They ARE Out To Get Me!
So I used to think that I was maybe a little paranoid about the way people drive around bikes. Or more specifically, about how people drive around my bike, when I’m riding it.
But after today, I’ve realised that it isn’t paranoia - they really are all out to get me.
Today I had FIVE assassination attempts in a 33 mile round trip from home on the coast, to Team Valley in Gateshead.
It was cold at home, but as soon as I’d got away from the sea, the temperature dropped further - by North Shields, there was ice all over the pavements, and even on the edges of the salted roads. Not the best cycling conditions, but made worse by some heavy hail / snow that came in just as I got to the top of the hill that takes you down from Gateshead town centre to the Team Valley. Big steep hill, usually taken at speed? Not today it wasn’t - it was frankly terrifying.
Anyway. Here’s my rundown of the assassination attempts:
- An Arriva bus in North Shields whose driver thought that giving me a six-inch margin was more than enough, and I should be grateful for that.
- Two miles down the road, I braked to let another bus pull out (I’m not a bussist, after all), and nearly got rear-ended by a guy who then made his feelings known by leaning on the horn. He then overtook me going down Rose Hill, and in so doing, crossed the double white lines & exceeded the speed limit.
- In central Gateshead while I was climbing a hill that’s got three lanes, the driver of a scaffolding company lorry (I didn’t get the name), decided that he could stay in his original lane, rather than pull out to overtake me.
- In central Newcastle, pedestrians were unwittingly co-opted into the Kill Karl bonanza. On the approach to a traffic-lighted roundabout, the car in front of me stopped right at the pedestrian crossing to let the passenger out. He had a green light, but the pedestrians waiting to cross, assumed that he’d stopped for a red light. The took the road en-masse, just as I got there on the still green light.
- Finally, going down Chruch Bank, just after Wallsend, the car behind me decided that I’d no right to ride at the speed limit, in the centre of my lane, and so avoiding the ice still present a the kerb side. And yes, as he overtook, he made his feelings very clear on the subject.
Is it just my imagination, or is everyone driving like an eejit today? Or maybe there is a conspiracy to rub me out after all.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 01/05/2009
- Time: 18:35:05
- Total Time: 2:31:00.00
- Calories: 1577
- Distance: 33 miles
- Average Speed: 13.11 mph
Cute poster.
Yeah, some people drive like eejits, but if they were really out to get you it’s not that hard to do, especially if prosecution for vehicular manslaughter in the UK is anything like it is in the USA.
OMGosh! This was such good entertainment and reading material while I am de-virusing a friends computer! LMAO!
People just SUCK at driving period, no matter what town you live in. I only run, no biking. Although when I can afford it I would like to get one and fix my son’s (the pedal fell off. Stupid people at Walmart hammered it into the crank. So the threads are jacked on the pedal and the crank)
But anyway, I run in the bike lane..giving the ride-of-way to oncoming bicyclists of course
and people try to run me over too.
Would it help if I loaned you my Nightlife Brooks hat? It’s pretty colorful.
He is on to us! Abort mission! Abort! Abort! Abort!
I am thankful that I no longer have to put up with this.
One of the other respondents points out the magnitude of the difference between cycling in the UK and NL:
Computer viruses are of no consequence to us any more as we now run Linux and thus have no viruses ever. We don’t need virus scanning software to try to deal with them either.
It’s the same thing with the cycling conditions. Because we moved to the Netherlands we now have proper cycle provision, so no problems with drivers ever, and no need to be constantly on guard about what they might do next.
I don’t think the drivers here are really that much better. Driving is essentially rather boring and people make a lot of mistakes while they do it. However, being no-where near them when they make the majority of their mistakes is definitely beneficial.
Fritz - thanks, but I don’t think I’ve got a glittering career in graphic design ahead of me! After today, it should have read, “Wanted - Dead or Dead”
Marathonwannabe (Yes you WILL be!) - Thanks for the offer loan of the hat. Unfortunately, I have a big head (no, really), so I’d worry about stretching it for you.
efranlje - I’m thinking of fitting a chaff system to my commuting bike. Or maybe some decoy flares.
David - Yep. I’m pretty much a Vehicular Cyclist, but I am really, really coming round to the idea of segregation. According to a conversation I had with Carlton Reid, it’s a divide that separates The CTC (ride on the roads, take your place in society, assert your rights, etc) from Sustrans (let’s build a network of car-free routes). I’m finding myself thinking more and more like a Sustrans kind of a guy.
