I've had a pretty unpleasant couple of days riding.
Yesterday's commute contained more mobile phone users, left-hooks, SMIDSYs and close overtakes than I'd usually see in a couple of months. I saw a lollipop man and the children he was helping very nearly get wiped out by a car that didn't even ease off the accelerator. Then this morning I checked the local news and saw there'd been two serious crashes on my route, both no more than 30 minutes after I'd passed, and both appear to involve fatalities.
Today wasn't much better, and after a taxi came within inches of knocking me off (when he had the whole width of a dual carriageway to pass me) I chased him down, caught him at the lights and was all set for a confrontation.
But as I pulled alongside I decided I really couldn't be bothered arguing, so I just went for pathetic levels of politeness instead: "Excuse me mate, I don't know if you realised it but you came really close to clipping me back there." To my amazement the driver was really apologetic, said "sorry" several times and we both went away smiling.
So I'm making a belated New Years Resolution: to keep calm and try to be impeccably polite during on-road altercations. I'll be interested to see if I get a better response than to my usual sweary rants.
Yesterday's commute contained more mobile phone users, left-hooks, SMIDSYs and close overtakes than I'd usually see in a couple of months. I saw a lollipop man and the children he was helping very nearly get wiped out by a car that didn't even ease off the accelerator. Then this morning I checked the local news and saw there'd been two serious crashes on my route, both no more than 30 minutes after I'd passed, and both appear to involve fatalities.
Today wasn't much better, and after a taxi came within inches of knocking me off (when he had the whole width of a dual carriageway to pass me) I chased him down, caught him at the lights and was all set for a confrontation.
But as I pulled alongside I decided I really couldn't be bothered arguing, so I just went for pathetic levels of politeness instead: "Excuse me mate, I don't know if you realised it but you came really close to clipping me back there." To my amazement the driver was really apologetic, said "sorry" several times and we both went away smiling.
So I'm making a belated New Years Resolution: to keep calm and try to be impeccably polite during on-road altercations. I'll be interested to see if I get a better response than to my usual sweary rants.