One Bad Apple

[rmaxted]

Out around York before the Big Winds. Its easy to let the final punishment pass by an obviously irrate taxi driver dominate my memory of the ride. So I am trying to remember the big blue 4x4 that held back until the road was clear before sweeping wide on the otherside. Or the delivery van I followed through the villages as he dropped off parcels at various houses, one on occasion holding back on a narrow country road until we both found a wider bit he could pass slowly whilst I slowed down and held the left hand side a bit closer. Or when he, finally, held back for several 100's of yards becuase he knew his next drop off was just up the road. Or the van driver who waved me over the mini-roundabout ahead of him even through he arrived at the entry to my right ahead of me. Or the countless drivers who just went about their business giving me the time and the room to negotaite the pot holes and drain covers on some of the worst rural roads in the area. All it takes is one bad apple and everyone else's thoughtfulness gets harder to remember.

[Carlton green]

Out around York before the Big Winds. Its easy to let the final punishment pass by an obviously irrate taxi driver dominate my memory of the ride. So I am trying to remember the big blue 4x4 that held back until the road was clear before sweeping wide on the otherside. Or the delivery van I followed through the villages as he dropped off parcels at various houses, one on occasion holding back on a narrow country road until we both found a wider bit he could pass slowly whilst I slowed down and held the left hand side a bit closer. Or when he, finally, held back for several 100's of yards becuase he knew his next drop off was just up the road. Or the van driver who waved me over the mini-roundabout ahead of him even through he arrived at the entry to my right ahead of me. Or the countless drivers who just went about their business giving me the time and the room to negotaite the pot holes and drain covers on some of the worst rural roads in the area. All it takes is one bad apple and everyone else's thoughtfulness gets harder to remember.

Such tolerant views won’t, I think, find clamorous support here but they’re not too far from my own experience. Yet at the same time there are so very many places that I simply am (justifiably) too fearful to cycle in. Yes, it only takes one bad apple but with the number of apples passing me it is inevitable that I’ll meet one on that busy road and come off worse. Indeed a young friend of mine, living in a large metropolitan area, got knocked off by such a bad apple and will no longer cycle there - young friend is now OK but their bike isn’t.

I think myself a good driver and could be similarly positive about virtually all my friends and relatives, we all pass that bar of ‘good’ and that’s rightly the expectation of society. There’s some valid criticism of cyclists too in that some people on bikes do the daftest of things and some have no intention of (helpfully) sharing road space - again comments unlikely to be welcomed here. It’s nice to be praised for good behaviour but we shouldn’t and don’t really need it; it’s just the occasional bad apple behind the wheel of a one ton plus killing machine that ruins things for fellow motorists and us cyclists too.

[Stradageek]

I once counted good vs bad interactions with motorists on a morning commute. My experience was that about 1/100 were 'bad'.

Unfortunately, as noted, 1/100 could be fatal, so I ride 'defensively' all the time.

[Nearholmer]

The 100:1 good:bad ratio tallies with my experience within c30 miles of where I live, it might even be 200:1, but some rides might involve plenty enough interactions that the tiny few leave bad memories.

It also seems to vary by place, anywhere where there is generally a bit of a tussle for road space, so most of London suburbia for instance, gets difficult, and by time of day, so I avoid the pretty little villages a few miles west of where I live at school times, and coming home from work times, because there seem to be some mightily harassed and distracted drivers on narrow country lanes then.

The weirdest place is Eastbourne, where one of my bros lives, which you’d think would be a fairly well-mannered place, but on the roads is anything but, My bro warned me that there is an actively cycling-antagonistic constituency among drivers, and blow me if I didn’t experience actively bullying driving when I’d pedalled no more than 200 metres from his front gate.

[Cugel]

The weirdest place is Eastbourne, where one of my bros lives, which you’d think would be a fairly well-mannered place, but on the roads is anything but, My bro warned me that there is an actively cycling-antagonistic constituency among drivers, and blow me if I didn’t experience actively bullying driving when I’d pedalled no more than 200 metres from his front gate.

