This isn’t really a general question, I just came across some very dumb/lucky people on the road today. Judging by their bikes they are not STW readers.

Firstly I saw a women pile in to the back of the women in front who slowed for a pelican crossing. Hilarious because they ended up in a heap, but also luck because if traffic had been moving then they or their bikes would definitely have been clipped by someones car.

Shortly after this someone decided to ride into the side of my car. I was parked. He had a massive go at me for knocking him off his bike which made it hard for me to keep the expletives to myself and I let the silly bastard know that in order to knock him off I had to be moving so in actual fact he know owed me however much money it would take to fix the wing mirror, passenger door and front wing that he has smashed in.
He grabbed his bike and buggered off.
I’m trying to focus on the funny side of this because I am still pretty fuming about this.

Lastly I was following a truck there was a cyclist who was in the middle of the road coming the other way. I don’t know what he was looking at, his head was down and he was just veering accross into my lane of traffic, he got next to the lorry and either realised in the nick of time or actually bounced off the side of it. Either way, my heart was in my mouth because I thought he was going to end up under it. I thought afterwards that I should have blown my horn to try and wake up the cyclist and get him to focus but it all happened so fast.

All of these incidents happened within about 5 minutes of each other.

PAY BLOODY ATTENTION – Don’t just complain about all the car drivers, make sure you help the stupud cyclists out there by pointing out that they are as much of a danger to themsleves as cars are .

Rant over.

i think the cycling pool is indeed now filling up and there are a few more casual cyclists are in the mix. Its a bit of a learning curve for many and frankly an uphill battle for many. Even experienced bikers can be pretty dumb at times. Mix in some seriously dumb motorists and in a hill street blues stylee: be careful out there 🙂

er, what was the question again……..

😉

but also luck because if traffic had been moving then they or their bikes would definitely have been clipped by someones car

TBF if the traffic was moving they wouldn’t have been slowing down.

All brilliant examples of why we need proper segregated infrastructure.

yes there are some special folk out there, i really cannot understand why people ride around with earplugs in both ears! i mean ffs how can they hear what is going on around them, it riles me everytime, glad i dont live in a city

Idiots one on side, non-idiots on the other?

Are cyclists getting dumber?

I’ve moved this into the bike forum for you. 😀

my treat of the day was the guy on the Cove Handjob who berrated a pedestrian for getting out of a car without looking and walking in front of him (as he undertook stationary traffic) then hopped up on to pavement and rode off across a pedestrian precinct. Nice work there!

though I do ride with earphones in, on dual carriage ways, and through 2 cities. I can however hear perfectly fine thanks!

Sadly idiots are idiots whether they are on bikes or in cars.
On my commute this morning I saw a roadie jump traffic lights going into a single lane over a bridge, didn’t even slow down, then shortly after I had another one cycle straight at me when I had right of way through a traffic calming pinch-point, having overtaken cars waiting for me to come through. Then later on I and the car in front had to stop as another car was backing into a driveway ahead of us, two cyclists went past us both, and behind the reversing car, luckily he saw them in time and stopped. He hit the horn, they gave him the finger.
If I hadn’t been a cyclist, I’d be thinking ‘bloody cyclists’, as it was I just thought ‘bloody idiots’.

A risk-taking seven in ten drivers admitted to speeding regularly – in fact the average respondent had exceeded the limit four times in the last week alone.

One in five people have driven knowing they are over the limit and would fail a breathalyzer test.

All this and more at:
http://www.slatergordon.co.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2013/09/bad-driving-epidemic-on-uk-roads-a-new-study-reveals/

I think when cyclists start worrying too much about the inadequacies of cyclists, when compared to motorists, cyclists as a group are paragons of virtue, it’s a fine example of Stockholm Syndrome.

Presumably c_klein never drives with the windows up or the stereo on.

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cyclists-with-ipods-hear-the-same-as-motorists-listening-to-nothing/013329

Ride On magazine of Australia has discovered that cyclists listening to music or podcasts while riding hear more ambient traffic noise than motorists listening to an in-car stereo or even listening to nothing at all.

