West Midlands Police catch red light jumping cyclist on camera (+ video)

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights

I tried that.  After the second death threat, I gave up.  

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights

I tried that.  After the second death threat, I gave up.  

Well, unless you're prepared to follow through on them...

Duncann wrote:

Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights

I tried that.  After the second death threat, I gave up.  

Well, unless you're prepared to follow through on them...

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights. As it does not exactly endear the 4 wheeled community toward us, due to the fact they think we are big enough cunts already. I am certainly no angel by any stretch, but I do not purposely do stuff to piss off motorists. As I will lose every time.

Don't even get me started on those twats who take their dogs out on bikes, with one hand holding the lead and one hand wobbling precariously on the other bar. That is animal cruelty in my book...

I think that this is completely the wrong method.

Can you please stop giving me a bad  name?

don simon wrote:

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights. As it does not exactly endear the 4 wheeled community toward us, due to the fact they think we are big enough cunts already. I am certainly no angel by any stretch, but I do not purposely do stuff to piss off motorists. As I will lose every time.

Don't even get me started on those twats who take their dogs out on bikes, with one hand holding the lead and one hand wobbling precariously on the other bar. That is animal cruelty in my book...

I think that this is completely the wrong method.

Can you please stop giving me a bad  name?

Maybe it's the right method?

Imagine if all the motorists realised what a bad name they get from all the other bad motorists and started enforcing the speeding laws? I would be quite happy to share the road with motorists that angrily beeped at any driver using a mobile phone or overtaking at inappropriate places. Even better would be motorists ganging together to move all the inconsiderately parked vehicles that block pavements and prevent prams/wheelchairs from using them.

I'd like to see what happens on the motorways when everyone going over 70mph gets aggressively beeped/swerved at.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I would be quite happy to share the road with motorists that angrily beeped at any driver using a mobile phone or overtaking at inappropriate places.

I wouldn't! There'd be a constant cacophony of car horns!

What does anyone really think is going to happen for calling out transgressions by other road users. Whether it be cyclist-on-cyclist (having a go about jumping red lights for example), cyclist-on-motorist (like the video recently where the driver hit the car in front) or driver-on-driver.

Drivers KNOW that mobile phone use is wrong. The guy in the recent video, he knew he'd been caught red-handed on film and the correct response should be to immediately drop the phone and apologise and feel embarrassed. But it wasn't, it was outright rage and an argument. Even though he was clearly in the wrong.

Same with telling someone not to jump lights. What do you realistically think is going to happen, the cyclist is going to apologise profusely to you? They're going to tell you to sod off and mind your own business (quite rightly IMO).

About the only time I've ever had anything like a positive response is pointing out to a driver that they haven't got their lights on and even then it's usually just an embarrased shrug and flick the lights on. Very rare you get any thanks.

It's not worth the hassle to be policing other people's behaviour. Ride your bike, be safe and considerate (and that by the way is not necessarily the same as obeying the law) and avoid the twats.

crazy-legs wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I would be quite happy to share the road with motorists that angrily beeped at any driver using a mobile phone or overtaking at inappropriate places.

I wouldn't! There'd be a constant cacophony of car horns!

What does anyone really think is going to happen for calling out transgressions by other road users. Whether it be cyclist-on-cyclist (having a go about jumping red lights for example), cyclist-on-motorist (like the video recently where the driver hit the car in front) or driver-on-driver.

Drivers KNOW that mobile phone use is wrong. The guy in the recent video, he knew he'd been caught red-handed on film and the correct response should be to immediately drop the phone and apologise and feel embarrassed. But it wasn't, it was outright rage and an argument. Even though he was clearly in the wrong.

Same with telling someone not to jump lights. What do you realistically think is going to happen, the cyclist is going to apologise profusely to you? They're going to tell you to sod off and mind your own business (quite rightly IMO).

About the only time I've ever had anything like a positive response is pointing out to a driver that they haven't got their lights on and even then it's usually just an embarrased shrug and flick the lights on. Very rare you get any thanks.

It's not worth the hassle to be policing other people's behaviour. Ride your bike, be safe and considerate (and that by the way is not necessarily the same as obeying the law) and avoid the twats.

 

Mind you, the last time that I shouted out at a cyclist after she had gone through a red light, I got a positive response. However, I shouted that she was carrying a pizza box all wrong - they need to be flat, not vertical and she laughed and said that it'll be fine.

Cyclax Maximus wrote:

I normally get quite vocal towards cyclists who jump red lights. As it does not exactly endear the 4 wheeled community toward us, due to the fact they think we are big enough cunts already. I am certainly no angel by any stretch, but I do not purposely do stuff to piss off motorists. As I will lose every time.

Don't even get me started on those twats who take their dogs out on bikes, with one hand holding the lead and one hand wobbling precariously on the other bar. That is animal cruelty in my book...

I have been known to snarl at cyclists who jump a red when I'm crossing as a pedestrian with a 'green man'.  Or even if I see them do it to someone else. ( I've also been known to immediately regret it when I belatedly notice they look like they could be one of them knifey-youths we hear so much about these days)

Self-interest both demands and entitles me to complain when they menace peds.

  But if it's just between a cyclist and motorists it's really none of my business.  I'm not inclined to demand other cyclists show respect to our motorised overlords by scrupulously following the very  rules that those motorists regularly and habitually ignore.

Nor am I inclined to try to persaude them that if only we all did that and maintained it for long enough, motorists would eventually see the error of their ways and obey the rules themselves and/or stop killing vulnerable road-users.  Because I don't believe that myself.

PS - 'take their dogs out on bikes' gives me a mental image of dogs on special custom-framed bikes riding alongside their owners.  Sounds kind-of cute to me.