Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Idiot driver - just need to vent

Sorry for the rant, but just need somewhere to vent.

Cycling to work this morning (my commute is only a mile or so each way) and coming down a hill to a roundabout, with a side-road on the right just before you get there. I'm behind a car, close enough that there's no gap to pull into but far enough back so the car isn't obscuring me. Of course some numpty pulls out right in front of me forcing me to brake hard to avoid an accident. I stop alongside him at the queue at the roundabout and tell him needs to be more careful, to which he replies "Where's your hi-viz jacket?". I point out that his car isn't painted bright yellow to avoid accidents and in any case I was wearing a bright red jacket in daylight and if he didn't see me it's not to do with what I'm wearing. At that point he starts getting out of his car and threatening me. He quickly got back in and drove off, but it's left me really angry and frustrated that people think it's OK to behave like that towards someone just trying to get to work. I'm 99% sure he did see me and was just trying to intimidate me, without any regard for my safety.

I've only been back on my bike a couple of months after suffering a broken ankle being hit by a car on a roundabout, and I'm sure incidents like this are becoming more frequent. I refuse to let it put me off cycling, but it definitely worries me that every time I go out on my bike I might encounter someone who is quite happy leave me injured or worse just because I choose to get around by bike.

Have just ordered a helmet cam, so I will at least have some evidence of what's happened if I report an incident in future.

Phew - that's better! Back to work  1

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

Add new comment

27 comments

Avatar
farrell | 11 years ago
0 likes

Whereabouts did it happen Si?

Just wondering if there would be any CCTV to pick up the cars reg plate.

The A6 is just wacky races material at certain points.

Avatar
mancsi replied to farrell | 11 years ago
0 likes

Hi Farrell, I cant really remember exactly where it was, the road to my left had a railway bridge on it? I was so shocked that it had happend. I know how terrible that road it so was being extra safe but still get the DICK dastardly's!!

Avatar
kamoshika | 11 years ago
0 likes

Hmm. It was an Audi that pulled out me too. Are Audis the new BMWs?

Avatar
SevenHills replied to kamoshika | 11 years ago
0 likes
graham_f wrote:

Hmm. It was an Audi that pulled out me too. Are Audis the new BMWs?

I hate to quote the anti-christ Clarkson but he has put forward the theory that as all the "Cocks" drove BMWs they were recognised as such. They then thought that they could hide by switching the car that they drove and not be regarded as a Cock. Unfortunately they all seemed to switch to Audis. I have had two people run in to my car and both failed to stop. Both times the other car was an Audi.
Be aware and treat as you would a Beemer!

Avatar
Leviathan | 11 years ago
0 likes

I am surprised it was black not white. There are a lot of this type of car (and driver) around here. I call them Cheshire Polarbears. Sad to hear they are now bold enough to venture into town.

Avatar
mancsi | 11 years ago
0 likes

Perfectly put foxy.

Avatar
foxyloxy replied to mancsi | 11 years ago
0 likes

Thanks Mancsi,it usually shuts them up,last spring I was out training down near the A1,not far from Newark,in country lanes,coming up to a T junction where I was going to turn left,and this pratt turned Right on my side of the road,he was driving a powerful convertable,showing off to his young son.Fortunately I was not hit,he started the verbals by saying,"When you get a tax disc on that bike,then you can grumble."So I gave him my little ditty,he got really mad,but what I was not aware of was the two other cyclists who came along behind him,he turned tail and drove off.Have been riding and competing 57 yrs this year and still loving it,all the best my friend.Foxy  3

Avatar
foxyloxy | 11 years ago
0 likes

BIG CAR BIG DICK,small brain!!  3

Avatar
mancsi | 11 years ago
0 likes

I cant believe the attitude of car drivers. I was out yesterday for a cycle up around Macclesfield. Heading home going through Levenshume towards Manchester a black Audi A8 turns left in front of me. No indicators nothing, I was into the passenger window and over the bonnet. The back of my helmet was smashed, my phone screen in my jersey smashed and a serious road rash. Luckly nothing serious and my bike was fine. The guy approaches me and said ''You were lucky you were wearing a helmet!'' He swears he indicates and always does (LIE). What do we do?

Avatar
notfastenough replied to mancsi | 11 years ago
0 likes
mancsi wrote:

I cant believe the attitude of car drivers. I was out yesterday for a cycle up around Macclesfield. Heading home going through Levenshume towards Manchester a black Audi A8 turns left in front of me. No indicators nothing, I was into the passenger window and over the bonnet. The back of my helmet was smashed, my phone screen in my jersey smashed and a serious road rash. Luckly nothing serious and my bike was fine. The guy approaches me and said ''You were lucky you were wearing a helmet!'' He swears he indicates and always does (LIE). What do we do?

