idiot cyclist (pics)

peasant

Homeward bound in the camper yesterday evening on the N13 (or is it 14?) from Derry towards Letterkenny. Just before Lky the dual carriagway is coned off for resurfacing works and all traffic is guided via cones onto the hard shoulder, speed limit 50 km/h. This goes on for about 5 - 6 km.

Right at the very beginning of this stretch, I come up behind a cyclyst pedalling away on the hard shoulder also. My camper is wide, no way can I overtake him safely, so I just sit behind him.

This is a very busy road with a lot of traffic condensed into one lane. Sane people would take the first opportinity to get themselves and their pushbike out of that dangerous situation ...two empty lanes are just sitting there, waiting to be cycled on.

Not him ...he just pedals away, unpreturbed, doing between 15 - 20 kmh uphill (respectable but still infuriatingly slow when you're stuck behind)

No manner of sitting on the horn or shouting out of the window is going to convince him to move over into the free space to his right (where he could easily go ...I on the other hand can't).

He's just content to hold up everybody until he's good and ready and finished cycling the 5-6 km. Not even a turnoff halfway can tempt him to give up his godgiven right to cycle there.

What an unbelievable idiot

sdanseo

You should have run him over...:rolleyes:

Why didn't you call the guards? If someone's holding up traffic like that they deserve to be arrested.

Alun

Ah, but he's got his soopa-doopa go-faster Lycra cycling gear on ... didn't you know that conveys the unalienable god-given right to ride wherever and whenever you want at whatever speed and in whatever numbers all abreast, including motorways ?:D

sdanseo

And they complain that drivers are too dangerous and that they nearly get flattened all the time..

What do they expect?:P

Anan1

sdonn_1 wrote:

And they complain that drivers are too dangerous and that they nearly get flattened all the time..

What do they expect?:P

I think you need to understand the difference between one cyclist and all cyclists.;)

Anan1

sdonn_1 wrote:

Why didn't you call the guards? If someone's holding up traffic like that they deserve to be arrested.

AFAIK what the cyclist was doing, although selfish & stupid, was not actually illegal.

hunnymonster

peasant, hope you'll remember that feeling next time you impede my progress by blocking off a street with your wide camper in city traffic.....

Stark

Anan1 wrote:

AFAIK what the cyclist was doing, although selfish & stupid, was not actually illegal.

Some guy in England got done for holding up a road by cycling in the middle of the lane before. Not sure if the same law would apply in Ireland.

hunnymonster wrote:

peasant, hope you'll remember that feeling next time you impede my progress by blocking off a street with your wide camper in city traffic.....

Jesus, I'll never forget that time I was held up for 2 hours travelling through west Co. Galway stuck behind camper vans. Every time I managed to overtook one (took ages to find an opportunity due to bendy roads, vans speeding up on the straight), I'd be stuck behind another one and a tailback of cars all doing 40-50km/hr.

hmmm

In the same way as a car could not drive in the right lanes, I presume neither could a cyclist (legally). On the other hand, he obviously did not show any consideration for other road users, it'd be nice if he could be found and cautioned.

mikedragon32

hmmm wrote:

In the same way as a car could not drive in the right lanes, I presume neither could a cyclist (legally). On the other hand, he obviously did not show any consideration for other road users, it'd be nice if he could be found and cautioned.

In both pics he seems to be keeping to the left. What do you think he should be cautioned for?

To be fair to the op, I'd be pretty annoyed too, but what could you have done?

I love the pic of the queue of traffic behind!

Anan1

Stark wrote:

Some guy in England got done for holding up a road by cycling in the middle of the lane before. Not sure if the same law would apply in Ireland.

To be fair, this guy wasn't doing that.

hmmm wrote:

In the same way as a car could not drive in the right lanes, I presume neither could a cyclist (legally). On the other hand, he obviously did not show any consideration for other road users, it'd be nice if he could be found and cautioned.

Cautioned for what?

Mojito

You should have squeezed by him, he would have made room. There's plenty of room in the ditch.

peasant

hmmm wrote:

In the same way as a car could not drive in the right lanes, I presume neither could a cyclist (legally). On the other hand, he obviously did not show any consideration for other road users, it'd be nice if he could be found and cautioned.

In a way he was lucky that I was behind him, shielding him from all the cars. Because they certainly would have passed him ...or try to pass him on this narrow lane and then an accident (with a crushed cyclist as the end result) would have been very likely indeed.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

How much wider than a campervan is a car (speaking as a non-driver)? Could a car have squeezed past?

Ice_Box

Camper vans should be banned

peasant

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

How much wider than a campervan is a car (speaking as a non-driver)? Could a car have squeezed past?

a car: 1.6 to 1.8 meters
my camper: 2.2 meters
a truck: up to 2.5 meters

Turbulent Bill

peasant wrote:

In a way he was lucky that I was behind him, shielding him from all the cars. Because they certainly would have passed him ...or try to pass him on this narrow lane and then an accident (with a crushed cyclist as the end result) would have been very likely indeed.

This is probably a big factor - as an occasional cyclist I find that drivers usually leave far too little room when overtaking. He would have been done had he used the closed lanes.

DaDa

what about the eejits who put the cones up

PeakOutput

peasant wrote:

In a way he was lucky that I was behind him, shielding him from all the cars. Because they certainly would have passed him ...or try to pass him on this narrow lane and then an accident (with a crushed cyclist as the end result) would have been very likely indeed.

and then the driver would of been completley at fault for the accident and rightly so just because he can do something dosnt mean he has to or even should i probably would have pulled in but if he didnt feel comfortable doing it its up to him

at the end of the day hes just as entitled to be there as you and as was pointed out in a different thread about this topic was that if it was a tractor youd just have to put up with it

kona

peasant wrote:

Homeward bound in the camper yesterday evening on the N13 (or is it 14?) from Derry towards Letterkenny. Just before Lky the dual carriagway is coned off for resurfacing works and all traffic is guided via cones onto the hard shoulder, speed limit 50 km/h. This goes on for about 5 - 6 km.

