Molecule Man
Well-Known Member
- Location
- London
A nasty near miss this morning in Deptford, SE London.
Briefly, a tipper truck driver squeezed me off the road. It was completely malicious, there was barely a small car's length between me and the car in front, and it was preceded by aggressive behaviour (more detail below).
There was no actual contact or injury, so is it worth reporting to the police?
In any case, it will be good to get this off my chest here.
Thankfully, this sort of outright aggression is very rare, but I think I will be adding tipper trucks to my small list of vehicles I am positively scared of (mainly skip lorries).
I do find it disturbing that there are people out there who react like this when prevented from being a few metres further forward. It's like they have never matured beyond the toddler stage, where they expect everything to happen exactly as they want.
For local riders, look out for a dirty white truck, EU53 CGG (no 100% sure about the last G, dirty number plate), with a faded England flag/bulldog sticker on the front right under the windscreen, the driver is white, looks late 30s, with Boris Johnson hair. There are no company markings on the truck.
The incident in more detail:
This happened on Evelyn Street SE8, between Deptford Church Street and Grove Street.
I was riding up a bus lane, with a car parked in it ahead of me, with traffic queued up in the main traffic lane. By the time I got to the parked car, he was just behind in the next lane. I signalled and pulled into the reasonably sized gap between him and the car in front, he hooted his horn.
(At this point I should have just filtered on up the queue and left him behind, I should have realised just how aggressive and dangerous he could be)
I waited in line between him and the car in front, partly because the road isn't that wide and I don't like filtering that much, partly to make a point that cyclists have the right to take the lane when appropriate. The traffic was very slow, never more than about 15 mph. But he kept trying to overtake, hooting all the time, despite the fact that I was never more than a small car's length behind the car in front. Then there was a van parked at the side of the road, and he took this opportunity to force me out of the traffic stream.
Of course I was able to catch up and pass him (using the bus lane) within a couple of minutes. I stopped so I could check the number and look for any company markings. He spotted me and hooted again and was shouting and gesturing at me.
This had been preceded by some other minor aggression from him, On Deptford Church Street, I blocked him from overtaking just before two lanes narrow to one before a mini-roundabout (there was no time and space to even start overtaking, I was right behind the car in front). He objected and hooted, but there wasn't room to take me out.
Thanks for listening, I feel better now.
Briefly, a tipper truck driver squeezed me off the road. It was completely malicious, there was barely a small car's length between me and the car in front, and it was preceded by aggressive behaviour (more detail below).
There was no actual contact or injury, so is it worth reporting to the police?
In any case, it will be good to get this off my chest here.
Thankfully, this sort of outright aggression is very rare, but I think I will be adding tipper trucks to my small list of vehicles I am positively scared of (mainly skip lorries).
I do find it disturbing that there are people out there who react like this when prevented from being a few metres further forward. It's like they have never matured beyond the toddler stage, where they expect everything to happen exactly as they want.
For local riders, look out for a dirty white truck, EU53 CGG (no 100% sure about the last G, dirty number plate), with a faded England flag/bulldog sticker on the front right under the windscreen, the driver is white, looks late 30s, with Boris Johnson hair. There are no company markings on the truck.
The incident in more detail:
This happened on Evelyn Street SE8, between Deptford Church Street and Grove Street.
I was riding up a bus lane, with a car parked in it ahead of me, with traffic queued up in the main traffic lane. By the time I got to the parked car, he was just behind in the next lane. I signalled and pulled into the reasonably sized gap between him and the car in front, he hooted his horn.
(At this point I should have just filtered on up the queue and left him behind, I should have realised just how aggressive and dangerous he could be)
I waited in line between him and the car in front, partly because the road isn't that wide and I don't like filtering that much, partly to make a point that cyclists have the right to take the lane when appropriate. The traffic was very slow, never more than about 15 mph. But he kept trying to overtake, hooting all the time, despite the fact that I was never more than a small car's length behind the car in front. Then there was a van parked at the side of the road, and he took this opportunity to force me out of the traffic stream.
Of course I was able to catch up and pass him (using the bus lane) within a couple of minutes. I stopped so I could check the number and look for any company markings. He spotted me and hooted again and was shouting and gesturing at me.
This had been preceded by some other minor aggression from him, On Deptford Church Street, I blocked him from overtaking just before two lanes narrow to one before a mini-roundabout (there was no time and space to even start overtaking, I was right behind the car in front). He objected and hooted, but there wasn't room to take me out.
Thanks for listening, I feel better now.