Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
In Iceland I was riding along in the traffic lane, there is maybe 6 inches (13 cm) of pavement on the edge of the road out of the traffic lane, steep embankment beyond the shoulder. A pickup truck decides to pass someone, so suddenly I have a pickup about 50 to 70 meters ahead of me coming towards me at full highway speed. I was so sure that he would see me and duck back into his lane, I stayed in the lane where I was. A few seconds later when he is only about 30 meters from me, it is clear that he does not care about me and I only have a second to get out of the way, so I try to get onto that few inch width of pavement out of the lane without going over the embankment, and the truck driver was adjacent to the car as they both passed me. It shocked me so much that it took a few minutes to actually believe that it happened, from start to finish was only a few seconds.
The high viz gear did not help at all. All cars there have their headlights on, my frontroller panniers have a big reflective patch on each that should have lit up too, but that did not help. But he was so close to me I can't figure out how he could have not seen me.
I figure we've all had this happen to us a few times. The last time I remember was a big truck passing a big truck , I was surprised but because I had a good shoulder I actually found it bemusing and actually laughed as it was not a dangerous situation really, just a "what a jerk" situation. It was on one of my trips either in Mexico or somewhere, don't recall, but I'd have to say that truck drivers there are nearly all to a fault very courteous and professional , so I didn't get upset and as I had lots of room, it wasn't a dicey situation at all.
made one hell of a WOOOOSH though.