Never shout at a car. You instantly look in the wrong.

What? Who’s shouted?

EDIT:
But it’s this kind of reverence for the car that gets us in a mess. Never shout at a car? Even if you’ve been hit by it? If the driver is pulling out and going to hit you? If they’re starting a left hook? Shouting “WHOA” in those situations makes you look bad? When you’re responding to someone who’s about to run you over?! Are you supposed to just take it with a “yessir, thankyasir”? Shouting on a bike is equivalent to beeping the horn on a car.

If someone is about to cut across into you it’s reasonable to sound the horn as a warning. If you’re just doing it because you’re angry then yeah, it’s not great.

Never shout at a car. You instantly look in the wrong.

What?

Had a look through the Highway Code. Never saw that one.

The other week I had to shout at a woman in a Range Rover (parked half on the pavement, half on double yellows outside the Co-Op, natch) who was about to pull away into my path, without looking or indicating, and knock me off.

Pretty sure I wasn’t in the wrong.

Even on a supposedly cyclists forum, the overwhelming attitude is that the car is king.
Wonderful isn’t it?

Never shout at a car. You instantly look in the wrong.

I can’t agree with this.

Why ever not?

If a motorist is about to do something I think is stupid & dangerous then you’re damn right I’m going to try & alert them, rather in much the same way you’d beep your horn if in a car………….

Pretty sure I wasn’t in the wrong.

The problem on the roads is that NO-ONE thinks they are in the wrong. Ever.

On the roads it doesn’t seem to matter how catastrophically stupid their driving, what sort of daft manoeuvre they were pulling – it wasn’t their fault.

And because they feel it wasn’t their fault they get defensive and angry and the situation escalates from there. And they’re in a Range Rover, you’re on a bike. Being right versus being alive… Sometimes it really is better to live to fight another day.

The problem on the roads is that NO-ONE thinks they are in the wrong. Ever.

On the roads it doesn’t seem to matter how catastrophically stupid their driving, what sort of daft manoeuvre they were pulling – it wasn’t their fault.

And because they feel it wasn’t their fault they get defensive and angry and the situation escalates from there. And they’re in a Range Rover, you’re on a bike. Being right versus being alive…

Are you serious?

If I hadn’t shouted, I would have been knocked off my bike into a busy road.

And they’re in a Range Rover, you’re on a bike.

And there we have it again. Might is right.

Surely we can do better than this.

And there we have it again. Might is right.

I didn’t say that, I was more pointing out the need to use judgement for your own safety.

I was more pointing out the need to use judgement for your own safety.

Yes, and he used it and decided that being run over was worse than not being run over, so he shouted as a warning, which presumably meant the driver stopped as he’d probably not be posting otherwise.

You’ve concluded that these people received abuse and aggression because they were riding like “arseholes”.

Well, we’d just done the same trip without incident. We didn’t ride a-roads, ride two-abreast and pulled over when in the way. They took great pride in doing the exact opposite.

I guess plenty on here don’t realise what utter arseholes they are and assume it’s everyone else. It’s not. It’s you.

Well, we’d just done the same trip without incident. We didn’t ride a-roads, ride two-abreast and pulled over when in the way. They took great pride in doing the exact opposite.

I guess plenty on here don’t realise what utter arseholes they are and assume it’s everyone else. It’s not. It’s you.

With attitudes like this, it’s no wonder we have a road culture that’s stuck in the dark ages.

Even on a supposedly cyclists forum, the overwhelming attitude is that the car is king.

It’s really not.

What people are trying to say (I think) is that no-one is king.

Ah. Then why not rant at the fact that the road is too busy with cars? You could just as equally rant that those other-direction-driving-bastards are holding you up, and should pull over to let you through. Because you’re special, for some reason.

Pulling over and riding along an empty layby whilst faster traffic overtakes? Jesus, the humanity! It’s called common courtesy. A bit of ‘give and take’ if you will.

Only if you think that “courtesy” means slower road users getting out of the way of the Proper People in their cars.

No, people who, in the way of going about their business, have held up faster traffic and who now have the opportunity to let that traffic past at no penalty to their own enjoyment.

Was that the right link? It took me right to a big long straight bit where you could overtake a bus. Actually, you could overtake a line of buses.

As I said, the camera is mounted 10′ up on a pole, try driving the road (all five miles to Skelmorlie) and you’ll get a very different picture. It’s full of dips, bad cambers and blind bends* that make a safe overtake very difficult (especially from a 15-20mph rolling start) and is generally much busier than whenever the photos were taken.

*All of which catch out the “driving gods” and regularly spit them off down onto the rocks.

Even on a supposedly cyclists forum, the overwhelming attitude is that the car is king.
Wonderful isn’t it?

I’d say it’s more people who understand the concept of sharing vs those who think it only goes one way.

I expect farmers on tractors to pull over every now and then too out of courtesy to everyone else. Is that wrong?

Rule 169 of the Highway Code

“Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.”

Q: are cyclists slow moving vehicles? I’d say some most definitely are, then again I’ve been on club runs where the average speed might land you with a speeding ticket….

Bottom lime? Use your common sense..

Bottom lime? Use your common sense..

Careful, you could break the internet with comments like that!

Bottom lime? Use your common sense..

You’re new here, right? 😉

But that is basically the point I was trying to make earlier.

When dealing with conversational anti-cyclist types at work/parties/pub IME it annoys them more if you simply don’t engage, I think they like hearing the standard line responses to their clarksonite clone views.

A straightforward “yeah if you think so…” or “well you’re perfectly entitled to your opinion…” with no attempt to address their “arguments” against cyclists tends to shut them up far more effectively than any attempt at reasoned debate with a moron…

In the long term you win anyway, the modern motorist is a doomed species. Cycling has a brighter future IMO…

TBH, reading your posts makes me wonder if you are a troll or just unhinged. Or both.

It’s difficult to tell.

The only certainty is that you’ve never ridden a bike.

I guess plenty on here don’t realise what utter arseholes they are and assume it’s everyone else. It’s not. It’s you.

Which is sort of the point I was making ^^.
Everyone on the road assumes that they are perfect and everyone else is the arsehole. You only have to look at those surveys of drivers where “80% of drivers think they are ‘above average'” or “60% of drivers say they never use their mobile/speed/jump red lights”

Everyone assumes they’re better than average – they’ll look up and swear at another driver using the phone but then justify their own sneaky check of a text message with “oh it was just a quick glance while I was at the lights”.