If we did a study it seems likely that many cyclists (or other road users) would say they recognised this syndrome of "bad areas" of road behaviours. Bad attitudes and associated actions are often passed between groups of humans like a virus, as one observes the behaviour in others and then follows it sheep-like. Copying other humans, along with lying, are two of the most prominent human skills!

It's a strange phenomenon and often bereft of any mediating rationality. There was a set of cross road traffic lights in south Lancaster that, for historical reasons lost in the mists of time, always saw serious red light jumping, where several cars would follow each other through red on the A6 route, cutting up those trying to obey the green light going across the A6.

It was obvious - in no uncertain terms - that this was very dangerous; and "accidents" of the crumpled lights and bumpers type were commonplace. The strange thing is that the very same drivers would obey the many other traffic lights up and down that part of the A6 exactly as they should, with only the rare car loon exception. Yet the risks at all these traffic lights of jumping red were exactly the same. Well, apart from the historical knowledge of the regulars that red light jumpers at that one crossroads were to be expected, perhaps.

[rmaxted]

I wasn't that tolerant at the time. To be tolerant would be to hope that the family is now recovering from the plague of boils and that the bedbug infestation of his mattress is dying down.

It was only afterwards that I worked out that I needed to find a way of seeing the best of that ride.

[plancashire]

Thanks for that encouraging tale. I had thought that in Britain there were more people driving vehicles aggressively.

I have never counted here where I live in Düsseldorf, partly because I cycle so little on roads. When I do encounter particularly considerate behaviour I try to make a thankful gesture.

I was particularly impressed by a DHL van driver in Lohausen who carefully stopped the yellow van at the side of the traffic lane, leaving the painted bike lane to the right free. Unfortunately he'd moved on by the time I was within gesturing range.

[SwiftyDoesIt]

Most days in my estimation it's 3% 'good' 40% meh, 40% 'tsk', 15% proper careless 2% dangerous. For every 'good' driver, there's almost an equal number that are just absolute whallopers

Most on here are experienced and hardened cyclists that have seen most of what society has to throw at you, take a young girl of 12, stick her on the same roads and the number of frightening motorists actions will ramp up massively.
That's because our perspective is different, it doesn't make the motorists safer or less dangerous, it's because we've taken a lot of the responsibility away from them which is shoved down our throats all the time in this modern faux equity of responsibility narrative.

it's not one bad apple in the slightest, most drivers are just garbage or barely tolerable from an experienced riders POV, I dont understand how easily tricked people are into thinking there's some sort of balance in good and bad with motorists, maybe they beleive the narrative themselves and somehow abiding by some bias and discriminatory garbage called the highway code to its bare minimum is considered to be 'good' driving??

[CliveyT]

Maybe it's because I'm mostly cycling in Cambridge but actually I find good/tolerant driving more common than bad. Yes there are a couple of roundabouts where I sort of expect a car in the right hand (right turn lane) to try and overtake me and go straight on, the advance stop line seems to be invisible to some people and close passes do happen, but almost every day I'll be wanting to turn right somewhere and someone in the oncoming traffic will slow and gesture for me to do so. If I need to change lanes I'll signal and people will allow me to do so. On Sunday we were cycling to a pub in a neighbouring village and every car and van waited behind us until it was safe to overtake, even not overtaking in places that I would possibly have considered it.
One thing I do do is acknowledge every act of kindness. Even something like not overtaking some parked cars when I'm coming towards them gets a wave. When I worked for Masterfoods petfood and they were training dogs it was described as 'encouraging good behaviour' - don't punish them when doing bad but praise them when doing well. No reason not to apply it to humans as well

[Jdsk]

