When to call it a day?

[Ming the Merciless]

what is absolutely appalling were the comments.

Usually best not to read the bottom half of the Internet. There are a lot of people express their nastiness when anonymous. If they were held accountable for their comments, many would be banged up for hate speech.

 

[Punkawallah]

Usually best not to read the bottom half of the Internet. There are a lot of people express their nastiness when anonymous. If they were held accountable for their comments, many would be banged up for hate speech.

Perhaps they should move to China, where fewer people get arrested for their online opinions?

 

[katiewlx]

Steady on, motorcyclists were the only ones who saw an increase in fatalities. Plus car occupants and motorcyclists, make up by far the biggest proportion of fatalities followed by pedestrians and cyclists.

You can paint a picture many ways with statistics. I have seen in previous outputs that motorcyclists have about 10 times the risk of a serious accident per mile compared to cyclists.

View attachment 809742

I did highlight that it meant you were more likely to be killed on a motorcycle. which is a bit like the old Autobahn stats that used to say they were the safest roads in the world because there were fewer crashes, unfortunately if you did crash, the speed of the crash meant you were most likely to be killed so it was a bit of a falsehood to claim they were safest.

but I still think that there are now more cyclists being injured than motorcyclists is significant change from these stats, and these are ksi stats, ie the ones actually reported, theres probably an entire sub class of crashes/injuries that cyclists just never report, are completely unknown, whereas motorcyclist crashes by their very nature the near majority of them are going to get reported because they need medical help, so any of the cyclist ones are going to be fairly significant too.

 

[BADGER.BRAD]

I'm not saying that there are no bad drivers ( there are plenty) but the amount of times I have watched a YouTube bicycle close miss or collision video and thought why are you cycling up the inside of moving vehicles or blindly following a cycle lane into hell cycling flat out into a situation I saw comes miles back , then from personnel experience I've watched cyclists running red lights jumping onto pavements to turn left at red traffic lights and then not looking when they jump back onto roads, cycling up the inside of HGV's, Buses and other vehicles, cycling up the inside of vehicles clearly indicating left ,no lights and black clothing whilst wearing head phones, onto oncoming traffic ( wrong side of road) shopping bags on both ends of the handle bars and something I saw the other day a Black African on a black bike dressed in black cycling the wrong way down a high speed unlit dual carriage way at 3 am in the morning in the fast lane. Add this to all the other humans using different methods of transport with no brain or consideration for anything else but them selves even if if puts them in danger, phone zombies, drunks, junkies plus those making errors ( we all do it) and there is no surprise people get hurt, Speaking as a HGV driver all you can do is try to be the best you can and protect others against them selves and in the case of cycling protect yourself by obeying road rules, wearing high viz clothing , good lights and good safety equipment.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I'm not saying that there are no bad drivers ( there are plenty) but the amount of times I have watched a YouTube bicycle close miss or collision video and thought why are you cycling up the inside of moving vehicles or blindly following a cycle lane into hell cycling flat out into a situation I saw comes miles back , then from personnel experience I've watched cyclists running red lights jumping onto pavements to turn left at red traffic lights and then not looking when they jump back onto roads, cycling up the inside of HGV's, Buses and other vehicles, cycling up the inside of vehicles clearly indicating left ,no lights and black clothing whilst wearing head phones, onto oncoming traffic ( wrong side of road) shopping bags on both ends of the handle bars and something I saw the other day a Black African on a black bike dressed in black cycling the wrong way down a high speed unlit dual carriage way at 3 am in the morning in the fast lane. Add this to all the other humans using different methods of transport with no brain or consideration for anything else but them selves even if if puts them in danger, phone zombies, drunks, junkies plus those making errors ( we all do it) and there is no surprise people get hurt, Speaking as a HGV driver all you can do is try to be the best you can and protect others against them selves and in the case of cycling protect yourself by obeying road rules, wearing high viz clothing , good lights and good safety equipment.

I see this too, and In a way, that's the point.

Cycling is inherently low risk to cyclists and others. As such it's an ideal cheap and efficient form of transport for many people, like children, people with low incomes or people unable to get a driving licence.

The problem is that these people are then placed in dangerous situations, caused by having to share roads with other more dangerous vehicles. We also aren't going to improve safety by adding to the extra "safety equipment" we demand cyclists use.

A large part of the solution to this is less trying to make people buy more and more "safety equipment" or raising the bar by making tests mandatory (Although I agree, common sense training may help) The way to make cycling safer is to make sure that there is infrastructure suitable for cyclists, so mistakes don't have such high stakes.

