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Well commutings changed?

28 posts & 23 voices | Started 2 years ago by oldgit | Latest reply from crazy-legs

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oldgit - Member

I used to commute bloomin miles donkeys years ago, North London to Leighton Buzzard and North London to London Colney through all sorts of conditions.

I've just this week started to commute again, only a few miles now and most of that is on lanes away from roads. However I do need to use some bits of road and that's effing mental. Motorists really do hate cyclists around here (small town ya see)every day I've needed to be very very careful.
But today, I just pootled down the road on my industrial estate and clearly offended a chap in a lovely new A6 who gunned it past me and sent sparks flying when he hit the first speed bump, I must have offended him even more when I pootled past him in the cycle lane the next five times because he absolutely wrecked his new car to stay in front.
It's madness I tell thee.
On the other hand it's very peacefull going home at night.
I suppose they'd rather I drove in front of them in one of my cars?

Posted 2 years ago #
robbo1234biking - Member

I ride through Millbrook everyday with the speed bumps and cars always overtake in between the speed bumps only to pull back in and brake harshly in front of me. They cant seem to work out that I dont need to slow down for the speedbumps and hence I am quicker!

Posted 2 years ago #
oldgit - Member

Absolutely, I think this one was being driven by a Springer Spaniel!

Posted 2 years ago #
aP - Member

Wait until you get them hurtling suicidally into a width restrictor to get in front of you and one of these happens:
a. Suddenly realises that there's some idiot in the way (me), locks up and slides into the central refuge knocking down the bollard
b. Just goes in anyway forcing you up and over the kerb
c. Collects your elbow with their door mirror
d. Sits behind with hand on the horn
e. Sometimes decide not to be aggressive as possible and wait (this doesn't happen every day)

Posted 2 years ago #
dmiller - Member

Wait until you get them hurtling suicidally into a width restrictor to get in front of you and one of these happens:
a. Suddenly realises that there's some idiot in the way (me), locks up and slides into the central refuge knocking down the bollard

Seen something similar. Brand new BMW pulls along side me and the window goes down. Passenger starts to shout about how I am slowing them down (in a 30, I'm doing 20ish and we are about 100 yards from a school) and then smash - BMW takes out a lamp post on a traffic island that the driver hadn't seen cause he was shouting at me as well.

Posted 2 years ago #
holyhutzpa - Member

smash - BMW takes out a lamp post on a traffic island that the driver hadn't seen cause he was shouting at me as well
I had something similar in London a few weeks ago! It probably didn't help to calm the driver down when I started laughing...

Posted 2 years ago #
HoratioHufnagel - Member

Had a 'left hook' this morning, even though a queue of traffic was blocking the left turn the woman was trying to get to + someone pulled out of side road without looking and had to emergancy stop.

maybe eveyrone was late because they spent so long scraping ice of their car??

I think cyclists are also seen as a stationary object, and hence to be overtaken regardless of whats in front.

Posted 2 years ago #
AndyP - Member

IME it's a lot better than it was 3 or 4 years ago. Maybe because there are so many more cyclists around these days that drivers are starting to be aware of us. Still get the occasional nob though who likes to start his day by trying to kill someone. Most of the poor behaviour I see however is from other cyclists...

Posted 2 years ago #
Lummox - Member

my closest call came the other week, i'm on a roundabout about to exit after going straight ahead, car comes up from the entrance to my left and just keeps going, thankfully left. Her window was still iced up and the scary thing is i still don't think she even knew i was there despite these facts

i was on the roundabout almost directly in front of her
1 x p7 bike light
1 x joystick head torch
orange fluro jacket
hump ruckasack cover
6'4" LUMMOX piloting the steed

Chilled me a bit thinking i could've very easily have ended as mush if she'd been going straight ahead

Posted 2 years ago #
allthepies - Member

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8415351.stm

Mind you, 90% of the drivers ignore the 30 limit already.

Posted 2 years ago #
dmiller - Member

maybe eveyrone was late because they spent so long scraping ice of their car??

Wow your spoilt! Up here they just scrap a tiny wee square in the windscreen and thats enough...

I had something similar in London a few weeks ago! It probably didn't help to calm the driver down when I started laughing...