TBF if the traffic was moving they wouldn’t have been slowing down.

Yeah that did occur to me but the women behind wasn’t paying any attention to what was in front of her so if the other cyclist was just starting off or if it was a pedestrian crossing the road or even a curb, she would have crashed into it!

my treat of the day was the guy on the Cove Handjob who berrated a pedestrian for getting out of a car without looking and walking in front of him (as he undertook stationary traffic)

It’s illegal to open your car door in a way that endangers other road users.
It’s not illegal to “undertake” stationary traffic.

We all had to start somewhere.

Luckily, when I was a lad, there were less cars, more traffic police and steam waggons moved very, very slowly.
Not many people survived being run over by one though.

If I hadn’t been a cyclist, I’d be thinking ‘bloody cyclists’, as it was I just thought ‘bloody idiots’.

+1

Sadly idiots are idiots whether they are on bikes or in cars.

+10

c_klein87 – Member
yes there are some special folk out there, i really cannot understand why people ride around with earplugs in both ears!

yup no problems on my 100 mile a week commute in that london, id be lost without my ipod

especially since becoming a dad ive definately slowed down and try to ride defensively, basically assuming that motorised death will come at me from any direction at all times.

when compared to motorists, cyclists as a group are paragons of virtue

the whole ‘them and us’ arguments don’t help, but just reinforce the divisions that already exist.
have you taken the time to explain to these cyclists that they are doing idiotic things? I have, and have been told many times to ‘**** off’ so I don’t bother anymore and just call them idiots…
Idiots.

The problem is that car drivers tend not to be crushed to death because their headphones stopped them realising they had another car right behind them. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with it but the risk for a cyclist is such that I’d much rather hear a car is approaching long before it gets there on my bike than I would even care about in the car. Chances are, the car coming up behind me when I’m driving is closing at a relatively small rate compared to when I’m cycling.

I give very little of a damn about bad cyclists, to be honest. They’re no more than a tiny tiny blip of a cause in the road casualty problem. Most of the objection to people doing “bad things” on bikes seems to stem from some sense of etiquette rather than actual casualty rates and impact.

Cyclists on pavements? Sure, annoying. But 150 times more people are killed ON PAVEMENTS by motor vehicles than by cyclists. Cyclists without helmets? Bothered. Good on them, it’s pretty safe and if we really wanted to bring down head injuries we should first make helmets compulsory in cars.

Cyclists complaining disproportionately about cyclists behaviors while the vast majority of motorists are complete scofflaws, and put us all in far, FAR more danger. Weird.

TBF if the traffic was moving they wouldn’t have been slowing down.

Yeah that did occur to me but the women behind wasn’t paying any attention to what was in front of her so if the other cyclist was just starting off or if it was a pedestrian crossing the road or even a curb, she would have crashed into it!

Ah, I’ll give you that one then. 🙂

There are idiots in all walks of life, both experienced and inexperienced.

After all the injuries and deaths in the media, you’d think that poeople wouldn’t take stupid risks with traffic yet;

a) Just yesterday, I was sat calmly at a red light on my bike, which had been red for say 40 seconds. Still a fully day-glo shorn ride can past me and dodge through the oncoming/right turning traffic

b)I watched lady with a cheap helmet mounted on the back of her head in dark/black office clothers neogitiate by cycling her wobbly way across 4 lanes of rush hour traffic this morning

c) During Sunday’s sportive, a club kit clad rider took it upon himself to ride bang in the middle of the (open) road, sometimes 12/18 inches from oncoming cars, with 4ft+ of space to his left.

I give very little of a damn about bad cyclists, to be honest

what if the bad/ stupid behaviour of cyclists had a direct link to the raising of stress and therefore bad driving of motorized vehicle users?

Non sequitur

Nah, we’re not getting dumber.

It’s just all those banned drivers having to use a bike to get around and continuing to exercise their “skillz”… 🙂

sequitur.
I’ve seen it happen.

