ASL fun (rant)

So I’m sitting in an ASL on my commute home tonight, waiting for the lights to change and I kid you not, six teenagers on scooters come buzzing into the ASL next to me. I give them a hard stare, but say nothing.

The lights change and everyone heads off (me first, because I was actually watching the traffic lights). One of the scooters nearly clips me as we both head for the cycle lane, but I get in there first, slowly cycle down to the ASL at the next lights with two lanes of stationery motor vehicles to my right.

I get to the next ASL to find a woman on a bike, a white van, and the front half of a large estate car, so I sit at the entrance to the ASL but don’t go in.

The scooter kids, who’ve all followed me down the cycle lane, all squeeze past and into the ASL, pushing forward and even beyond the white line.

In classic passive aggressive British fashion, I move forward and loudly say to my fellow cyclist, “So do you think those are those newfangled electric bikes or they just being prats?”. One of the scooter kids hears this and asks what’s the problem? I point out that the ASL is for bicycles and not for them. They all laugh:”Says who?”. “Oh I don’t know “, I reply, “How about the police, the government, and me?”.

The lights change, with me quickest off the mark *again*. One scooter rider tries to kick me, misses, and another then pulls in front and brake tests me. Luckily, they couldn’t be bothered to do anything more and headed off to do a little light burglary or something.

But it does make me wonder: I hadn’t been rude or aggressive, had just wanted to point out that the reason there are ASLs is to protect cyclists from gangs of teens on scooters (among other things). And yet their response was that they were genuinely happy to see if they could make me fall under the following motor traffic.

I despair, sometimes…

(Sorry, I just needed to get all that out.)

(And for those who want to know, the first lights were at the junction with Jamaica Street in Bristol, heading past the BRI and downhill, the second lights were to take me out onto St James Barton roundabout).