Near-death Experience

Biker Jock · Jan 14, 2019

A memory from 35+ years ago, triggered by another thread on here about an accident while filtering.

I was a computer maintenance bloke in Lincolnshire, and was trying to leave a customer's car park and turn right onto a main (national speed limit) road during rush hour on a dark January afternoon. The exit was at the end of a long stretch of roadworks (to my right - i.e. on my side of the road). There was a barrier of some sort, which meant that I could not see if there was any traffic coming from my right on the wrong side of the road, past the road works.

To my left, there was a queue of traffic, headed by an ambulance, waiting for the traffic lights to change. I could not see the traffic lights, so I decided to wait on a signal from the ambulance driver to let me out. I had caught his eye, so I knew he had seen me, and I was 100% certain he would let me out first when the lights went to green.

So, I sat there for what seemed like an age, watching the ambulance, and eventually... ...a double flash of the headlights! My signal to go. Off I went...

...straight into the path of a big artic thundering along towards me past the roadworks. I was dead - except that there was an escape route into a business car park straight opposite. The artic must have missed me by a whisker, and a couple of guys from the roadworks gave me a proper foul-mouthed bollocking.

In hindsight, I think the ambulance driver was flashing recognition to the lorry driver, not for me to go. Or maybe it was a slack day and he was trying to drum up some business.

TEZ 217 · Jan 14, 2019

Wow reet arse twitcher that one

Dougie D · Jan 14, 2019

i think most of us us have had a close call at one time, but that WAS a close one! i bet you double check now if someone flashes their headlights

Yorkshireman · Jan 14, 2019

This is why I never go when someone else flashes me.
There’s a junction near me where I turn right into the main road. There is a “right turn pocket”, a lane for right turners to enter from my left. Almost always the vehicle in the turn lane flashes me to go but I’ve lost count of the number of times there has been a vehicle going straight on to it’s left at speed (it’s a 50mph limit, not always adhered to,) and had I gone on their flash it would have resulted in at the very least a need for the other vehicle to brake hard or collide with me as there is nowhere for it to escape to if I pull into its lane. This results in numerous and obviously increasingly irate flashing from the right turner and very often the single finger gesture coupled with obvious foul mouthed language as they eventually succumb to the fact I ain’t moving. They do it cos they are lazy bastards and want to cut the corner and save the obvious extra effort of slowing down and turning a bit tighter.