It appears you have 2 dipshits in that little video.
Dipshit #1 is the van driver making a rushed right hand turn against traffic without taking into account all forms of traffic coming at him. Cyclist, pedestrian, etc. (Same deal as a left hand turn against traffic here)
Dipshit #2 is cyclist riding a vintage bike with no brakes in heavy traffic and going at an unreasonably high speed. And then it appears he turns LEFT INTO the van rather than right to avoid it.
Classic case of when dipshits collide.
While the cyclist did not do the correct thing, it looks like psychologically he did the typical human behaviour. That typical behaviour was to focus all his attention on the thing that posed danger/risk to him (and that is fine for a situation where there is time to think and analyze before acting). Unfortunately, that took his focus away from finding his way to get around or avoid the danger. Anyone who is a sports coach sees this sort of thing all the time. It does not matter if it is running, cycling or driving a race car. I can no longer count the number of times I have said "Look where you WANT to go! Don't look at the rock/hole/whatever." In moving activities, a person generally controls themselves to go where they are looking. So, looking at the obstacle means the person goes to the obstacle and .... crashes. If the person looks where they want to go, they will generally end up going ... where they want to go. In this case, the cyclist should have looked in the direction of his original route, which was momentarily obscured by the van. Maybe the cyclist would have needed a slight adjustment right to avoid the tail end of the van, but it looks like it would have only needed a minor adjustment. Generally, only a little bit of coaching is needed to make an effective change.
-- You've told me that X times already. You don't need to tell me. Stop it. -- SWMBO
X is a number that I do not remember and is higher than I can count.
X is greater than the sum of the times I have told my son and athletes combined.
... checking that SWMBO is nowhere nearbyEDIT (no, not because SWMBO saw this
)
You funny boy.
13.7 MPH on a "Penny-Farthing" bike or whatever it's called is too freaking fast if you have no brakes.
The Penny-Farthing
does have braking capability as it is "direct drive". Reverse force (not necessarily reverse movement) in pedalling will induce braking. However, the bike design is poor as the braking performance is limited. The braking force needed in most typical situations is in the range where the contraption is no longer considered a bicycle but a catapult. The first bicycle design with both wheels the same size was known as the "safety bicycle". This cyclist held on to the handlebars all the way to the ground; he and the bike both stopped (face plant?). Having not ridden on of these, I am not sure if that is a sign of experience or not (I am not questioning it is a sign of foolishness). The catapult option would also have to hurt a lot, but would also involve a runaway bike.