Maybe it's because I'm mostly cycling in Cambridge but actually I find good/tolerant driving more common than bad. Yes there are a couple of roundabouts where I sort of expect a car in the right hand (right turn lane) to try and overtake me and go straight on, the advance stop line seems to be invisible to some people and close passes do happen, but almost every day I'll be wanting to turn right somewhere and someone in the oncoming traffic will slow and gesture for me to do so. If I need to change lanes I'll signal and people will allow me to do so. On Sunday we were cycling to a pub in a neighbouring village and every car and van waited behind us until it was safe to overtake, even not overtaking in places that I would possibly have considered it.
One thing I do do is acknowledge every act of kindness. Even something like not overtaking some parked cars when I'm coming towards them gets a wave. When I worked for Masterfoods petfood and they were training dogs it was described as 'encouraging good behaviour' - don't punish them when doing bad but praise them when doing well. No reason not to apply it to humans as well

That's good to hear.

And I suspect is very similar to the experience of many other people when they are riding bikes.

But of course these perceptions contain a large subjective component. And many posts in this forum clearly start from a confrontational attitude towards other types of road users.

Jonathan

[JohnR]

Training for a driving test should include a mandatory session of cycling on some busy and narrow roads so people acquire experience of the cyclists' perspective.

I recall reading a few years ago of an experiment which put some lorry drivers on bicycles for a day. They said it substantially enhanced their appreciation of what it's like on a bike tyring to share a road with vehicles.

[thirdcrank]

Training for a driving test should include a mandatory session of cycling on some busy and narrow roads so people acquire experience of the cyclists' perspective.

I recall reading a few years ago of an experiment which put some lorry drivers on bicycles for a day. They said it substantially enhanced their appreciation of what it's like on a bike tyring to share a road with vehicles.

I was a guest on a Radio Leeds phone-in, in perhaps 1998. Memory now a bit vague, but there was some sort of traffic problem and I was the only invited participant who made it into the studio, on my Birdy folder.

There was a rather lippy caller who suggested proficiency tests for cyclists, plus compulsory third party insurance etc. Replying off the cuff, I suggested that such a test should be part of a portfolio for driving test applicants, with limited exceptions for the disbaled. I got in a plug for CTC membership with third party insurance. It went down well on the programme but the rest is history

I've posted about that episode long ago, but I lack the motivation to find the post(s) now

[CyclingBlob]

I'm glad I saw this post after getting home from a ride.

I didn't ride far, wasn't feeling the best at all, then some fool at a roundabout decided to (seemingly intentionally) pull straight out in front of me. I could see it coming so was prepared and braked hard, but if I hadn't, he would have hit me. I yelled loudly and he looked right at me expressionless. Unfortunately all the nearby pedestrians turned to look too, which didn't help my already low self-confidence.

I cycled straight home in a state, stomping into the house thinking about nothing but that idiot and forgetting all the decent drivers I'd encountered.

Am I going to have to get back to taking my action camera every time I go out? I guess so. Yet more to remember every ride.

[Jdsk]

I'm glad I saw this post after getting home from a ride.

I didn't ride far, wasn't feeling the best at all, then some fool at a roundabout decided to (seemingly intentionally) pull straight out in front of me. I could see it coming so was prepared and braked hard, but if I hadn't, he would have hit me. I yelled loudly and he looked right at me expressionless. Unfortunately all the nearby pedestrians turned to look too, which didn't help my already low self-confidence.

I cycled straight home in a state, stomping into the house thinking about nothing but that idiot and forgetting all the decent drivers I'd encountered.

Am I going to have to get back to taking my action camera every time I go out? I guess so. Yet more to remember every ride.

Thanks for sharing. That preparation was smart.

Would you have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight? Apart from the camera.

Jonathan

[CyclingBlob]

Thanks for sharing. That preparation was smart.

Would you have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight? Apart from the camera.

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan. I honestly don't see what else I could have done. It's a small roundabout (not a mini) so no option of being in a different lane. I had lights and reflectors back and front as always, plus some reflective bits too. I was already going slow as I'd had to stop at the roundabout before entering. I'm happy I did all the right things.

I wonder, if I was in a car, would the same guy have done the same thing?

Geoff.