How daaaaare you!

[MikeL]

I just have to share this! I was coming home last night coming up to a mini roundabout through a pinch point when I hear the honking behind me. I was slowing right down to let the other priority traffic clear the roundabout, so I stopped and looked back. Woman in miniature chelsea cruiser.

me: "what's your problem"?

her: "You're all over the road and I can't tell what you're doing"

me: "I'm positioned correctly to take the r'bout and it's not safe to overtake here anyway"

her: "you should be over there on the other side of the road facing the oncoming traffic"

me: speechless. Then "when you get home you should read your HC and perhaps book some supplementary driving lessons".

I can still hear her outraged little falsetto:

"How daaaaare you!!"

Powered my legs all the way home.

Reviewed the junction on street view and I think I see it: must be the street painting on the other side!

I snipped the bits about how she was only worried about my legs and how I would come off worst if she hit me. Funny thing was, I don't think she was trying to be intimidating. I think she genuinely thought she was explaining to me how to ride safely.

I suppose it beats the usual "Road tax/lycra/RLJ/pavement/get off my road" crap.

[gilesjuk]

Haha, so she was so dense she thought you should be on the cycle lane on the wrong side of the road?

Honestly, how did these people get through their driving test?

Why is it motorcycle tests have different grades yet on a car driving licence you can drive anything from a small car to a huge 4x4 or box van and a 900c engine all the way up to a V12 monstrosity?

People driving high powered cars, 4x4s and large vans should have to undertake an advanced driving test.

[Cunobelin]

I snipped the bits about how she was only worried about my legs and how I would come off worst if she hit me. Funny thing was, I don't think she was trying to be intimidating. I think she genuinely thought she was explaining to me how to ride safely.

Had a middle aged man explaining this to me in front of a couple of teenagers in the back.... got right up my nose!

Took great delight in explaining that anyone who drove a vehicle with one of the lowest pedestrian safety assessments in Europe making suggestions about safety in an impact was a little hypocritical to say the least. .. much to the girl's amusement.

[cjchambers]

Hahaha if anyone was 'all over the road', it was her - in fact, she was probably covering the entire road space from one side of her oversized wheel to the other, and from the front bumper to the rear bumper. How on earth is anyone supposed to overtake her when she's hogging the road like that? How daaaaare she? Doesn't she know who pays for the roads?

As for facing the oncoming traffic, I assume she just enjoys having head on collisions at 50mph closing speeds! Good for her! Maybe one day she'll try it with a snowplough. Next time you meet someone like this, ask what she thought might have happened as a consequence of your irresponsible and reckless behaviour. If she says "I might have hit you", do your best concerned look, say "you wouldn't do that, would you?" and listen for the cogs turning in her head.

Edit - also, you might want to ask her if cyclists riding on the wrong side of the road should use the roundabout in an anticlockwise direction . . .

[MikeL]

Looking back I suppose the only reason that hitting me was in the frame in her mind was that she was contemplating overtaking

As far as 'explaining' was concerned: lost cause! She started off with the air of a mother pointing out to a child how dangerous its behaviour was. When she wound up on the receiving end it was a complete shock to her! She was not for listening!

After a few minutes of unproductive slanging a small queue had built up, so I gave up and cycled off with the music of her quavering 'how dare you' playing in my head.

[paulah]

her: "you should be over there on the other side of the road facing the oncoming traffic"

sometimes I despair, I really do

[DaveP]

Without wishing to sound as of I'm challenging your assessment of the lady's expertise - there might be some excuse for her confusion:
There are such things as two directional cycle lanes. The example I've come across is in central Brum on NCR 5. I think its a horrendous idea, even though its on a one way street. I find myself sweating in case I see a cyclist coming the other way...
Sure, pass on the left. But what if the other rider has other ideas? It happens on towpaths! And its not really wide enough to give confidence - a bale out into the cut seems like a soft option...
TBH I try to avoid it, and recently, when I had my lad with me I made us walk rather than take the chance of him swerving into a traffic stream.

[MikeL]

Without wishing to sound as of I'm challenging your assessment of the lady's expertise

I'd have to be able to find it before I could assess it

There are such things as two directional cycle lanes. The example I've come across is in central Brum on NCR 5. I think its a horrendous idea

Yup, think we could agree on that one! On the little diagram on cycle paths that I posted in another thread (pinched from the german wikipedia) that would be the stream with the really high crash risk.

I'm not entirely sure what the little picture on the road is supposed to be. My best guess is that it is a route marker for a numbered urban cycle route and not a cycle lane at all, since there is no outer line.

[gilesjuk]

I think that if the cycle path is on the road you would be pretty stupid to ride against the traffic. As mentioned, roundabouts won't work and drivers turning right may hit you as you're less visible.

[Basil W Bloke]

There are such things as two directional cycle lanes. The example I've come across is in central Brum on NCR 5. I think its a horrendous idea, even though its on a one way street. I find myself sweating in case I see a cyclist coming the other way...
Sure, pass on the left. But what if the other rider has other ideas? It happens on towpaths! And its not really wide enough to give confidence - a bale out into the cut seems like a soft option...
TBH I try to avoid it, and recently, when I had my lad with me I made us walk rather than take the chance of him swerving into a traffic stream.

