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The son of former Liverpool and England full-back Phil Neal, Ashley — who had a brief playing career himself and now works as a driving instructor, uploading videos to YouTube on all things road safety — has done another video on cycling. So, we thought we’d take a look to see if it’s anything like the last couple that have come to our attention…
This one’s all about primary position (or riding in the centre of the lane) something Rule 72 of the Highway Code suggests should be adopted:
On quiet roads or streets – if a faster vehicle comes up behind you, move to the left to enable them to overtake, if you can do so safely.
In slower-moving traffic – when the traffic around you starts to flow more freely, move over to the left if you can do so safely so that faster vehicles behind you can overtake.
At the approach to junctions or road narrowings where it would be unsafe for drivers to overtake you.
Clearly in the video too where there is the danger of car doors flying open, or something or someone suddenly emerging from between parked vehicles, it is suitable to ride away from the left. It seems the cyclist thinks any driver overtaking here would cause danger, so they adopt primary position to discourage such a manoeuvre… only to be undertaken… something Neal says is caused by their positioning being too far to the right of the road space…
“Now, there’s no way in the world the motorist should even thought about overtaking the cyclist in that situation,” Neal began. Cool, job done, let’s all pack up for the day…
The YouTube driving instructor then explains the cyclist needed to stay out the door zone which doesn’t leave enough room for any motorist to overtake safely, with a 1.5m gap…
But what about the cyclist’s “poor positioning? Neal then asks, suggesting they were too far away from the cars, which might have encouraged the “stubbornness” of the driver to kick in and force the overtake.
“I’m all for keeping positive and maybe commanding other road users at certain times, but why go so far? Why go all the way into the oncoming traffic lane?”
Neal then argues the positioning also took away their “escape route” back to the left and adds: “If I were on the bike I probably would have positioned near, or on or just over, the centre line of the road and if the other vehicle behind had decided to come past I would have slowed it down, tucked it in to the left a little bit, allowed the situation to clear and then got on with my day…”
Thoughts? Not too sure about the merits of “tucking it” into the door zone just because an impatient motorist has to get past but hey, I’m not a driving instructor…
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