I would have laughed but he was quite a big lad when he got out the car

Posted 2 years ago #
singlecrack - Member

Yeah its the new 'RAD' sport for adrenalin junkies, forget redbull rampage and downhilling.

commuting is where its at dude

Posted 2 years ago #
rkk01 - Member

I got overtaken twice on Monday - whilst turning right

In both instances the drivers had seen me and slowed down. I could hear there engine note drop to tickover and I check my rear before moving out in the lane and again before turning right. Both lost patience and I could hear their engine note pick up as they decided to overtake - ****ts

Posted 2 years ago #
MrSalmon - Member

I ride through Millbrook everyday with the speed bumps and cars always overtake in between the speed bumps only to pull back in and brake harshly in front of me. They cant seem to work out that I dont need to slow down for the speedbumps and hence I am quicker!

I can never decide what to make of this sort of thing. Can they really not work it out? Or have they worked it out but the compulsion to be in front of a bike overrides it? Or are they actually trying to get in your way?

Who knows.

EDIT: A while ago I got blocked in to a parked car I was about to go round by a driver steaming past me and then neatly forming a little corral for me when they (entirely predictably) couldn't fit through the gap. I caught them up a bit later and politely tried to point out what they'd just done to me and they were genuinely entirely unaware of the effect their actions had had on me. So maybe they just really do have no clue.

And yes, I should have been a bit further out to stop this happening, but still.

Posted 2 years ago #
trail_rat - Member

didnt you know IT IS LAW that a car must overtake bikes at all costs - or at leasst it is in aberdeen.

Ive been doing my uppermost cadence on my fixie down king street and a bus overtake - get along side and move in on me !

while on the subject - i nearly rode into a chap on a cycle path today - he had no front lights - i made a comment as i brushed his shoulder trying to avoid him that he should get some lights and got the response "i dont need them on a cycle path" ....... seriously what do some people smoke before going commuting

Posted 2 years ago #
cuckoo - Member

On my Friday evening commute home, in the dark on a quiet and narrow country lane, I had a car full of chavs decide to "play games". They slowed behind me and started to open the doors shouting "come on lads lets take him out". The car then drew up very close with doors open and the driver revved the engine as if he was about to boot it.

I stood off the road in the hawthorn hedge hoping they would just **** off. They closed the doors at the last minute before they would have hit me and the car went past accelerating quickly.

I was going to shout some abuse back but I thought it was not sensible to do so being 4 vs 1. It was the right call as around the next bend at the junction the car was waiting for me with the reverse lights on. When i took the left fork it backed up and followed me again repeating the previous episode. The road is very narrow at this point so again I just stood off the road hoping they would clear off which eventually they did shouting profanities as they went.

After reading some of the other stories on this forum though i guess i should be thankfull i didn't have anything thrown at me or rotten milk poured on my head!

Posted 2 years ago #
BrokenCollarBones - Member

last night on my usual commute home a motorist horned at me while behind me, opened his window and started giving me abuse. No problem, i just pulled up next to him and he was so fat i just laughed and replied whatever fat boy. Then he decided to drive into my rear wheel while I mounted the pavement so his front end of his new 09 plate Vaux Vectra got a damn good kicking.
I'll leave the damage to your imagination, lets just say that the new plastic type front ends on car these days are not as strong as they used to be.

I rode off while he was still stuck in traffic and i bet he now wonders that was a costly mistake.

Posted 2 years ago #
PeterPoddy - Member

smash - BMW takes out a lamp post on a traffic island that the driver hadn't seen cause he was shouting at me as well

I'd have paid good money for a front row seat for that show!

I'm just waiting for it to happen to me......

Posted 2 years ago #
twinklydave - Member

Yep: it's the law to overtake cyclists, even if you have to turn left immediately afterwards

or so the bloke in the 4x4 seemed to think yesterday, when he shouted "All I wanted to do was turn left! I even stopped and waited for you to go past!"
THAT'S BECAUSE YOU HADN'T FINISHED OVERTAKING ME YOU F-KING T1T

I genuinely don't think he knew he'd done something wrong.

Oh and he called me a 4 eyed c-nt...

