I was driving into work the other day after picking my car up from the bodyshop fresh from a nice shiny new paint job.
I was stationary in traffic coming up to Shoreditch High St with a no entry on my left, having left sufficient space for cars to emerge from my left. As I was sitting there contemplating another shift in the hood two fixie riders approached in the opposite direction. A trendy East London type with coiffed hair, skinny jeans and the look of a malnourished crack dabbler turned hard in front of my car to ride through the no entry. As he did this, he shouted to his lady friend riding her trendy fixie with rolled up jeans mere feet behind him. As she was listening to an iPod and staring at her trendy London reflection in a shop window she completely over shot the illegal turn, skidding uncontrollably sideways into the front of my newly valeted and stationary car. My immediate reaction was to check that she was ok. As I stepped out of the drivers door she looked at me like a startled and very fashionable rabbit, got back on the bike, and f*cked off as fast as her legs could carry her. I looked at the front of my car and saw a massive new dent and a big chunk of front grille missing. I looked up and saw about 25 people standing dumfounded, with one or two of them shouting after the modern art and metaphysical cardigan knitting undergraduate student.
At this point I don't mind addmitting I suffered total, catastrophic sense of humour failure. So I did a U-turn and used the legal turning that was only metres behind me to find (carefully observing the sppeed limit) Tarquin and Lucinda (not their real names), and found them trying to catch their breath outside a pub. I asked Lucinda if she was hurt and if she thought it was reasonable to ride into a car because she wasn't paying attention and then bugger off having caused a load of damage. I was at this point feeling rather smug at how restrained I had been, having taken a 2 second breather before confronting her. She told me that she didn't cause the damage and that I was blocking the turning anyway. At this point I think my right eyelid may have twitched uncontrollably. Rather than resort to physical violence or any kind of verbal assault. I introduced my trump card. Suggesting that next time she tries to ride the wrong way up a no entry, whilst listening to an ipod, cause damage, then make off from the scene of a road traffic collision, she might want to make sure it's not a police officer on his way to work.
I have never seen a look of trendy self-important arrogance drain from someones face quite so quickly. Sometimes my job really does feel like I can make a difference.
