Buffalo & Doozerie - The mild musings of two grumpy old men!

Dermot Illogical

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think in this instance, slowing down was the proper course of action to take... if the guy behind won't drive at the proper braking distance, drive at the speed for which that distance is the proper braking distance.

The motivation may have been a bit off, but you definitely don't want a lot of speed on those bendy roads when some knob is tailgating you.

doozerie

Leroy42 wrote: »

Sure the guy over reacted but if you are going to carry on like some sort of head teacher and scold the bold kids then you are going to come across that.

This seems to crop up a lot when it comes to calling attention to crazy antics on a bike, the people who do so often get labelled as misguided wannabe parents/teachers/police/etc. Whether by intention or not that attitude essentially downplays the personal responsibility of the person on the bike that is behaving irresponsibly. By portraying the person complaining as nothing more than some kind of moaning minny it effectively categorises the person on the bike as no more of a concern than a misbehaving child. Sure, the antics of the latter are childish, but that's just one aspect of it, their behaviour is actually a lot more serious and concerning than that.

If I tell someone that I saw a motorist driving through a red light they would generally tut and agree that such behaviour is irresponsible and unacceptable. If I tell someone that I saw a cyclist running a red light quite a few would shrug their shoulders and wonder why I care. If I provided some context such as the cyclist almost colliding with a small child in the process, or similar, that brings out the disapproval but the default attitude of many people is simply "sure, what harm?". Many people go further and respond with "sure, what's wrong with you, what they do has nothing to do with you and no-one got hurt".

I don't get that. What other people on the road do *does* have something to do with me. It is relevant to every other road user. We seem conditioned to delude ourselves that someone that routinely ignores the rules of the road on a bike is harmless. Here is a challenge for anyone that considers such behaviour as harmless though, stand in front of such a person and see how harmless they feel to you as they approach on their bike - if your natural inclination is to avoid the collision then clearly you don't really believe they are harmless.

Even if you refuse to believe that a cyclist poses danger to others, how do you think such people will behave if and when they sit behind the wheel of a car? Do you really believe that they have some kind of switch which they flick to "Obnoxious" when on a bike but which they can easily set to "Considerate" when driving?

If we choose to ignore their behaviour on a bike we essentially feed their entirely self-serving attitude that their behaviour and attitude towards people they share the roads with is acceptable. If we don't believe such behaviour is acceptable then what should we do? Should we remain silent and expect others to somehow influence the behaviour of such people, or should we make an effort ourselves to try to influence their behaviour for the better?

Everyone will make their own choice there, personally I vote for the latter. It doesn't mean that I'll say something to everyone I see act like a muppet. Sometimes that's clearly not the best course of action, but it means I'm willing to say something when I believe the situation warrants it. Does that make me some sort of head teacher? I don't care, to be honest.

BoardsMember

doozerie wrote: »

Whether by intention or not that attitude essentially downplays the personal responsibility of the person on the bike that is behaving irresponsibly. By portraying the person complaining as nothing more than some kind of moaning minny it effectively categorises the person on the bike as no more of a concern than a misbehaving child.

I don't believe that's the case at all.

I think Leroy's opinion about the "head teacher" is wrong: some might applaud a person ticking someone off, like you would for instance, as would I. Others, like Leroy, might see it as meddling, which personally I don't understand.

Either way, I don't see how it follows that it downplays the transgression, from whichever standpoint you are coming from.

The fact that, for example, I might get involved in stopping or commenting on someone breaking a red light, when someone else seeing the same thing ignores or does not get involved, says more about the relative personalities of the people, rather than how those people judge the actual transgression.

And I don't think it follows that, by not commenting/getting involved, one is somehow complicit in encouraging bad behaviour. I think that is ludicrous, to be honest.

Chuchote

Weepsie wrote: »

My behaviour is not the reason that guy was an a$$hole. He will cause someone an accident, or he will assault someone.

What is the best way to calm someone who's in a rage?

robyntmorton

Magic, I know the exact road you're referring to, commonly called the 20 bends. I am a relatively confident driver, and I wouldn't want to overtake around there if it can be avoided. That said, I wouldn't try to bully someone into speeding up too. Really you did what you needed to do in holding your line and a speed that you were comfortable with. Experimenting on them is not necessarily the best option, but they would still have been at fault for hitting you.

magicbastarder

robyntmorton wrote: »

Experimenting on them is not necessarily the best option, but they would still have been at fault for hitting you.

i should point out that 'experimenting' was not my primary reason for slowing down, that comment was meant to be mainly light-hearted; the primary reason to slow down was '****, if there's a pedestrian on the road and i have to brake, the guy behind me won't have time to brake'.


it is the one thing i'd like most in a car - an ability to clearly signal someone behind that they're too close. i had it again recently on the old N2, on the 60km/h section, which most people exceed - i was doing 60, and a car again sat on my rear bumper; probably between one and two car lengths behind me.

Chuchote

magicbastarder wrote: »

it is the one thing i'd like most in a car - an ability to clearly signal someone behind that they're too close. i had it again recently on the old N2, on the 60km/h section, which most people exceed - i was doing 60, and a car again sat on my rear bumper; probably between one and two car lengths behind me.

