plates ....

Yeah. In the rush it just slipped my mind. After I was just more concerned about staying out of the trucks way.

Will be interested to see if I get a response from Brightwater.

Andrew

[Mulger bill]

HRM stopped screaming yet Andrew?

Scary thing when you can't even use the bike lane without these morons

Glad you're OK, good luck getting a response.

Shaun

[mikesbytes]

Yeh, ****heads are out there.

Don't move anywhere near toolong HQ

[nimm]

Riding along in a wide bike lane with 2 wide car lanes (for this direction) and along comes a truck half in the bike lane! No traffic either. Lucky I could hear something "big" coming so I moved closer to the gutter. Had I not done that I'd have been hit.

Unfortunately at about 30kph and the truck at 70kph I didn't get any details.

Crazy and scary

[exadios]

We where riding back to Perth on Brookton Highway when we where passed by two WA police vehicles. The first was one of those type that have a lot of lights on the roof and has "Highway Patrol" written on the side. This vehicle passed us by moving towards the middle of the road and cleared us by about a meter. There was no on coming traffic at the time. The second was a utility with a cage on the back. This vehicle insisted on passing us even though there was a car coming in the opposite direction. It cleared us by about one half of a meter and forced the on coming car to brake and move onto the shoulder.

This is not the worst driving I have seen but it was the worst I saw on this particular tour. And the worst part of it was that it was a police vehicle.

The Brookton Highway was carrying medium traffic - mainly locals from Brookton, Pingerly and Beverly, and trucks loaded with wheat or compressed stock feed. Without exception these vehicles passed us safely by crossing over to the other lane.

[Aushiker]

G'day

I do find that the semi drivers that I encounter on Curtain Avenue and around Freo pretty good all up. They seem to have an awareness of cyclists etc. It is the drivers of the smaller trucks that seems to be ones to watch for. Least they are the ones that cause a problem for me.

Andrew

[cricetidae]

I ride mainly at night on a circuit I made that covers from my home in East Cannington along Welshpool Road and Kewdale Road as far as the International Terminal roundabouts.

In all the drivers I encounter after midnight I find that the only ones to be concerned about are the taxis flying to the airport at well above the speed limit and being Commonwealth land speed checks are not allowed by state authorities.

Semi trailer drivers are probably the most reliable and predictable drivers in the area.

[TonyS]

Bikewest is currently looking at some new technology that enables tiny video cameras to be attached to bicycle helmets, and with continuous loop recording times of about 30 mins. Our early research is promising but will keep the WA cycling public informed as the project progresses.

[Kalgrm]

Bikewest is currently looking at some new technology that enables tiny video cameras to be attached to bicycle helmets, and with continuous loop recording times of about 30 mins. Our early research is promising but will keep the WA cycling public informed as the project progresses.

This is exactly what I want. I'll await with bated breath.

Cheers,
Graeme