Road Rage
Its a good thing I care enough about the fact that my bike and I would not survive a crash with a car… Because if I didn’t next time someone pulls out in front of me I might just keep on going just to prove a point.
Twice now cars have pulled out infront of me when on a hill near my house causing me to lock my back wheel… If I had reacted a second later I would have hit the deck. And another time I was drafting behind a car at 40k/h and I slowed down for a roundabout leaving about a 15m gap between me and the car (thats about 1.5 seconds) and this woman with her two dogs walks between me and the car. There must be a flat patch on my rear wheel. I must note that all three of those situations contained women but I have had my fair share of annoying old men, boy racers and middle class types who think they know the highway code when they don’t.
Anyway sorry I haven’t blogged in a while been a bit busy… haven’t been on my bike much either. Will give an interesting update soon.
Nathan
Mileage: 2250km(1406.25miles)
Monthly Mileage (21 May – 20June): 1060km(662.5miles)
Reading: Uncle Petros and Golbachs Conjecture
One day, I kept going just to prove a point (and also because I was in a hurry, and hoped the person wouldn’t be stupid enough to step into a cycle lane without looking first).
A woman lost two of her front teeth that day.
I didn’t mean to hit her, I just meant to go past her as she was about to put her high-heeled foot into the cycle lane, but she stepped forward right in front of me quicker than I thought she would.
I slammed on the brake with milliseconds to spare, but it was too late.
I really cannot belive that someone would step out into a cycle lane without looking. Well actually I can, because people do it every day, but I didn’t want to believe it that morning.
The worst thing about this cycle lane is that it’s narrow and has kerbs on both sides, so you can’t swerve to avoid people – you either stop, or you hit them.
I called an ambulance and faced the embarrassment.
Never taking that risk again.
When it comes to motor vehicles, sometimes I do keep going just to prove a point. Stupid, I know, but sometimes they make my blood boil with their utter callousness.
Some of them see a cyclist and just have to overtake, regardless of whether it’s safe to do so or not… they can’t seem to see past the fact that there’s a cyclist in front of them, so will do stupid things like overtake and cut in front of you just to get to the back of a long queue of traffic that’s going nowhere, leaving you stuck next to the pavement with nowhere to go.
I crashed into the back of a guy’s car on purpose once, when he overtook then cut in front of me and stopped. I could have slammed the brakes on, but I thought “Why should I? He has just put me in jeopardy by performing a dangerous and inconsiderate manouvre in front of me, so I’m gonna make him know that”. He got very pissed off, started shouting at me and tried to get me to pull over for crashing into him, as if it was all my fault… then he got out to make sure there was no damage to his car. Clearly he didn’t care that he could have caused injury to another human being with his shitty driving…
This is so true, and it drives me up the wall. It really does take a HUGE amount of self control not to plow into their cars but for the sake of my face, knees and frankly all of my body I would have already trashed a few cars. Good post.
OK I now have all the more reason to not try and prove my point.