Driving a car- how can I be safer around bikers?

[almoststew1990]

I've daringly ventured over from PC Games / Motors to ask you lot if my driving is good / bad / dangerous for bikers, and what annoys you lot as I seem to see more and more on my commute!

For instance, If I get a biker is jumping a 'queue' of traffic (a few cars at at time where safe to do so) stuck behind a nonce doing 40 on a 60mph road, is it best to move over to the side slightly, or slow down a bit to get a gap ahead of me for you to pull into or what?

Are bikers brakes better than cars? You only have two wheels, but have significantly less weight. I had to do pretty much an emergency stop the other day on the motorway in the outside lane with a bike quite close to my rear but on the left hand side of the outside lane, and i moved over to the right to give the biker the chance to brake slower on my inside if needs be.

Apart from those two examples, what can a competent driver do to help bikers be safer?

 

[almoststew1990]

I do generally not really do anything in normal situations around a bike (I've seen people panic when they've got a biker behind them and it is a scary situation to be in!) I'm more on about the unusual or emergency situations.

It seems there are two types of bikers- crazy ones that do 100 on a derestricted A road and pass about 20 cars on blind corners, and ones that only overtake cars at a max of +20mph of the cars they're overtaking.

Curiously it seems the latter group are the ones that say thank you when you move over a bit in a slow /stationary queue of traffic.

 

[almoststew1990]

thanks for the feedback. I'm just concious that whilst I have an airbag to faceplant you've only got cold hard tarmac!

Other than just being aware ALL the time and not snoozing off/txting/doing make up .

yeah don't worry, I'm not one of those 'drivers'. I try not to think about the millions that do do that.

 

[almoststew1990]

Thanks guys that is very informative!