I'd guess that a lot of Irish drivers are not aware of the correct distance to leave between you and the car in front; an American friend told me that over there the guideline is (something like) two of your own car's lengths between you and the car in front in normal zipping-along traffic, more in the wet or if you're going fast.

robyntmorton

magicbastarder wrote: »

i should point out that 'experimenting' was not my primary reason for slowing down, that comment was meant to be mainly light-hearted; the primary reason to slow down was '****, if there's a pedestrian on the road and i have to brake, the guy behind me won't have time to brake'.


it is the one thing i'd like most in a car - an ability to clearly signal someone behind that they're too close. i had it again recently on the old N2, on the 60km/h section, which most people exceed - i was doing 60, and a car again sat on my rear bumper; probably between one and two car lengths behind me.

I completely appreciate that. I'd ease up a little too, and flash the hazards a couple of times if I really need to point out how close someone is.

Leroy42

Weepsie wrote: »

In breaking the light, the other guy very nearly hit me when I was waiting. I had been shaking my head in disbelief at his increasing annoyance at the one guy. I do that sometimes, it's nearly automatic and it was a matter of 1-15 seconds between it.

Carry on like a head teacher? Pot, kettle and black are springing straight to mind if you want to start lecturing on the rights and wrongs of criticising people.

My behaviour is not the reason that guy was an a$$hole. He will cause someone an accident, or he will assault someone.

I don't have an issue with you calling the guy out, I don't have an issue with safety, I have no gra for cyclists breaking the lights.

Your issue was not the just guy breaking the lights. Your issue was the way he reacted after you reacted to him. You muttered under your breath (although obviously loud enough for him to hear) and he took exception to that and then you started "racing" him.

And why are you balancing at the lights. Stop and put your foot down like you are supposed to. He obviously assumed you were going to stay in one place not move about, and he passed too close.

So enough with the pot, kettle etc. He didn't handle it well, but either did you. Don't come on here acting like you had nothing to do with the escalation of the event.

On the driver, come on! He slowed down to piss the other guy off. Simple as. "I was worried about hitting a pedestrian" etc. So why were you going too fast in the 1st place.

I have no issue with any of the actions taken, but don't pretend they are anything other than what they are.

cjt156

Leroy42 wrote: »

And why are you balancing at the lights. Stop and put your foot down like you are supposed to.

Leroy42 wrote: »

But really what business is it of yours?

Leroy42 wrote:

So enough with the pot, kettle etc.

I'll just leave this here...

doozerie

BoardsMember wrote:

And I don't think it follows that, by not commenting/getting involved, one is somehow complicit in encouraging bad behaviour. I think that is ludicrous, to be honest.”

I didn’t say that. I was taking issue with someone criticising someone else for commenting/getting involved.

Depending on circumstances such criticism can be justified of course, but more often I find that the effect is to essentially deem the original behaviour in question as somehow acceptable.

doozerie

Leroy42 wrote:

And why are you balancing at the lights. Stop and put your foot down like you are supposed to.

Ah heyor. I’m stopping and putting my foot down to this suggestion.

CramCycle

Chuchote wrote: »

I'd guess that a lot of Irish drivers are not aware of the correct distance to leave between you and the car in front; an American friend told me that over there the guideline is (something like) two of your own car's lengths between you and the car in front in normal zipping-along traffic, more in the wet or if you're going fast.

There was an advertising campaign for years of at least two seconds. Pick a point you and the car in front are passing. Start counting slowly when they pass. You should have at least completes two seconds. Therefore in rush hour, you can be bumper to bumper but on a motorway you leave quite a distance.

doozerie wrote: »

Ah heyor. I’m stopping and putting my foot down to this suggestion.

I remember hearing years ago that it was a requirement for motorbikers, so you would see the garda MB Jockeys (not traffic corp) tap their foot off the ground at lights when stopped. They are more than capable of balancing without doing so but just to make sure they had done everything right. No proof whatsoever, whether it is a legality or just good practice or simply made up.

cdaly_

I presume it would matter more to a motorcyclist as, once the motorbike starts to fall, it would need a lot more force to stop the fall than it would need for a bicycle.

Dermot Illogical

It was a requirement to pass the garda bike course where there was a legal stop rather than a yield. It's how the tester knew you had thought about it. At the very least you had to put your foot down to show you had come to a complete stop.
It probably became habit for some, especially those who had no previous biking experience/habits.

CramCycle wrote: »

I remember hearing years ago that it was a requirement for motorbikers, so you would see the garda MB Jockeys (not traffic corp) tap their foot off the ground at lights when stopped.

CramCycle

Dermot Illogical wrote: »

It was a requirement to pass the garda bike course where there was a legal stop rather than a yield. It's how the tester knew you had thought about it. At the very least you had to put your foot down to show you had come to a complete stop.
It probably became habit for some, especially those who had no previous biking experience/habits.

That would make sense, as I knew they did not need it for balance

doozerie

On my commute on a wide stretch of main road this morning a guy on a bike cycled out of a side road on the right to join the lane I was in. He seemed to be ignoring the oncoming car approaching from his right, presumably invoking the "if I don't look at it it can't hurt me" prayer that so many people favour.

