Returning home after a ride tonight and was about two minutes from home when I was nearly taken out by a car (went speeding past me, missing by about a foot). I was still feeling a bit shaken up by it when I got home. Lo and behold, the car that nearly hit me was in my street delivering a pizza to a neighbour. For some strange reason I decided to go and confront him and ask him to be more careful in future. At first he denied seeing me and then told me that I should watch where I was going. I couldn’t believe be hadn’t seen me and was implying that it was somehow my fault. I ended up saying something like “how the f@$k didn’t you see me” and called him a d1ckhead before he went off and delivered the pizza.

Anyway, now that I’m in the house and have calmed down, I feel like I’ve been a bit of an arse. I don’t normally go around swearing at strangers and probably should have just let it go. After all, I can’t imagine that I was ever going to achieve anything constructive.

You’re grand as long as you don’t ever want to order in a pizza in future

What he ^ said.

Don’t worry about it. It may have not been completely advisable, but it was perfectly understandable, given the circumstances. Just be grateful that it was a pizza bloke and not a coffee shop/bistro type Aussie bloke, could have ended differently… 😉

You did fine – tossers need to be told, at least occasionally

You could always phone the pizza place too. Reckon I would if he’d come close enough to leave me shaken up

I don’t think you should criticise yourself at all – his licence was given to him on the basis he would drive sensibly… we need, as a population, to pick people up on this kind of stuff every time – it’s the near misses that are keeping people off bikes and meanwhile we have an obesity crisis costing us tens of billions of pounds.
The pub we were in last night refused to serve a bunch of kids who pulled into the car park in a cloud of smoke pulling a half-donut on the basis they were driving like morons. Quite rightly too… we need to make anti-social driving socially unacceptable

If stupid people aren’t told they’re stupid, they’ll never know. After all, they’re too stupid to realise themselves.

Sounds like you were restrained.

Probably good thing as he knows where you live…

He’s a moron, thats why he’s delivering pizza. It’s probably a waste of time trying to educate him.

I think you’ve earned some karma points for not slapping the **** .

I’d be on the phone to his employer.

I’d be on the phone to his employer.

This.

Simple case of bull in a china shop approach,only to leave the scene feeling a little bit of like you said a tool,I have this problem,I let my anger get the better of me sometimes.

I enjoy calling people out when they try put my life in danger with their vehicle. One guy pulled a knife on me once. I had witnesses and his car reg. He went to jail for a while.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The thought of calling his employers has occurred to me, but the fact that this meathead knows where I live is putting me off. Paranoid?

It’s just possible he’ll drive more sensibly in future, in which case you’ve maybe saved someone’s life.

Or maybe it will make no difference, but at least you tried.

Had a proper close pass today from a guy in a Vito van doing about 50. Caught him up at the next lights, lo and behold…texting!
Thought about going nuts at him, but came over all Zen. Shot him a proper dirty look, he looked a bit sheepish, avoided eye contact. I pulled up at the lights in front of him, then he was proper careful about overtaking me on the second attempt.
Going nuts at someone who has nearly killed you without even noticing is fine, the hope is that they might think a bit more about their driving and be a bit more careful.
Some people however will always be idiots…

I sometimes wonder – if ‘cyclists’ as a whole roll over and let things like this lie, do we come across as a bit sanctimonious / holier than thou? I almost think that a bit of testosterone-fueled rage proves you’re human (and also kind of normal) and they might think twice next time? Wishful thinking?

You did good. Call his employer too. There is an issue of corporate responsibility here, do his employers expect a delivery schedule which makes is more likely that poor behaviour will happen?

I’d likely have done similar when the initial response was one of disdain. I had cause to knock on some twozzer’s window at lights after they cut me up; to my immense surprise they were very apologetic so I said ‘thanks’. Still happened of course.

I got T boned by a Pizza Hut moped. Would have been early 90’s, riding home from the pub, did a right turn into my road and a moped came tearing through some bushes, across the pavement and took me out. We both hit the floor, both got up at the same time, I said something like “I’m going to kill you” and he ran.

I can’t remember being so miffed. I managed to swing the moped into a lamp post and attempt to break anything on it that was breakable. The Pizza Hut bloke was nowhere in sight, I swear I would have killed him if he came back.

Let’s face it, you don’t end up delivering pizza if you’re in the top half of the class.

Sometimes you just have to realise that “stupid is as stupid does”, and get on with other things in life.

I delivered Pizza for 3 months this year. My colleagues were all medical, engineering and legal students. Some were housewives and others just people with jobs.

I trust you lot won’t think any less of me.

Lets face it. Lots of rich cocks and wee boys on STW with more money than sense and not much experience of life. Luckily we are here to hold their hands.

❓ Cbike ❓

Probably wound up with comments like this hora…

mdavids – Member
He’s a moron, thats why he’s delivering pizza. It’s probably a waste of time trying to educate him.
POSTED 10 HOURS AGO #

When clearly not all them are. Comes back to people are arseholes etc etc

My guess is that this guy thought it was ok to drive like that because he felt that there won’t be any consequences. By confronting him you proved that to be wrong. I actually believe that he’ll think twice before driving dangerously again, therefore you did a good thing.