Dave, I think you mean Hurst Street? The cycle lane is seperated from the traffic flow by a wide stripey width of road markings and is for cyclists travelling against the one way flow. Cyclists travelling with the flow (North) are expected to use the road in a normal fashion. (i.e. on the left hand side of the road, opposite side to the cycle lane.)
I suppose if you really wanted to, there is nothing to stop you using the cycle lane in the "wrong" direction, but it doesn't seem a very good idea.

[DaveP]

After a quick A-Z, Yes, thats the spot.
Hmm. You mean I got the wrong end of the stick?
Hurrah! What a relief - I'd begun to worry that urban cycling was about to get too complex for me
I'm going to have to go back now and see what gave me the idea that it was meant to be two way.
Half a mo! How did you know where I meant? Were you confused for a while too?

[Basil W Bloke]

After a quick A-Z, Yes, thats the spot.

Half a mo! How did you know where I meant?

I'm your stalker!

No,actually "NCR5", "Central Brum", "Contraflow" narrows it down to only one possibility.

Personally, I avoid NCR5 for commuting, even though it would be an option for my commute. To tell the truth I find the motorised traffic much easier to predict and more sensible than other cyclists. Sorry, sad but true.

[thirdcrank]

... I suppose if you really wanted to, there is nothing to stop you using the cycle lane in the "wrong" direction, but it doesn't seem a very good idea.

Currently, anything allowing cyclists to ride contraflow is going to be in a TRO. In my experience, individual highwaymen responsible for a cycle contraflow and those they consult such as police traffic management people, are paranoid about not being blamed for a cyclist being hit head-on by a car and I've heard mealy-mouthed excuses that drivers will decide to chance it if they see cyclists doing it legally. This is why they generally go for physical separation and all the rest of it which can make a simple scheme impractical through lack of funds, space or both. I think you can be pretty certain that the TRO will reserve such a lane exclusively for cyclists going in the intended direction, although I cannot imagine much enforcement of that.

I think we know - or most of us believe - that on appropriate streets, such as those which have been made one-way for reasons of amenity such as preventing rat-running, simple exemptions for cyclists could be widely introduced with no real danger to cyclists who would benefit from being able to use direct routes, free of .... rat-running drivers. (Nobody's suggesting that cyclists should be riding willy-nilly against the flow of fast-moving gyratories, distributors etc.) I understand that what I'm suggesting is already practiced in some European countries and, whisper the word, some L0nd0n boroughs. The more widespread it became, the more it would be accepted as normal. IMO.

[Swizz69]

Heres a couple of similar experiences i've had recently...

* Rode home from work last week with a guy who lives locally. He wanted to know the route I took so he followed, a 15 mile route with its fair share of pinch points & other hazards. We were both on road bikes and going some, and taking the lead I gathered that this was his first introduction to negotiating with hand signals and occasionally taking the lane, not to mention the secondary position away from the curb, and a long overtake past a line of standing traffic. Despite having the rider in front keep a Picasso from squeezing him through a traffic island, slow down following vehicles so we could pass through a flood and various other scenarios - he was a little quiet at the end of the ride & one of his colleagues let me know the following day that he had ridden home the night before with a militant cyclist who thought he had a Police BMW between his legs

On the other hand, I find when riding the roadbike I find drivers on the whole to be more courteous & less aggressive, unlike when riding my old mtb in civvies today...

* After drifting past a long line of traffic queuing up near an ASDA, I then took the lane for a hundred yards through a narrow set of traffic lights with traffic queuing to turn right. Moving over afterwards I was passed first by a Punto, the 'gent' in the passenger seat yelling 'Get off the road ****head!', followed by a 'lady' passenger in the following car emitting a grunt that contained the word 'Helmet' (I don't wear one).
Not the nicest pair i've come across & almost caught them up further down the road to have a 'meaningful discussion', but never mind.

Would these idiots have approached someone minding their own business in the street to shout abuse at them? Doubt it, doubt they would have had the balls tbh, but what exactly makes them feel so invincible and righteous from within a car???
Bizarre and rather sad
May a Gull take a dump on them from above any time soon

Regarding your experience with the Beemer, not wishing to tar all with the same brush but some motoring stereotypes do occasionally ring true in my experience -
do you agree that some people gain an air of superiority over lesser mortals when elevated a few inches further upwards? Bit of a God complex perhaps?

[DaveP]

No,actually "NCR5", "Central Brum", "Contraflow" narrows it down to only one possibility.

You make it all seem so simple...
I'm now thoroughly embarrassed - I'm obviously going to have to make a special trip into town to try and find out how I ended up with the wrong idea. And I bet I wont find anything amounting to a good excuse

I did find NCR 5 very bitty, both here in the city centre and further south after it parts company from the Rhea Valley route and approaches the Wasselly Hills Country Park. It just zig zags through a housing estate. Up this close, down the next... To be honest I'd rather put up with a main road then a cycle route like this - at least you would be able to sense progress!