Well, this has been an amusing thread. A lot of the time I commute into London from deepest Kent. Usually on a motorbike. You see extreme cyclist behaviour such as texting, drinking coffee, sticking arm out and turning right without looking, going over red lights, passing bollards on the wrong side etc...routinely. I see quite a lot of dimwit driving too. It's all part of the rich tapestry of life. Cyclists do scare me when they go up the inside of lorries or buses, but what the hell, it's their life. I actually prefer cyclists to jump red lights - at least they are out of my way then!
Until quite recently as a charitable thing I used to do a fair bit of examining for advanced motorcycle tests. This was mostly in Surrey, often around the Box Hill and Shere area, which is cycling central. There are lots of country lanes, mostly with a national limit, and loads of hairpin bends on steep hills. More than once I have seen collisions between cyclists and cars as the cyclists, a bit out of control on descents, try to straighten corners and are unavoidably in the path of oncoming traffic. Can be quite nasty and a couple of times I have seen the cycling groups blame entirely innocent car drivers, without, quite literally, having a leg to stand on. I think it is pretty dangerous riding a bike these days and we need to cut them a little bit of slack. The Boris bike riders are often the worst in London - not used to cycling, inattentive, and puffed out.
I disagree with Jacob completely about big 4X4s. I have a Q7 as our workhorse (prior to that an X5 and prior to that a Range Rover) and none of them have had poor visibility on the near side. On the contrary, my experience when comparing our cars (we are politically and ecologically incorrect and have some) is that the 4X4 has better visibility as you are high up, have a panoramic view all round and big mirrors. The current cars also have blind spot alert systems and lane deviation warnings, and one of them has a pedestrian collision avoidance system that stops the car if you don't, so safety is actually pretty good these days. I can confirm too that driving a 4X4 does not invoke in me a feeling of Kingship or indeed any kind of lordly lineage. My republican sentiments remain strangely intact and I cruise along in serene comfort (usually on my way to the tip).
