Yes it was very much like that [ but bike vs car instead of car vs dumper truck Near here the road ahead [after mini-roundabout] also bends off but to the right so the dangerous car driver idiot was very lucky not to impact head on.
Interesting footage of Turners Hill, i'm sure we passed that pub & green while on the London to Brighton back in 1982, and again in 1983
Yes, it's just beyond a popular staging-point on the L2B run - comes right after quite a stiff climb where many participants feel like stopping for a break! I know that roundabout well. Don't know why it's described in the article as 'Britain's most dangerous' though - although driving like that would turn any roundabout in the country into 'Britain's most dangerous'...
There are no dangerous roundabouts or roads,only dangerous drivers,some of who I see daily. What totally and utterly bemuses me is that these people save themselves such little time risking their own and other people's safety and their licence into the bargain. IMO its true that some people just grow horns when they get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle,their antics are very scary at times
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
I consider myself fairly lucky, I dont often encounter close passes or dangerous overtakes. However today was an exception. As I was riding along the a4086 towards Capel Curig, a road sweeper was coming the other way and. Never mind, dont matter.
Yes it was very much like that [ but bike vs car instead of car vs dumper truck Near here the road ahead [after mini-roundabout] also bends off but to the right so the dangerous car driver idiot was very lucky not to impact head on.
Interesting footage of Turners Hill, i'm sure we passed that pub & green while on the London to Brighton back in 1982, and again in 1983
Yes, it's just beyond a popular staging-point on the L2B run - comes right after quite a stiff climb where many participants feel like stopping for a break! I know that roundabout well. Don't know why it's described in the article as 'Britain's most dangerous' though - although driving like that would turn any roundabout in the country into 'Britain's most dangerous'...
I think one of the purposes of installing that roundabout was to slow traffic down. L2B in 1982/3 had far fewer participants than today. It's a ride I've never done though.
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
I ride a Pashley Sovereign to commute the few miles to work and back but I'm obviously a theat to the "security" of the owner of an AMG Merc owner who raced me off a supermarket carpark ( I was going at Pashley speed! ) and then he screeched to a 90 degree turn right in front of me and shot down a exit lane. I'm not normally bothered by this sort of stuff but I was loading up my panniers with my shopping prior to this as owner/driver of car was pointing to me and laughing, so I kinda felt a bit threatened. Oh, and he was parked in a disabled spot cos you can in an expensive car! Anecdodal obviously. Just like the Audi driver who nearly bounced me off the road today because there was single access only and I took a central position; lots of revving of engine and driving right up behind me. I love cycling but do I need to get a camera to record these incidents? For goodness sake, I look like a vicar on me bike not a much malligned lycra lout, has it got this bad!
I ride a Pashley Sovereign to commute the few miles to work and back but I'm obviously a theat to the "security" of the owner of an AMG Merc owner who raced me off a supermarket carpark ( I was going at Pashley speed! ) and then he screeched to a 90 degree turn right in front of me and shot down a exit lane. I'm not normally bothered by this sort of stuff but I was loading up my panniers with my shopping prior to this as owner/driver of car was pointing to me and laughing, so I kinda felt a bit threatened. Oh, and he was parked in a disabled spot cos you can in an expensive car! Anecdodal obviously. Just like the Audi driver who nearly bounced me off the road today because there was single access only and I took a central position; lots of revving of engine and driving right up behind me. I love cycling but do I need to get a camera to record these incidents? For goodness sake, I look like a vicar on me bike not a much malligned lycra lout, has it got this bad!
Strange behaviour.
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
I ride a Pashley Sovereign to commute the few miles to work and back but I'm obviously a theat to the "security" of the owner of an AMG Merc owner who raced me off a supermarket carpark ( I was going at Pashley speed! ) and then he screeched to a 90 degree turn right in front of me and shot down a exit lane. I'm not normally bothered by this sort of stuff but I was loading up my panniers with my shopping prior to this as owner/driver of car was pointing to me and laughing, so I kinda felt a bit threatened. Oh, and he was parked in a disabled spot cos you can in an expensive car! Anecdodal obviously. Just like the Audi driver who nearly bounced me off the road today because there was single access only and I took a central position; lots of revving of engine and driving right up behind me. I love cycling but do I need to get a camera to record these incidents? For goodness sake, I look like a vicar on me bike not a much malligned lycra lout, has it got this bad!
