Near miss

lmost saw a nasty accident on the way home tonight.  On the main road that goes past the university, they’ve erected low concrete barriers to separate the cycle lanes from the road.  Some people have been complaining about them, because they’re only kerb height, so it’s easy for cars to hit them if the driver’s not paying attention.  That’s what happened as I was walking along that way – there was a bus stopped on the other side of the road, and cars were veering out slightly towards the centre line as they passed it.  A car on my side obviously thought they were getting too close, so he veered towards the kerb, and ended up going up onto one of the barriers, with one wheel going right over onto the other side of it.  It was one of those small but quite tall city-style cars, and there was a moment when I thought it was going to flip right over.  Luckily it didn’t, but there was a shower of sparks and nasty screeching as the underside of the car slid along the barrier, and its mudguard went flying.  Good thing there wasn’t anyone biking along the cycle lane at the time!