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Member:	Kirst
Location:	St Mary's Street
Vehicle model:	A ?white, -all- -all-
Driver gender:	male
Injuries:	None
Date:	11 Jun 2010
MGM Timber vehicle MV55 EMJ at approximately 3.15pm today, Friday 10th June. Driver was male, with cropped dark hair, a dark top, and had a bluetooth earpiece on his right ear. At about 3.15pm today I was cycling on St Mary's Street, heading towards the junction with the Royal Mile and then on to the junction with the Cowgate and up the Pleasance. St Mary's street is hilly and cobbled and the cobbles are very uneven. It's not easy to maintain a straight course on cobbles so uneven, so I was having to adjust my position to ensure I didn't come off the bike. In addition, there were parked cars at the kerb, so as advised in the Highway Code (rule 67), and in Cyclecraft (the government approved training manual for cyclists), I was in the centre of the lane to ensure I would not be hit by an opening door of a parked car. I became aware of a lorry behind me, revving its engine. There was no room for me to move to let it pass, and the lights ahead were red, so I continued on my course. When I stopped at the red lights at the junction with the Royal Mile, the lorry driver shouted something at me. I asked him to repeat it and he said "keep to the left." I told him that there were parked cars so I couldn't move further left. He told me that the Highway Code says cyclists should keep to the left. I tried to explain that the Highway Code is clear that cyclists should position themselves so as to ensure their own safety, which in this case meant staying out of the "door zone." He then tried to tell me that I only had the right to be ahead of him at a junction if there was a red bx painted on the ground - an ASL box. I pointed out that I'd been ahead of him all the way along the road. The driver continued to shout at me, aggressively and angrily, telling me to read the Highway Code and basically that I had no right to be in his way. When the lights changed we proceeded to the next set of red lights (at the junction with the Cowgate) and he revved his engine and made me feel threatened all the way along the road. When the lights changed and we both proceeded up the Pleasance I was in fear for my life as to how closely he might overtake me - in the end he did give me enough room. I am disgusted that a man protected by a huge lorry would seek to intimidate, bully and harass a woman on a bike. I am very concerned that a professional driver has so little knowledge of the rules of the road, and that he thinks it's appropriate to bawl from the cab to express his impatience at having to wait ten seconds to get to a red light. Make no mistake, had I not been in front of him, he would still have got to the light on red. As a regular cyclist in Edinburgh I have developed a reasonably thick skin, but that driver's behaviour was a disgrace. He doesn't know the Highway Code, he thinks it's ok to express his unjustified impatience by yelling at people, and he thinks vulnerable, squishy cyclists should risk their own safety to allow him to get to the next red light a few seconds earlier.

11 Jun 2010

ClawedButler 14 Jun 2010
Kirst, Since you have the name of the firm & the Registration Number you should write a letter to MGM Timber. Hopefully, if they have any safe driving policy they would have words with the driver who may see reason in the cold light of day.

Kirst 14 Jun 2010
I emailed them on Friday. The local manager rang today and he is a cyclist, and was very apologetic. Driver was not usual driver, was agency driver - and here's the good bit - they're not using that as an excuse, they're saying he'd just been through a full induction so there's absolutely no excuse for how he behaved. He has spoken to the agency and asked them to get back to him within 24 hours, and suggested that the driver be kept off the roads until this is investigated and dealt with. He'll get back to me tomorrow.

dameunmate 31 Aug 2010
That's right we mustn't be bullied into risking our necks. Well done for holding your ground! I find it takes a lot of guts sometimes, especially when I refuse to give way to a large vehicle coming the opposite way on a narrow street. It's not my fault we can't both fit on the same bit of road, it's the fat vehicle's fault so they should wait for me! Do you think I'm reckless?

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