Actually, just to be clear on this - I tag and talk about these posts as “Assassination Attempts”, but I don’t for a minute believe that any of these drivers deliberately try to wipe me out. If they did, then as Fritz has pointed out, I’d be not so much toast, as thinly smeared Marmite.
The problem is that most drivers are in their own little world, with a cushion of NVH insulation (that’s autoindustryspeak - Noise, Vibration & Harshness) around them, and distracted by their unfulfilled lives (why else would they get suckered by the images used to sell cars?), the CD player, the coffee they’ve just spilled in their laps, that tiny skirt over there, the police car parked up ahead, the phone, the SatNav, the weather, etc, etc. In an urban environment, the worst that can happen to them as a result is a dent, some scratches and a higher insurance premium.
If the person they hit doesn’t have crumple zones and a crash protection cell, the result can be very terminal. It’s peoples’ lack of appreciation for this differential in consequences that gets me bashing the keyboard in frustration.
When riding with my kids, I want a Sustrans-world, a protective, Netherlands-style bubble.
When wanting to actually get somewhere, kind of like today, I want a CTC-world.
In fact, I want both. The best of both worlds.
Trouble is, roads go everywhere. Protected off-road routes are always going to be few and far between.
Excessive speed, needless acceleration, inattention and inability to realise a car is a weapon that can maim or kill is something we’ll have to put up with from British drivers for a long time, if we want to get anywhere.
But slowly, slowly things will change.
The fastest way to get a civilised cityscape in the UK is to get enacted the EU Fifth Motoring Directive, the Euro-style presumption of a driver’s guilt in a crash with a cyclist or pedestrian. Currently we have this set the wrong way round.
I think German drivers are a bit better- the EU Fifth Motoring Directive does help a lot with that. Mind you, we still gett the odd numpty who doesn’t understand that bikes are allowed on the road, or that pedestrians are allowed on the pavement for that matter.
Great post though, well written and not whiny. I loke the ‘Wanted’ poster as well.
I’m coming round to segregated lanes too but ONLY if they’re good ones, not mad ones that send you into a tree / make you get off your bike to go through gates / make you share it with pedestrians / stop and start in the middle of nowhere / make you keep crossing a busy road to ride on the wrong side.
It think this is why shared space is attractive in the UK (but a bad idea in the NL) - Shared space is more likely to happen (because it doesn’t look so much like taking something away from motorists), harder to screw up, and safer than what we’ve got, whereas any lunatic with a can of paint can draw some pictures of a bicycle on a road (or, even better, on a pavement) and then wonder why it’s not working.
I’d still like to know how we build a consensus, starting from where we are now in grubby old britain, to build a NL-style infrastructure…
Carlton: through a combination of separate bike paths and roads which prioritise cycling, it is entirely possible for good quality cycle routes to go everywhere. Here they go to many places that roads for cars do not, and provide many routes that are considerably shorter than can be taken by drivers.
If I tried to ride on roads all the time, my journeys would take longer as I would have to cycle longer distances and stop at more traffic lights.
There is really no reason why British cyclists should not expect the same. However, they need to lose the mindset that the drivers will always have the best facilities and that cyclists can only hope to achieve parity with drivers. it is a very low target to aim for, and one which will help to continue cycling’s status as a minority pursuit.
I used to be a CTC member, but not a Sustrans member. I think Sustrans have their heart in the right place, but they could do with a lot more emphasis on quality of the routes that they put their name to.
Town Mouse: Dutch drivers are far better behaved around cyclists than British drivers. However, even here Shared Space doesn’t work well. It represents the return of “might is right” in that it prioritises drivers over all other road users. The result is a claimed lower injury rate for car occupants, but cyclists and pedestrians coming off worse. There are complaints not only from cyclists, but from disabled groups, blind groups, parents groups, old people’s groups. Everyone except motoring organisations, it would seem.
In a shared space area you see cars parked on pavements, drivers bullying pedestrians and cyclists, cyclists riding on pavements amongst the pedestrians…
There are always separate pavements. It’s completely impractical without at least some kind of refuge for the vulnerable. There are also pedestrian crossings as otherwise pedestrians have trouble getting across the roads due to the behaviour of drivers. Once you have these things, these areas are just the same as anywhere else except for a bit of fancy paving.
There are far more advocates of shared space amongst those who’ve not lived with it than those who have lived with it. Apart from the nice touchy-feely name, it really doesn’t offer much of a change for Britain. In fact, my feelings on entering these areas are very much that it is like teleporting across the North Sea and entering a typical cycle hostile British town centre.