 

[Drago]

It never ceases to astonishing me how, when it comes to cyclists, victim blaming is still perfectly acceptable. You can't tell young women to protect themselve from bad people by wearing stainless steel chastity belts when out on the town, but its somehow perfectly acceptable to tell cyclists to wear a day-glo suit of armour to protect themselves from dangerous lawbreakers.

 

[Oldhippy]

@Andy in Germany and @Drago both of you are absolutely spot on there.

 

[kingrollo]

After a HA last year I did a lot of soul searching - was this time to get the slippers out ?

But now I've decided cycling is something I will take to the grave with me. If I keel over at the side of the road .....so be it.

 

[sevenfourate]

………..

After a HA last year I did a lot of soul searching - was this time to get the slippers out ?

But now I've decided cycling is something I will take to the grave with me. If I keel over at the side of the road .....so be it.

Personally I think this is the right attitude.

What’s the point in being alive. If you’re not truly living. Merely just existing…..

They say your phone pictures tell you what you enjoy in life and should protect / indulge in. Mines currently cycling, food and my dog 😁

 

[bulldoze]

I got very close passed by two young guys in a hatchback on Saturday. Not only did they close pass but the passenger shouted something at me out of the open window as well. It was out of the blue so a bit of a jolt to my sensibilities.

I am sure they forgot all about it 5 minutes later but due to traffic I eventually caught them waiting at lights.

I braked hard right up to the passenger window to stop and glare inside. I said nothing but when realisation dawned on them that I was the cyclist they shouted at the panic set in quite quickly.

I am sure I will get told off on here for chasing them, but I was really quite angry about it all.

 

[Drago]

I once had some little sheet deliberately close pass me coming in the opposite direction. I dont scare easy, but this properly put the wind up me, thought I was going to kark it for a moment there. I will not say where or when this encounter occurred for reasons about to become clear.

A month or so later I saw the car parked up, and the following morning he will have awoken to find his mirrors had been kicked off and all his wipers bent.

Any witnesses, not that there were any, would not have not been able to describe the offender because he wore a balaclava and was gloved up, so even his ethnicity would be unknown. The perfect crime.

 

[wakemalcolm]

I once had some little sheet deliberately close pass me coming in the opposite direction. I dont scare easy, but this properly put the wind up me, thought I was going to kark it for a moment there. I will not say where or when this encounter occurred for reasons about to become clear.

A month or so later I saw the car parked up, and the following morning he will have awoken to find his mirrors had been kicked off and all his wipers bent.

Any witnesses, not that there were any, would not have not been able to describe the offender because he wore a balaclava and was gloved up, so even his ethnicity would be unknown. The perfect crime.

Hope he hadn't sold it in the intervening month.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I once had some little sheet deliberately close pass me coming in the opposite direction. I dont scare easy, but this properly put the wind up me, thought I was going to kark it for a moment there. I will not say where or when this encounter occurred for reasons about to become clear.

A month or so later I saw the car parked up, and the following morning he will have awoken to find his mirrors had been kicked off and all his wipers bent.

Any witnesses, not that there were any, would not have not been able to describe the offender because he wore a balaclava and was gloved up, so even his ethnicity would be unknown. The perfect crime.

Built like Bigfoot and escaped on a folding bike. Hmmmm

 

[Drago]

When I was recovering from an op I was forced to work in the control room while I recovered.

One night I was about to knock off and my final call of the evening was from a little old dear in absolute tears of panic because sheetbags were throwing stones at her windows. I sent the job to the desk for deployment, and booked off duty.

Driving home I realised the old lady's address was only a few streets away. I diverted, parked in a dark corner of the next street along and started strolling towards the target with my hood up. It was a dark and cold late autumn evening so I attracted zero attention.

Walking along I could see the target address a few hundred years away and sure enough three late teenage sheetbags were targeting her house. I decided id stroll up innocently and then twat one, maybe two if I was lucky, good and solid in the chops, and then hoof it away at speed.

I was approaching, trying to look casual, and as I was about 20 metres from them and just bunching my hand into a fist a police car came into the street from the opposite end so I put my head down and carried on walking...

They never knew how close they came to a visit to A&E that night.

 

[kingrollo]

I got very close passed by two young guys in a hatchback on Saturday. Not only did they close pass but the passenger shouted something at me out of the open window as well. It was out of the blue so a bit of a jolt to my sensibilities.

I am sure they forgot all about it 5 minutes later but due to traffic I eventually caught them waiting at lights.

I braked hard right up to the passenger window to stop and glare inside. I said nothing but when realisation dawned on them that I was the cyclist they shouted at the panic set in quite quickly.

I am sure I will get told off on here for chasing them, but I was really quite angry about it all.

Get a camera then you can get a more meaningful revenge by reporting such incidents to the police .