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It's rather funny that the cyclist who rides downhill at 40mph outside my home every day classifies cars as the hazard and not himself, since he must ride on th
by dvtv75 10y ago
It's rather funny that the cyclist who rides downhill at 40mph outside my home every day classifies cars as the hazard and not himself, since he must ride on the road and not the footpath. He's no different to the guy who was riding at a similar speed on the footpath outside of my work. Apparently that was OK, you see, because if he was on the road he would have been riding the wrong way on a one way street and there was no way he was going to ride around the block to get on the southbound road. He nearly hit me every day after work for a month, because he was cutting blind corners at speed.
What about the two who were occupying a whole traffic lane, weaving back and forward to stop cars overtaking, while riding at under 15mph in a 40mph area? They'd start screaming like lunatics at anybody who legally overtook them - the cops wanted a word with them, but they disappeared when they saw me on my phone.
Five or six times a day, cyclists run a red light at a busy intersection in town. I see many near-accidents in my fleeting times in that intersection, all of which are caused by the cyclists - and I'm not counting the number of times they've nearly hit pedestrians crossing with the red light. I've seen one car run a red light, three years ago, since I started crossing there in 2012.
Years ago, I was overtaken by a cyclist and his three children, just as I had begun my turn. I nearly ran over the father, and they took their sweet time to move through the intersection a car coming the other way (who legally had the right-of-way) had to stop and wait for them. I could have got out of my car and walked, and I would have got to the other side before they did. They bumbled along as if they'd done nothing wrong.
It's not uncommon for cyclists enter intersections on foot, and so legally become pedestrians for the duration of the crossing, and then jump on their bikes and dodge through traffic while hurling obscenities at vehicles who have right-of-way because they didn't enter as pedestrians. The law here doesn't change your status because it's convenient for you.
Back in 2013, one of my ex-workmates told me quite a tale, about the time she pulled up at a set of lights. When she moved off she signaled to change lanes and only noticed by chance that there was a cyclist holding onto her car to get a free ride. He couldn't have seen her signal, the indicator was near his foot, and if she had turned he would have toppled in high speed traffic, perhaps ending up under her wheels.
Back in the early 1990s, a friend of mine was pulling out of his garage and was hit by a cyclist at some speed - the cyclist threatened to call the police, but stopped short he would have been charged, not my friend.
Don't lump it all on drivers, cyclists are dangerous, too.
- stouset 10y agoI'm not sure how throwing out a bunch of anecdotes about people doing stupid things that might injure themselves counters the notion that people doing stupid things in multi-ton vehicles traveling at tens of miles per hour regularly injures and kills an unacceptable number of people per year.
- _Wintermute 10y agoShould we all list personal anecdotes of the stupid stuff we have seen motorists do as well?
- brokenmachine 10y agoAs a cyclist, I hate seeing cyclists flout the rules like this because it makes the people driving those multi-ton metal weapons lose respect for all cyclists. However, dangerous on a bike is not even in the same league as dangerous in a car. While clearly inexcusable, how many of those incidents of bad cyclist behavior do you imagine could have ended with a fatality or catastrophic injury?
- pvaldes 10y agoIs a diferent type of danger. > how many of those incidents of bad cyclist behavior do you imagine could have ended with a fatality or catastrophic injury? Several. My neighbour had around 75 y/o when a cyclist guy passed too close and broke her hip. Result: A long post-operatory, big scar in her leg, and she never could walk properly again. Died a few years later.
- brokenmachine 10y agoThat sucks... Yes I wasn't thinking about the frail aged. I'm assuming she was on the sidewalk. What a horrible person to cause an elderly person to fall. Of course, a car would have done much more damage to her in the same situation, and there are many more instances of real injuries from cars to cyclists than cyclists to pedestrians. Did the cyclist actually make contact with her or just pass too close? I'm not condoning the cyclist's actions in any way, just asking.