Right, I'm fairly level headed when it comes to cyclists, I used to be one myself. In fact I used to cycle 50 miles or so a week. But today I encountered a particularly bolshy one who made me angry. Driving down a road with parked cars either side I stop at a passing point to let oncoming traffic come through. There was only enough room for one line of moving traffic. The cyclist zooms up my left hand side undertaking my stationary car, then swerves out in front of me and squeezes between the oncoming moving traffic and the parked cars on the left in front of me. Later up the road I manage to pass safely at another clear place with no issues giving a good couple of meters clearance, giving no further thought to the matter. At the end of the road there is a queue of traffic turning right at the T junction. I want to turn left and signal my intent but again were parked cars on the left hand side. I had to wait for some of the right turning traffic to clear as there was not enough room to squeeze through and also let oncoming traffic past on the right. The cyclist can't get up the inside of me by undertaking so instead of waiting or getting off and pushing the bike on the pavement, she swerves into the middle of the road, again causing oncoming traffic to avoid her, before swerving left across the front of my car. I had started to move at this point as right turning traffic was moving off and was not aware of her behind me. I had to slam the anchors on pretty hard to avoid hitting her. Much shaking of her head as she then proceeds up the inside of the now stationary queue of traffic waiting to turn right, cuts in front of them without signalling and turns right herself in front of all of them. It was the shaking of her head as if to say I was in the wrong that really riled me and provoked a shout of "where's your signal?" The thing that worries me is, if I was not as alert or quick on the brakes she would have been under my wheels and it would probably have been me who was blamed. She seemed to assume that because she was able to dart in and out of traffic, it was her divine right to do so and everyone should cater to her wishes. This is the sort of cyclist that gives others a bad name and eventually gets squashed up the inside of a left turning lorry. Rant over. I feel better now.
I fully understand that my point of view is likely to be a little biased but I just can't see how anyone of reasonable of intelligence could think that they were allowed to cycle like that safely.
Fully agree with meister. Saw one today in London bridge with a kind of daft punk style helmet (sic) with two cameras and a light on it. Looked like the biggest tool in the box. Since everyone is walking in London today you'd think the cyclists might be careful at junctions and cycle slowly, like what the drivers do. No, not a bit of it, far more fun to try to knock everyone over and do swearing and record it on your self righteous cameras
The reality is that anybody who turns up to work sweating in nylon short-shorts has already limited their career prospects to 25% up the corporate ladder. Fact.
Idiots on bikes and idiots in cars. Same gene pool no false distinction between them. The roads need a massive rethink and cycling, whichever way you look at it is part of the solution. Bikes and cars need to be separated and when they are and more people cycle there's more room for drivers.
I'm a cyclist but I get wound up by the many idiot cyclists on the road. On Sunday I was driving on the A41 south going up a steep hill (just after Tring) where I came across a group of cyclists that were riding 2 abreast on the carriageway. They can't have been doing more than 10mph at that point yet were on a road where people are driving at 70mph+. Drivers were forced to brake hard and swerve in to the outside lane just to avoid them. Deaths waiting to happen.
Can't help agreeing with you there although often space is the issue. More thought needs to go into the provision of parking which on the carriageway is becoming a huge issue, especially round my way. It can be a good 300-400 yards between passing places if there's cars parked each side and it causes massive congestion. Houses as wide as the length of one car can have people owning two or more cars living in them. I'd make it a regulation that for all new planning permission, there should be at least 1 off street parking space provided per bedroom. That way people turning their garages into living rooms would need to buldoze their front garden to provide parking, people extending into the loft to squeeze in more residents per metre would need to think about how to accommodate them and new house builds would have to be though out more sensibly rather than trying to squeeze as many people in as possible.
I prefer idiot cyclists to idiot drivers. Idiot cyclists are far more likely to only kill themselves.
I just cycled from pinheiros to Vila Olympia on the Brazilian equivalent of a Boris bike. Because it's 'workers day' the roads are completely empty allowing me to swerve around with impunity
i onced cycled 6 miles home at 2am via country lanes with no lights or reflectors, all for a copy of gta 5
https://uk.screen.yahoo.com/fails-trips-and-falls/funny-moment-cyclist-falls-face-060000137.html Try not to laugh. I bet you all fail.
I didn't laugh. I have had a lot worse than that (A crash going down a hill at 30mph is on the net somewhere) but have also gone over the handle bars into a river.... It's more funny when it happens to you
I thought he was just unlucky and at least had a sense of humour about it. Probably one of the decent ones out there.