Right at the very beginning of this stretch, I come up behind a cyclyst pedalling away on the hard shoulder also. My camper is wide, no way can I overtake him safely, so I just sit behind him.

This is a very busy road with a lot of traffic condensed into one lane. Sane people would take the first opportinity to get themselves and their pushbike out of that dangerous situation ...two empty lanes are just sitting there, waiting to be cycled on.

Not him ...he just pedals away, unpreturbed, doing between 15 - 20 kmh uphill (respectable but still infuriatingly slow when you're stuck behind)

No manner of sitting on the horn or shouting out of the window is going to convince him to move over into the free space to his right (where he could easily go ...I on the other hand can't).

He's just content to hold up everybody until he's good and ready and finished cycling the 5-6 km. Not even a turnoff halfway can tempt him to give up his godgiven right to cycle there.

What an unbelievable idiot

your the unbelievable idiot for showing off your stupidity by putting this on boards, i can safely assume you have made us all less intelligent from reading about your stupid view of the cyclist,for that i thank you.

you should read the rules of the road, the cyclist has as much right as you to use the road. also do you have the proper license to drive a camper van??
i hope he made you late for somthing important , you just a ignorant unbelievable idiot.

Rew

Common sense should have prevailed here and he should have moved over in to the coned off section.

I keep meeting them out cycleing 2 or 3 side by side holding up traffic. All they have to do is cycle in single file! Once at a roundabout I was in the right lane and they were in the left and just as I was bout to go on by them they cut in to my lane. And there was the time I met a cycle race on the Roundwood to Dublin road. Busy raod for traffic but very narrow. Some idiot organised a cycle race on it and huge line of traffic builds up behind it. One of the chase cars stayed at the rear and would swerve in and out blockin the other side of the road to ensuree that no one would over take any of the cycleists. It was incredibly dangerous, he narrowly missed a few on coming cars.

Mojito

Look what happened to this cyclist! :eek:

edit: link removed due to complaints

Mojito

This is actually looks like fun! this could be a new extreme sport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR2ygFn-yR8&eurl=

bubonicus

kona wrote:

your the unbelievable idiot for showing off your stupidity by putting this on boards, i can safely assume you have made us all less intelligent from reading about your stupid view of the cyclist,for that i thank you.

you should read the rules of the road, the cyclist has as much right as you to use the road. also do you have the proper license to drive a camper van??
i hope he made you late for somthing important , you just a ignorant unbelievable idiot.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And just to stay on topic, yeah cars and bikes on roads like cool.....

Fey!

Kona; the OP made a valid point; we've had other similar threads about slow moving cars holding up lines of traffic, so it's not exactly anti-cyclist - it's "why can't this person have been more alert and considerate". Had it been a car, the driver could have been done for "driving without due care and attention for other road users".

WRT to the license, a category B covers you for vehicles up to 3,500kg or a vehicle able to carry up to 8 passengers, which the campervan may have fallen under. Otherwise, you're into a category C.

Finally, on your "hope he made you late" comment, I feel that the only person you've shown to be a stupid, ignorant idiot is yourself.

youcancallmeal

Slow and steady wins the race.

The only thing the cyclist did was to be a bit inconsiderate but besides that he wasn’t breaking any laws. It’s a crap situation for both cyclist and motorist when you hit roads works like that and the best thing for all concerned to just be patient and get through it. Safety must be paramount

seamus

The cyclist was doing nothing wrong, but in the interests of my own safety and in case someone in a camper decided to try and squeeze by, I would have just cycled on the other side of the cones. Looks like a lovely smooth road in those pics, and no traffic to share it with.

Oh wait, that's for traffic coming the other way . Eh, so not a whole lot the cyclist can do really. He could stop and let the traffic by, but then how danger is he putting himself in, either by trying to rejoin the traffic, or from someone driving a big honking truck?

Seth Brundle

The cyclist has as much right to be on the road as any other road users. They should have shown courtesy and moved out of the way to allow the traffic move past but they are under no legal obligation to do so.
The Op should not have sat on their horn either - something like that can cause an accident! Would you have done it if the person blocking you was riding a horse rather than a bike?
As for people getting personal, I read and re-read the posts and decided against a ban (Im itching to give out a few more!) but am going to lock this thread!

Trojan

peasant wrote:

My camper is wide, no way can I overtake him safely, so I just sit behind him.

I come across a cyclist I cannot overtake safely... hmmm, should I bully him off the road, run him over, or overtake him dangerously?

peasant wrote:

two empty lanes are just sitting there, waiting to be cycled on.

Oh wait, empty lanes! Perhaps you could simply have driven your road legal vehicle over there. Bonus points if you can get the cones to flick up and hit the dastardly cyclist misusing the road like that.

peasant wrote:

No manner of sitting on the horn or shouting out of the window is going to convince him to move

Ah, you tried communicating with him! Maybe he thought you were communicating in Morse code, and he was replying by ringing his bell? You should have switched off the engine (save some petrol money too, eh? ) and listened for a reply!

I hesitate to offer this option, but there's a slim chance that he may have mistaken you to be attempting to bully him off the road which he has every right to be on. But we know that's not true, right?

peasant wrote:

What an unbelievable idiot

Absolutely, we certainly don't disagree on this one.


Edit: apologies kbannon, didn't realise it had been locked already.