Incident with arrogant tow truck driver mounting cyclepath

[Venod]

A picture of him parked on the cycle path with a clear view of the number plate would have been good, my own reaction to this and with reference post #10, I would have just past between him and the fence (assuming there was room) when I was younger I would have probably done what you did and confronted him, but not now as I have I aged I have mellowed and experience tells me there's some real nutters out there.

 

[T4tomo]

Here's the path, red line shows the route he drove.
View attachment 427370

To be fair it's quite wide so bikes so could still get past I imagine.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Brilliant. Double yellow lines to compound the offence.

Did he use his self-gratification artist lights as well?

To date along here, I have encountered:

Cars of local anglers - parked in middle of cyclepath all day( not on ped side, deliberately in centre of cycle section. I think they do it this way to piss people off)
A swiss owned motorhome
Two cars & a minibus, scout group attempting to launch a raft over the fence (posted about this before)
Contractors vehicles.

People think the cyclepath is a free way of avoiding double yellow lines.

 

[captain nemo1701]

To be fair it's quite wide so bikes so could still get past I imagine.

Thanks for your reply, but it's a segregated path and the point really is that this divvy shouldn't have driven up onto it anyway. Maybe next time, I get my keys out and scraaaaatch.... down the side as I pass it.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I had a similar thing happen locally, just took a picture and sent it to the company with the time and date and a cut and pasted section of the relavent part of German traffic law underneath.

 

[steveindenmark]

Here's the path, red line shows the route he drove.
View attachment 427370

Could you not have ridden round him?

 

[captain nemo1701]

Could you not have ridden round him?

Yes, suppose so but as I stated before, the moron should not have casually driven up onto it in the first place. As an engineer, these paviors aren't designed to take the weight of vehicles and do shift over time. So he was damaging it cumulatively.

 

[steveindenmark]

I can understand your annoyance if he came barging up the path . But that doesn't appear to be the case as he stopped a few yards from you. I am not a structual engineer. But we often have heavy vehicles working on our cycle paths but I have never seen any damage. If you had just ridden past you would not have got yourself worked up.

 

[simongt]

And this is precisely why I never bother challenging folk anymore. The response is invariably abuse; maybe because the perpetrator knows they have done wrong and have been challenged, they simply deal with the challenge in an aggressive manner on the basis that it won't go any further.
One day said culprit may hopefully be challenged by the wrong person and end up flat on their back. My eldest lad is a case in point; very short fuse and if he challenges a wrongdoer, as I've seen myself and that wrongdoer gets shirty about things, it's fists first. Takes after his mother - !

 

[Lonestar]

Could you not have ridden round him?

As I said on my Monday commute the car was 3/4 blocking the CS 2....annoying but in a way I could see why he did it (I wouldn't trust some of the twats driving there,either.)...It also had yellow flashing lights on the top but I'm unsure what it was.Nothing really happening just some bloke siting in the car doing nothing.

I just went up and down the pavement bit and back onto the cycle lane...which was lucky as a bus passed at the same moment.Hopefully I would have had the common sense to look behind if I was crossing onto the road,though.So after the initial irritation I was on my way and certainly didn't post a thread about it.

Although I do understand the OP's irritation.

 

[roadrash]

Could you not have ridden round him?

I can understand your annoyance if he came barging up the path . But that doesn't appear to be the case as he stopped a few yards from you. I am not a structual engineer. But we often have heavy vehicles working on our cycle paths but I have never seen any damage. If you had just ridden past you would not have got yourself worked up.

I can understand your annoyance if he came barging up the path . But that doesn't appear to be the case as he stopped a few yards from you. I am not a structual engineer. But we often have heavy vehicles working on our cycle paths but I have never seen any damage. If you had just ridden past you would not have got yourself worked up.

i must say I am surprised at this response from an ex policeman, .........then again maybe not

 

[captain nemo1701]

I can understand your annoyance if he came barging up the path . But that doesn't appear to be the case as he stopped a few yards from you. I am not a structual engineer. But we often have heavy vehicles working on our cycle paths but I have never seen any damage. If you had just ridden past you would not have got yourself worked up.

Check out Oxford St a few minutes away:

As you can see, even though it's designed for cars, years of driving over it have loosened the paviors (damage in orange). This will happen to the cycle path if people continue to drive on it. Typically, the paviors rest on about 50mm of sand. Damage is cumulative.

 

[mjr]

I am not a structual engineer. But we often have heavy vehicles working on our cycle paths but I have never seen any damage.

Most of England doesn't build them like in Denmark or even France. Cycleways are typically built like footways and are damaged by careless motoring. Very few places have been successful in getting cycleways built as effectively small roads - London, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, parts of Norfolk - and usually by arguing that maintenance or emergency vehicles must be able to use them without damage. I would be astonished if Bristol has done a U-turn and started building stuff properly.

 

[MontyVeda]

A cycle lane means different things to different people...

to cyclists, it's for cycling on.
to motorists it's for parking on and negates any double yellows alongside it.
to pedestrians, they think the council have rolled out a red carpet for them to leisurely stroll along.

 

[T4tomo]

Thanks for your reply, but it's a segregated path and the point really is that this divvy shouldn't have driven up onto it anyway. Maybe next time, I get my keys out and scraaaaatch.... down the side as I pass it.

He may have just pulled up momentarily to check directions or make or take a call safely. You have no idea, why he stopped there yet you seem to have taken personal offence to the point of declaring nuclear war, despite the inconvenience to you being minimal. Better for him to stop there than say on a pavement blocking access for say wheelchair users. / mobility scooter , forcing them onto the road.