I’m sure we’ve all made stupid mistakes on our bikes and learnt from them and learnt from others mistakes, however as more and more people take to two wheels there are more learners out there learning the ropes so it becomes easier to spot them.

And as just been stated, some people are just stupid, whether on two wheels, four wheels or just on foot.

Just as there are bad drivers, there are bad cyclists… See plenty of examples of both in London every day unfortunately.. In nearly 30 years of driving and more than that on the bike I have probably committed a few examples myself.

It’s easy to say that it’s everyone else who causes the problem, but I don’t think the perfect (i.e. mistake free) driver or cyclist exists.

Good post OP!

Totally agree with Brakes on this. I don’t really care if other cyclists want to take suicidal risks but their actions reinforce some car drivers prejudices and consequently puts me more at risk on the road.

“being stressed” is not an excuse for bad driving. Many drivers are constantly stressed by the many factors that mean they can’t go where they want to go as fast as they’d like to. Hence it’s a non sequitur. If people are that stressed that they are debilitated as drivers, they need not to be driving.

It’s inevitable that some people are idiots. I’d rather they were on bikes than in cars.

I’m sure we’ve all made stupid mistakes on our bikes and learnt from them and learnt from others mistakes

This is very true, be it bikes, cars, snowboards, walking, drinking etc. I think it was just having all these incidents happen within about 5 minutes made it seem particularly obvious.

In all of these cases it seemed to be simply not paying attention. Bad news whatever the situation.

Just almost got run off the road by someone in a Clio who decided that 1 lane wasn’t enough for them and was just veering into my lane. I slowed down and got on the horn to make them aware. Tried to go past again and they started veering again.

I think it’s just not my day to be on the road.

I think there’s a generally pretty poor understanding of risk assessment across the population as a whole – not just in transport but health as well.

The idea of taking a risk is seen as stupid and dangerous, which means people try and avoid risk, rather than accepting it as a fact of life and working out ways to manage it.

Tribalising it and suggesting it’s just one group that has the problem (whether it’s cyclists, drivers, pedestrians) just makes it harder for society as a whole to have a debate about all of us just taking more responsibility for our behaviour…

True, but it’s not us tribalising. It’s them!

brooess
The idea of taking a risk is seen as stupid and dangerous, which means people try and avoid risk, rather than accepting it as a fact of life and working out ways to manage it.

I wouldn’t say that, although I wouldn’t say people as a whole take too much risk.

It’s people’s lack of understand of risk, or lack or personal consequence (cars buzzing/overtaking cyclists)that’s the problem, Shirley?

It’s Darwinism at work when people run themselves off the road, not so when they’re running other people.

Guns don’t kill people…..

but also luck because if traffic had been moving then they or their bikes would definitely have been clipped by someones car.

only if that someone was driving too close.

Yeah possibly more learners about so some annoying behaviour tho your door incident is more than annoying. I’m getting peeved with pavement riders on busy pavements at the moment.

but otherwise what ormondroyd said.

brooess
The idea of taking a risk is seen as stupid and dangerous, which means people try and avoid risk, rather than accepting it as a fact of life and working out ways to manage it.

I wouldn’t say that, although I wouldn’t say people as a whole take too much risk.

Have you never had people tell you they think you’re mad for mountain biking cos it’s ‘too dangerous’?

Can’t say I have, but I spend more time on the road with dumb drivers 🙂

but also luck because if traffic had been moving then they or their bikes would definitely have been clipped by someones car.
only if that someone was driving too close.

As they toppled, the bike of the lady who did the crashing turned 90 degrees so would have definitely been hit by something moving on at least one side of her. Luckily there was a gap between the stopped traffic so none of the vehicles got damaged by this. Well, indirectly. I think the cyclist who crashed into me may have been distracted by all this drama.

This morning a woman just cycled straight out of a quiet side road right in front of the bus I was on.

The bus driver decided to ‘teach her a lesson’ by swerving into her, at this point I am ready to run down the aisle and rant. Driver then stops the bus, gets off and shouts at her, luckily she had stopped and had a complete look of shock and terror on her face.

Hopefully she won’t ride out without looking/listening again.