Eh-up - black A8, white driver in his 40's/50's?

"Last week I was overtaken by a huge Audi A8 that gave me no space at all, despite a clear road, and it being perfectly safe and legal for him to cross the white line while overtaking. When he stopped at the lights I asked him to 'leave more room please'. He wound down his window to tell me that he would then have been 'on the other side of the road'. Not only would that have been a good manoeuvre, but it hadn't occurred to him that if it wasn't, he simply should have waited until it was safe to overtake. An extra second or two on his journey was worth more to him than my safety. The irony of course is that then we were both at the lights together anyway."

I posted this here on 19-12-12:
http://road.cc/content/news/66901-olympic-success-has-positive-impact-mo...

He wasn't acting maliciously, just with literally NO consideration for me, which sounds like exactly what's happened to you.

Hope your road rash heals quickly and that the fool is paying for your phone/helmet etc.

Avatar
mancsi replied to notfastenough | 11 years ago
0 likes

Notfastenough, cheers for the well wishes. You know the stupidity of myself and the pure rage ripping through my veins at the time meant I never took his details. I didnt even realise my phone was smashed till I get home. Lessons here for everyone, take pics and registrations!  20

Avatar
kamoshika replied to mancsi | 11 years ago
0 likes
mancsi wrote:

He swears he indicates and always does

Because of course that would make it perfectly fine to left hook a cyclist.

My brother had a fairly similar incident - he was cycling along a main road, and a car coming the other way turned right, across his path, into a side road and took him out. Apparently the guy wasn't at all apologetic and said "I was indicating". Do these people genuinely not realise that turning on your indicator doesn't give you right of way over cyclists?!

Avatar
londonplayer | 11 years ago
0 likes

fair enough!

Avatar
Bob's Bikes | 11 years ago
0 likes

Thanks for the suggestion Trikeman I will give it a try.

Avatar
londonplayer | 11 years ago
0 likes

If your commute is just one mile, why don't you walk it?

Avatar
kamoshika replied to londonplayer | 11 years ago
0 likes
londonplayer wrote:

If your commute is just one mile, why don't you walk it?

Quicker to cycle, and am usually taking the littl'un to or from nursery by bike trailer that adds an extra couple of miles onto the journey at one end of the day or other.

Avatar
trikeman | 11 years ago
0 likes

Nor me notfastenough, my days of that nonsense are long behind me, and in cleats - it could end up like the Bolshoi Ballet there, aye?
 40
However, of the people that I quoted as getting out of thier cars and getting all 'moist' about the situation, I have never had the need to defend myself as you had to. Usually they get all 'bold' and start chopsing and I usually continue on - you watch, until tommorow when some nutter starts swinging his jack handle around.
 13
I don't know what I'd do to be honest, I could try bursting into tears and when he comes over all sympathetic like - go for the gonads.
 26
On a more serious note, I do empathise with fatbeggaronabike (couldnt you have thought of something shorter) perhaps now is the time to write to these new Police commissioner sorts - I know the bobby's have enough on thier plates with the cuts an'all, but the new 'bosses' would like to flex the muscle no doubt. Could be nothing worse for the new gaffer if after you writing to them the next cyclist accident happens in thier parish. Nothing better to drive the point home than saying to the local press (or national) 'we have been telling them but they do nowt'.
Ask them WHY don't your officers act, get the name of the person who answered. They have a duty to reply - send a copy of that reply to the MP and ask for his/her answer.
Look at the fiasco in London when a minister got asked to get off his bike - the expence after that would have paid the saleries of the West Mercia Police for the next decade..... or is it we are seen as a minority and don't really matter?
Starting to boil now...... Sorry.  2

Regards,

Trikeman.  3

Avatar
notfastenough | 11 years ago
0 likes

@Trikeman, Well here's a thing - I was going to post the following but couldn't seem to word it without coming across with more macho bravado than I intended:

Leaving aside the meatheads who are happy to get into a full-on fistfight anytime, I have found that those that leave the car tend to be bullies. They (always male) seem to think that the skinny geek in lycra must be some kind of wimp, which gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their masculinity/small penis size* (*delete as appropriate).

Years ago I was overtaking a stationary car and a car overtook me, squeezed me off my line and forced me to brake hard so as not to crash into the unoccupied car. My objection was met with him changing his mind about his right turn (which he was slowing down for anyway - there was no reason to overtake me!) and pursuing me. Once in front, he stopped and wound down the window. After being told that I was in fact entitled to use the road and that he should learn to drive, he said something about flattening me and opened the door. I jumped off the bike and, holding it by the stem, lifted it up straight (back tyre on the ground) and kinda changed from an annoyed human being to, well, slightly animal. I have never seen someone get back in a car so quick. Doors locked, windows up, hands shaking to restart the engine quick as. I was only 17 or so at the time, and the whole thing was like standing up to bullies at school.

