A ped attempt to make me fall

[Abradable Chin]

I was cycling gently along a quiet, shared use path at the weekend. Someone was walking along towards me, bang in the middle (which I didn't read anything into), so I diverted off the path onto grass alongside. As I was almost adjacent, the ped sprung towards my path waving arms, and going "Baaa!" like the janitor in Scooby Doo, walking normally one second, then flailing the next second, like how you see flashmobs transform. I can't see how it wasn't an assault, and it was intended to cause an accident.

The ped was an ~11year old boy with a little rucsack. If I'd tried doing this on a grown man when I was a dumb kid, I'd have expected a punch. I presume if a kid had tried doing this in the 1940s, I'd have known him, and gone to see his mother, or there would have been a policeman within a few hundred yards.
Rest assured, had I collided with him, or followed him, or taken a photograph, I would have been the one prosecuted. In our mixed-up, mobile society, there can be no justice or retribution. I can't see how people can say things aren't deteriorating.

John Locke wrote that humans were distrusting of each other, selfish, and violent, and so we accepted governmental authority by consent to protect us, provide stability, and allow us to thrive...but if government isn't providing this, how long before people start protecting themselves again, and taking the law into their own hands? I believe this is already happening in some parts where the local hard family provide practical discipline and justice.

[meic]

It is the fashionable new parenting model where children can do what they like and adults must suffer all sort of unpleasantness, discomfort, risk and injury in order not to stunt our little angels development and growth.
Remember violence only leads to violence and getting off and giving the little brat a hiding will only make them come to the conclusion that such techniques work and adopting them themselves, which would create a feedback loop of development and freedom being suppressed through violence.

On their 18th* birthday they will magically transform from "wild things" into mature adults who behave as responsibly as you or I.

*Though as they ceased transforming on time that age has to keep being raised.

[Cunobelin]

Had this happen with an older teenager.

Pointed out helmet cam and suggested that he might want to apologise..... he didn't

So a few A4 posters around the path area with a clear picture in an extremely embarrassing and bizarre pose, with "Do you know this individual who tried to attack a cyclist" and an email address.

Quickly identified and local constabulary had a word

[VanDriver]

It's easy to believe that the authorities have no interest in justice. Having been the victim of criminal damage to property, I believe that as the guilty party was caught, he should have been made to pay me (a) to fix the damage and (b) to compensate for the inconvenience. He was ordered to pay but decided not to. There is another court date. Will he turn up? Who knows? If he does will there be justice? Of course not.
He should be in prison, working 12hr days to pay his debt (and thereby learning discipline) but we can't be putting criminals in prison can we?!

[MikeF]

Do you think this boy was "normal" or had a mental disability eg Tourette's syndrome?

[reohn2]

Do you think this boy was "normal" or had a mental disability eg Tourette's syndrome?

Makes you wonder if he'd some kind disability.
Usually actions such as the OP mentions are carried out by children who are in groups showing off to their mates as they feel safe within their peer group,it's unusual for individuals on their own to do such things.

[LollyKat]

Very very occasionally I have encountered a group of yoofs playing chicken, leaping out into the road and stringing themselves across my path to block me. The same thing has happened to my husband. It's always at night, when the road is empty, and always at the same place, on a downhill. Our 'technique' is always the same - ride as fast as possible aiming straight for one of the lads. So far it has always worked and they jump out of the way. I know it's risky for us as well as for them but I'm not prepared to stop and maybe be mugged. If anything went wrong I would claim self-defence.

Bizarrely this location is only 100 yards from the police station.

[661-Pete]

I remember an incident where I was passing a group of youths grouped on the pavement, visibly "the worse for wear". It was uphill so I was cycling rather slowly. One of them, spotting me coming, detached himself from his mates and started keeping pace with me, prancing uphill on the pavement in what I can only describe as a "Ministry of Silly Walks" act. His flailing arms came close to making contact, and I couldn't edge away into primary because of passing traffic.

At least I was able to 'lose' him once the hill levelled out.....

I didn't have a camera in those days, nor was Youtube yet in existence - so - no record. But now.....

Don't these kids realise what an idiotic spectacle they're making of themselves?

