If There’s One Thing That Gets Me MAD . . .
Y’know how the popular press characterise all cyclists as law-breaking anarchists, with no respect for the rules of the road, the highway code, or trivialities like red lights . . .
. . . well the funny thing is that on a bike, you have a whole lot more time to look at the world as you ride along. It’s a bit like the [Gary Larson?] cow proverb:
As you pass through life, be sure to stop and eat the roses
And one of the things I notice is people driving cars doing stoopid things. People driving cars that weigh a couple of tons. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not immune to stoopidity (like today, when driving & I pulled out in front of a car that I really hadn’t seen - I want to say ’sorry, and thanks for having some half-way alert reactions’, if you’re reading), but I’m talking about the OMG-Are-You-A-Complete-Eejit kind of stoopidity. Stuff like:
- Driving while intoxicated. Yes, on the ride home last night, I saw a driver blowing for the policeman.
- Driving while on the phone. This actually renders you a poorer driver than if you’d been drinking. A few hundred yards after the alleged drink-driver, I had a spanner (tool) on the phone drift across the road at me.
- And the big Go To Hell, Go Directly To Hell, Do Not Pass Go sin: Driving WHILE TEXTING. And waddya know - soon after the Muppet on the phone, I passed someone who was in slow moving a queue of traffic, slipping the clutch and texting at the same time.
My only concern was to figure out what course of action to take. Confrontation (usually yields poor results), hang back & keep this **ckwit in front of me where I could see him, or put the hammer down and get as far away from him as possible?
What would you have done?
