First Incident with Motorist

[Hip Priest]

Well, it had to happen eventually. At a pinch point this morning, an old fella in a hot hatch gave me a ludicrously close, lingering pass. I called out "Could you get any closer?". He slowed, and as I drew alongside said "I could if I tried", then drove off.

I caught him up in traffic shortly afterwards and was tempted to ask him to step out of his car and threaten me again, but decided discretion was the better part of valour.

Plus, his wife was alongside him and seemed to be telling him off.

Anyway, I'll position myself more assertively at that point tomorrow, to avoid similar occurences - lesson learned.

 

[upsidedown]

That's the positive, you learned something from it. Leave a space and a car will fill it.

Glad you're ok.

paul

 

[Hip Priest]

Cheers.

It did seem to be deliberate - a punishment pass perhaps? But I can't think of anything I'd done to cause it.

 

[upsidedown]

To be honest i wouldn't put down to malice what you can better put down to stupidity. Don't let it bother you, move on and make a not to go primary early next time, make him go the long way around if he's that impatient.

 

[Msmancunia]

How old do you reckon he was? The only reason I ask is that my uncle (a pretty active 69 year old) sometimes makes me cringe when he drives past cyclists - I almost always have to tell him to give them more room. He has his eyes tested regularly but does anyone know if your peripheral vision goes the older you get? I think there's such a strong case for 70+ drivers to be compulsory retested if they want to keep motoring.

 

[DougieAB]

When you have been passed by cars on numerous occasions at pinch points it is a bit scary to take primary. I try to stay in primary and still get passed by one or two numbnuts.

 

[Alien8]

I called out "Could you get any closer?". He slowed, and as I drew alongside said "I could if I tried", then drove off.

I find that quite amusing.

 

[mr_hippo]

I find that quite amusing.

That's what I thought - just a bit of friendly banter

 

[Hip Priest]

It was quite witty of him, to be fair. It wasn't 'friendly banter' though, believe me.

 

[BentMikey]

You must just have bought a camera, because you brought it on yourself.

More seriously, I'm glad you're OK!! That kind of thing is no fun, as you'll have seen from my video channel particularly this last week.

 

[Hip Priest]

You must just have bought a camera, because you brought it on yourself.

Touche!

 

[snailracer]

You must just have bought a camera, because you brought it on yourself.
...

Clearly the OP has been radicalized by browsing that extremist website Cyclechat, run by the dissident cycle cleric, "Shaun", who must be no.1 on the DOT Wanted list by now.

 

[BentMikey]

Touche!

Well, I hope it brought you a chuckle!!!

 

[Nebulous]

Older people sometimes seem oblivious to potential hazards, but once having made up their minds can stick with a course of action even when its going wrong. One saving grace is that these determined manoeuvres often happen at slow speed.

I was coming back into town last weekend, doing over 20 on a fairly good main road. Just outside the town there are a few bends with a solid white line on my side of the centre. I saw a car behind me, but was also aware he was holding back. Then he went for it, but he was clearly determined to not go over the solid central line. So we had this really weird, slow motion overtake, that seemed to take as long as some of those lorry ones on the motorway. He was determinedly looking forward and saw this narrow gap that he was slowly edging through. I moved over a bit, tried to get eye contact to motion him out a bit, but he was for none of it. Strangely enough I didn't feel threatened, because he was going so slow, and I convinced myself I understood what he was doing and was convinced there was no malice in it.

 

[Hip Priest]

Just an update: the same bloke overtook me twice this morning - very good passes both times. Good stuff.