Cyclist speaks out about "bullyish" bus driving that prompted Transport for London investigation

When I regularly comuted to work in London, I found having a bike horn that bus drivers could actually hear was quite helpful - https://www.airzound.co.uk/

There is a solution to this and it's beautifully simple. Buses usually are required to have an engine kill switch on the right rear side. Sometimes it's a silver button on the outside, sometimes it's a black button under the 'engine oil' panel. After they've cut you up, go round the back of the bus, wait for it to stop again and hit the kill switch. Then cycle off. The bus will lose power and safely come to a stop, if it's not already stopped.

You might engage with the confused/irate driver but sooner or later, when they do it enough, they'll get it. I've spoken to the police about this approach and basically, if you're not confident that the driver is giving their full attention to other road users (based on the fact that they've just endangered you), the only safe way to negotiate past them may be to take them out of the loop altogether. So the law more or less has your back.

Problem solved. The driver has a three minute time out to consider his actions.

This is a classic manoeuvre - it happened to me 1000's of times - 20 years ago in London and the other day in Brighton and everything in between - the other day the bus had 200 yds from the lights to the stop yet chose to overtake me and then when in about the same relative position as this video indicated and forced me to brake and get out of the crush zone - its fueled by a sort of entitled impatience - a sort of feeling that as they are conveying more people they have rights above everyone else - as a cyclist we are simply vulnerable and so these moments are actually really difficult because simply put they are actually really dangerous while at the same time really pointless. I rode on just feeling disappointed at the behaviour of a fellow human person towards another.

Driving that endangers cyclists or pedestrians is unacceptable and far from the required standard of our bus drivers," Trew told us. "We are working with RATP… to investigate this incident and ensure it doesn't happen again

We have been through this before. The investigation takes a couple of minutes- they have the video- so what is taking the time is the delaying tactic in the expectation that people soon forget about an individual incident, and the moving the words around in the standard response to make it appear to be a genuine response. It will include 'we take this very seriously' and 'we must ensure this does not happen again', in the full knowledge it will happen again and there will then be no real consequences for the driver either. You will know that society is really taking it seriously when the driver gets points on his licence or at least a compulsory driving course (not the joke online ones!). Anything else is worthless, and demonstrates that society is definitely not taking the offence seriously

Lancashire Constabulary has, as I never tire of writing, a deplorable attitude that if a cyclist wasn't KSI'd then the driver committed no offence- and if the cyclist was KSI'd then the only witness to what happened is the driver who says it was the cyclist's fault: Job Done! LC has now, as is usually the case, failed to comply with the FOIA and has not replied within the specified 20 working days to my FoI request about what actually happened to this driver. This is how the police work: keeping things secret!

http://3.4.22 https://upride.cc/incident/4148vz_travellerschoicecoach_closepass/

Cyclist speaks out about "bullyish" bus driving....

Well, I for one am surprised that the cost of living crisis is so acute that Dominic Raaab has to moonlight as a bus driver.

Generally speaking I've found London bus drivers OK... though my experience is generally only zone 1. I make sure I make eye contact in the mirrors then I'm good to go. The fact that I can usually make eye contact in the mirrors I put down to TFL having good training and bus drivers being used to cyclists on the routes I use.

That makes the driver Lauren reported worse. Professional driver, trained how to do things properly, chose to drive like an arsehole. Really glad she's taking it forward.