[Cunobelin]

One of my favourites was my MiL on a tandem

She was in her 70's and used to ride onto back of the Galaxy Twin. he would wear leggings, a fleece and a waterproof if required

One day cycling along the cycle track, a group of lads on BMX came up behind us

One called out "Nice rear end" at which point MiL turned round with her best Gurn and toothless smile, thanked him and asked if he was free that evening.

He nearly fell off his bike, and all you could hear were his mates taking the mick

[thirdcrank]

I wonder why the fact of the troublemaker being a pedestrian is implied to be significant? It might just as easily have been somebody on BMX or a clapped-out moped. I can see it's part of the narrative that the person was on foot but ultimately, it's their (anti-social) behaviour that's the main point, not their travel mode. Or have I missed some satire?

[Airsporter1st]

I wonder why the fact of the troublemaker being a pedestrian is implied to be significant? It might just as easily have been somebody on BMX or a clapped-out moped. I can see it's part of the narrative that the person was on foot but ultimately, it's their (anti-social) behaviour that's the main point, not their travel mode. Or have I missed some satire?

I think you're reading far too much into the use of a perfectly normal expression to describe someone on foot.

[Postboxer]

Also, it's quite a different incident if it's a driver or rider attempting to make you fall.

[JohnW]

Do you think this boy was "normal" or had a mental disability eg Tourette's syndrome?

This kind of thing happens more frequently than we tend to remember Mick. Everywhere we go. I've seen adults in company with kids do the same. Is it 'normal'? - it's becoming so. Have the perpetrators got mental disabilities? - certainly they have both mental and ethical disabilities, but it's we good citizens who have the problem.

I've had this happen one evening, when riding on the road, well in to my left. Two kids (boys also about 11) were riding along the footpath towards me (in itself, that's not a problem to me because the road is quite busy). As they came very near, one dropped into the gutter and continued riding towards me - I thought, and still do think, that the kid wanted to either deflect me into the path of passing vehicles, or unseat me. I simply carried on and held my line, with my hands on the brakes. The kid wasn't expecting that - when almost upon him I stopped dead. The kid didn't know what to do - he just fell off onto the kerb. I know the usually quiet hill-top community, and I did consider following the kid home and telling his father - but what's the use?

A similar one happened riding through a well-populated part of Bradford (the kind of place you'd expect this to happen). Two similar aged kids were riding on the footpath on the opposite side of the road from me, and when they saw me one of them rode off the kerb and across the road towards me. A heavily-laden Transit pick-up was driving along, on the kid's side of the road, towards the kid - the kid obviously hadn't looked. The driver of the pick-up slammed all on and amazingly didn't hit him, but the piled-high scrap metal in the pick-up clattered down and made an amazing sound. The kid fell in the road. The driver got out of the cab, picked up the bike, threw it onto the pavement and kicked the kid repeatedly onto the pavement. I rode on - I wasn't going to be a witness against the driver.

A lady member of our section has had a similar experience to the first one above, but it was kids at a 'bus stop having got off a school 'bus...............an adult who obviously knew the kid gave the kid the kind of verbal he'll never forget.

What is it with these kids? - why is the world turning this way?

[JohnW]

I wonder why the fact of the troublemaker being a pedestrian is implied to be significant? It might just as easily have been somebody on BMX or a clapped-out moped. I can see it's part of the narrative that the person was on foot but ultimately, it's their (anti-social) behaviour that's the main point, not their travel mode. Or have I missed some satire?

Well actually tc - it's a fact - what other epithet would be appropriate?

We could open a new thread - what adjectives would suitably describe the rider of a clapped-out moped on a shared-use path? - no prizes for the best one

[thirdcrank]

JohnW

I can see it's a fact, but that's not the point I was trying to make. It seems to me that the fact of their being on foot is incidental here; relevant to accuracy but not a big deal. I suppose in a narrative like this it's what you'd assume because walking is the default way of getting around. I'm cautious about creating another non-existent group to stereotype. They'd almost certainly have behaved in the same way no matter how they had been getting about.

Reading your immediately preceding post, you've had an incident with nuisances / delinquents who incidentally were on bikes. Mentioning is part of the narrative, not something you stressed. They certainly weren't part of a group called cyclists.

Nor am I saying this is never relevant: if we were talking about something like road safety, then all the different modes would be central to the discussion. Neither pedestrians nor cyclists are the problem.