Now, you reckon I would have had to do that in full leathers, visored helmet and 600cc bike? I think not. He wouldn't have had the balls to risk it in the first place.

In all honesty, I really couldn't see myself scrapping in cleated road shoes.

Avatar
Bob's Bikes | 11 years ago
0 likes

Good luck with the camera. Have reported numerous incidents to the police (surrey and thames valley)with video footage and in one case witness statements from others only to be told that the police will not be taking the case any further. Now I maybe niave here but I thought it was up to the CPS to decide wether to prosecute or not, and not somebody (thinking there but for the grace of god go i) sitting in an office who may not even be a police trained driver deciding.

There that's my rant over thanks for giving me a chance to get that off my chest.

Avatar
trikeman | 11 years ago
0 likes

This is one strange thing....man!

I have the same thing happen today on my trusted Ti Sabbath bike as I used to have on my motorbike. However, the end result was always totally different.

When, as you say, you catch up at the lights and ask him 'what the fox and the pigs' was he up to, more than once I've had the guy either go to get out or actually get out and start puffing his chest out and swearing, waving hands and fists an'all.

Though when the same 'sly' pull out in front - he knows you have to brake or hit him scenario happens when I was on the motorbike - the end results was nothing but apologies and sorry mate's.

Now what the hell is the difference between my Ti Sabbath and my old Z900, slash cut exhaust, hardtailed chopper - nowt...

I'm the same guy on both, but perhaps the four foot of heavy, chromed chain I had about my person swayed his bravery. Not one did I have 'back chat'.

What's the difference between lycra and chrome, chain and leather I asks ya?????

Regards,

Trikeman.  3

Avatar
notfastenough | 11 years ago
0 likes

"The reason is that it was only a couple of million years ago that we were flinging our shit at each other"

Very eloquently put, sir!

Avatar
ubercurmudgeon | 11 years ago
0 likes

People are horrible. Get used to it. Schools are full of bullies. Academia is a nightmare of prima donnas. Industry is full of pointy-haired bosses. The roads are full of motorists whose only care is to get to their destination in the least possible time, and to hell with everyone else, especially if they are members of an outgroup it is socially acceptable to hate. Public transport is full of selfish people who won't give up their seats, won't move down into carriages, or think it is acceptable to smell like a Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap in a public space. I'm sure old-folks homes are full of assholes too. And then we die. The reason is that it was only a couple of million years ago that we were flinging our shit at each other, and the more toys we have acquired since the less inclined we are to evolve much past that.

Avatar
kamoshika replied to ubercurmudgeon | 11 years ago
0 likes
ubercurmudgeon wrote:

People are horrible. Get used to it.....

I can see why you chose your nickname  3

Avatar
racingcondor replied to ubercurmudgeon | 11 years ago
0 likes
ubercurmudgeon wrote:

People are horrible. Get used to it. Schools are full of bullies. Academia is a nightmare of prima donnas. Industry is full of pointy-haired bosses. The roads are full of motorists whose only care is to get to their destination in the least possible time, and to hell with everyone else, especially if they are members of an outgroup it is socially acceptable to hate. Public transport is full of selfish people who won't give up their seats, won't move down into carriages, or think it is acceptable to smell like a Bolivian unicyclist's jockstrap in a public space. I'm sure old-folks homes are full of assholes too. And then we die. The reason is that it was only a couple of million years ago that we were flinging our shit at each other, and the more toys we have acquired since the less inclined we are to evolve much past that.

Ubercurmudgeon, you win at the internet, outstanding post (if a little pessimistic!).

Avatar
notfastenough | 11 years ago
0 likes

As said, I feel your pain. "Where's your high-viz?" is nothing more than admitting that he wasn't looking.

Re the camera, I do think there is an opportunity for a jersey manufacturer to produce a design to the effect of "Smile - you're on CCTV for my safety!" with a camera logo similar to the ones for speed cameras.

Avatar
6654henry | 11 years ago
0 likes

I feel your pain.

If they get out the car, take their keys from the ignition and launch over nearest fence. Job done.

Avatar
Joselito replied to 6654henry | 11 years ago
0 likes
6654henry wrote:

I feel your pain.

If they get out the car, take their keys from the ignition and launch over nearest fence. Job done.

Similar thing happened to me on Weds night but my arms weren't long enough to get at them pesky keys.

Followed him for a couple of miles so have an idea of where he parks the van.

Latest Comments