Strange behaviour.
I'd suggest the two are unrelated.
The pointing and laughing is because a Pashley doesn't look like a full suspension mountain bike which to the sort of monkey who'd drive an AMG Merc would equate to 'old fashioned' which means they'd need to point and laugh. Just be thankful he didn't revert to form and start throwing faeces too!
The driving is probably just his normal idiotic form.
I ride a Pashley Sovereign to commute the few miles to work and back but I'm obviously a theat to the "security" of the owner of an AMG Merc owner who raced me off a supermarket carpark ( I was going at Pashley speed! ) and then he screeched to a 90 degree turn right in front of me and shot down a exit lane. I'm not normally bothered by this sort of stuff but I was loading up my panniers with my shopping prior to this as owner/driver of car was pointing to me and laughing, so I kinda felt a bit threatened. Oh, and he was parked in a disabled spot cos you can in an expensive car! Anecdodal obviously. Just like the Audi driver who nearly bounced me off the road today because there was single access only and I took a central position; lots of revving of engine and driving right up behind me. I love cycling but do I need to get a camera to record these incidents? For goodness sake, I look like a vicar on me bike not a much malligned lycra lout, has it got this bad!
I know exactly what you're talking about!
I ride a Gazelle which is of the same "classic roadster" style. I'm over 60 so also don't look like a lycra clad TDF wanabe. I've had a car load (of West Africans, judging by the accent) close pass and yell at me to "get off de road" which I found particularly offensive as I was about a mile from my birth place. I wouldn't go and do something like that in Lagos so why should they think it's acceptable here?
I've also had trouble from a "white van" in slow moving traffic. The occupants seem to have taken exception to being passed several times by an old bloke on a big black bike so they threw a lit cigarette then an empty Red Bull can and finally made a near lethal "punishment pass".
We need a psychiatrist to work out what's going on in their petrol fume addled little brains.
Last edited by GrumpyGit on 1 Jan 2018, 12:21pm, edited 1 time in total.
GrumpyGit wrote:I've also had trouble from a "white van" in slow moving traffic. The occupants seem to have taken exception to being passed several time by an old bloke on a big black bike so they threw a lit cigarette then an empty Red Bull can and finally made a near lethal "punishment pass".
I've not been doing the run for a while but I used to be regularly riding into Wigan at the height of rush hour to catch a train. I was frequently pleasantly surprised by the number of white vans who would quite deliberately do a little wiggle in the near stationary traffic to give me more space to filter. Audis too!
Maybe they are just nice people in Wigan!
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Debs wrote:The oncoming car driver was good to react so quick, he avoided a head-on collision.
For their own sake, yes they were, unfortunately it just reinforces that the manoeuvre was 'safe' and/or 'good'...
And that for me is part of the problem.
Quite aside from the lack of negative consequences of bad driving (no detection/enforcement as there are too few Police/it's judged not to be a priority), bad driving like this has positive consequences for the bad drivers - they get to their destinations faster (only by a few seconds, but it feels much better to them). And each time they avoid death/injury/collision it just confirms in their minds that the manoeuvre was the right one for them to take. All positives, no negatives.
The solution is to stat shooting some of the tossers.
RickH wrote: Maybe they are just nice people in Wigan!
Sounds good, I may well be heading north then!
Always fancied retiring to the seaside, how's Formby?
Nice,but Arneside/Silverdale is better
A good friend of ours has recently retired from teaching, having lived & taught all his working life in Wigan. He & his wife have now moved to that area, not far from Carnforth (basically as near to the Lake District as they could get & still be able to afford to buy a house). They love it there.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
L2B in 1982/3 had far fewer participants than today. It's a ride I've never done though.