...I don't wear glasses

Posted 2 years ago #
jond - Member

I've been riding a recumbent of late - they take a bit of practice re hillstarts, and whilst I generally don't wobble when starting on the flat it's not unknown, so I'm not keen on some idiot sitting a foot from my lug'ole. So if I know if some traffic lights are about to change, I try to time my approach to lights/back of the rearmost car (particularly on inclines) *and* take the lane to dissaud anyone overtaking for the last...ooh 15ft - and I *still* get idiots overtaking to park at the back of the car in front

Posted 2 years ago #
crazy-legs - Member

I think most drivers just don't realise. I got well and truly boxed in by a guy the other week, there was nowhere for him to go and the gap I was forced into was so narrow I couldn't even stop and unclip. I caught him up and explained that he'd left me with nowhere to go and if he'd have waited 3 seconds until I was clear fo the junction we'd all have had a trouble free trip. he just said "you should have stopped", he had NO clue about what he could have done wrong.

I've got so fed up with an average of 2 incidents a week now that I've just gone massively overboard on lights. I was using 3 including a helmet mounted Exposure Diablo but now I've moved that to the bars on flashing mode and started using my old NiteRider Storm HID again, helmet mounted.
That coupled with yet another rear light (so 4 now) led to not only an incident-free commute but one where cars would actually pull over for me to allow me to filter up the middle, an increased number of cars indicating as they overtook. Long may it continue.

Posted 2 years ago #
aP - Member

I'm using a dinotte 5W which has a lightly blue glow to it - the 2 flashing modes are very useful in traffic as the change between steady 5 flash a second a strobe flash causes some drivers to believe that theres an emergency services vehicle between them and the kerb.

Posted 2 years ago #
MrSalmon - Member

I caught him up and explained that he'd left me with nowhere to go and if he'd have waited 3 seconds until I was clear fo the junction we'd all have had a trouble free trip. he just said "you should have stopped", he had NO clue about what he could have done wrong.

I think this sums it up really. A driver's view of any situation like this will probably be grounded in the unthinking belief that they have priority at all times and cyclists fit in around them. And I think beliefs like that can only be changed by people actually thinking about it themselves, which discussing it with them in the street is probably very unlikely to make them do.

Posted 2 years ago #
bigyinn - Member

I've had people overtake me, then carve me up, then when i've caught them up they've told me that im supposed to give way to them (when they were BEHIND me). With that sort of logic, you have no hope of educating them, hence damage is the only answer.!

Posted 2 years ago #
trb - Member

I must confess that may cummute is generally incident free. However for the sake of an anecdote,

One morning last year I was sitting in the middle of the lane, STATIONARY behind a STATIONARY car waiting at a RED light...
.....and someone tried to overtake me, blocking the other lane for the oncoming traffic.

Posted 2 years ago #
bananaworld - Member

Sorry to hear all your horror stories, I have plenty I could tell, but it's all more of the same.

Drivers (some, not all) do genuinely seem to feel that they have priority over cyclists and should overtake whatever the situation.

I worked for a short time as a cycling instructor and ride as the Highway Code and Bikeability suggest but a lot of the time it makes chuff all difference: if the driver is a pillock, you'll suffer.

Driver training is the only reasonable answer. Having said that, when I am DAILY abused by drivers and have UTTERLY no comeback against them I do feel that cyclists should be allowed to use carbines to even the score.

Posted 2 years ago #
ctznsmith - Member

This morning there was a police car parked in the bike lane. Perfectly legal but damn stupid considering there was a lay-by 20 metres further up the road.

Everyday cars will overtake me more than once only for me to then overtake them when they get stuck in the next batch of traffic.

Posted 2 years ago #
crazy-legs - Member

It's the "must overtake" mentality that I can't understand!
SO many times I've had cars race past me only to pull in sharply and slam the brakes on at the red light/back end of traffic jam/width restriction etc etc.
I got hooted at the other day for freewheeling up to a set of red lights, apparently the driver was upset because he wasn't THERE at the stop line ready to go.

I never used to have much trouble at all and now I realise that I obviously had a shortish and quietish commute - now that I ride into the centre of Manchester everyday things are much more hectic.

I'm not a violent person at all - slightest hint of a confrontation and I'm the first one running away but I can understand how people snap all of a sudden because it's got to the point where my anger at the sheer number of stupid cut-up manoeuvres is going to result a cleated boot through the window of the next car to "not see me".

Posted 2 years ago #