I thought he was also going to ignore both me and the cyclist ahead of me as he seemed to be aiming for the same road space we were about to occupy. He didn't ignore us though, instead he waved his arm to usher us past, and the speed and intensity of his movements suggested that we should get out of his way quickly. It was too ridiculous to comment upon so I just shook my head slightly incredulously as I went past him.

Two minutes later and I'm stopped at a traffic light and yer man pulls up alongside me. He started giving out. "What's all this shaking of the head business, eh?", etc. He felt quite strongly about it, clearly.

I asked him why he pulled out in front of a moving car, to practically ride into two cyclists who had right of way, and then thought it fine to crankily usher us out of his way as if we were at fault. "I was BEING GENTLEMANLY", he told me. Jaysus. I suggested that his being completely in the wrong undermined his right to be indignant, but he was having none of it.

The gentleman proceeded to hurl some abuse at me before breaking a red light to cycle between crossing pedestrians. He broke the next 3 lights too (I kept count, because I'm not a gentleman). The definition of "gentlemanly" has changed a lot since my time, the current definition shares a lot of the characteristics of "being a dick".

doozerie

A particular bugbear of mine recently is people on bikes who choose to pass me on the inside while I’m stopped at traffic lights. They see a gap that is barely wide enough to accommodate their poorly controlled wobbly bike and they shoot through it like a rat up a drainpipe. And if they ping off the kerb and/or me they don’t seem to care in the slightest. Moaning is wasted on them though, they are either too obnoxious or too thick to perceive such a manoeuvre as anything other than entirely genius. Even when they undertake as I’m stopped waiting for a crossing/turning car to move out of the way. Yup, pure genius…

I met a better class of rat recently though, of the tooth-filled snarly kind. One “turned up” in my house. It was probably “helped” through the cat flap by one of our cats. ‘Cos cats are dicks. One of the cats then proceeded to terrorise it, while the other cat slept. I got a call from my wife telling me that she discovered the rat squeezed behind the radiator when the hysterical squeals brought her into the room.

By the time I got home from work an exterminator had been and gone. He hadn’t found the rat but had left poison and traps down. He reckoned it had escaped out through the exterior door my wife had left open for that purpose. I gather he said he’d have stomped on it with his large hefty boots if he’d found out, he clearly takes the “terminator” part of his job title seriously. I’ve seen cornered rats in the past though, I’ve seen how desperate they can get and how their fear can make them very dangerous. I’ve felt both sympathy for them, and fear of them, on those occasions, but the bit that lingers in my memory is the fear.

So I was on edge when I entered the house. I had a cursory look around the room, saw nothing, and optimistically chose to accept the theory that it was gone. Everything was fine. Both cats were asleep. Dicks. We had dinner, we chatted, in that room, we got our daughter to bed, all the while I was enjoying the relief of believing the problem had gone away.

Later that night, I noticed one of our cats taking a keen interest in a corner of the room a couple of metres away. But everything was fine, so this was nothing to be concerned about, the cat was just being a dick, again (he was the chief suspect for bringing in the rat, I still hadn’t forgiven him). He got more and more interested. Everything was fine, but just to remove any doubt I had a look in the corner. There was some water there. Which was curious, But it certainly wasn’t rat pee because that would be bad and, of course, that was impossible because everything was fine.

There was a small double-glazed unit resting on the ground in the corner, wrapped in an old curtain so that it didn’t scratch the floor. I lifted it up and held it out of the way while I examined the corner. It was the glazed unit I’d removed from the back door to fit a new glazed unit cut to take the cat flap, which was to prove to be all sorts of ironic. The water which wasn’t rat pee seemed to be sharing space with something that wasn’t rat poo. Everything was fine, I told myself as I put the unit back down and stepped away.

So when I actually crouched down and peered into the tiny space between the curtain and the glazed unit itself, clearly the rat-shaped object squeezed in there looking back out at me was not a rat. It certainly wasn’t a big rat, One that was cornered. And one that would surely go through anything fleshy in order to escape. It may have been bullet shaped, with teeth, but it wasn’t a rat. My fleeing from the room, cartoon-like, was therefore purely precautionary. The cat watched me, amused and smug I’m sure of it, the utter dick.

I still remember the time I encountered a rat in my parents’ kitchen late at night, when I was a teen. I found myself following the same routine as my father did back then. I tuned out the inner voice that suggested just getting my family out and setting the house alight, and instead I “man’ed up”. Standard procedure stuff, I put on stout shoes, tucked my trouser legs inside my socks, grabbed a hurley from under the stairs… I don’t play hurling though, so there were no hurleys to be found. I contemplated getting a knife but ruled that one out on the basis that the way my luck was going the rat would just pull out a gun if I approached with a blade.

I grabbed the nearest thing resembling a weapon. A golf umbrella. (I don’t even play golf, if I did at least I could have grabbed a pair of offensively patterned golf trousers and scared the rat away with those, but no). So it was me and my umbrella. If the rat got violent I was going to Mary Poppins the sh1t out of it!

Rats don’t listen. Who knew. You can open the double exterior doors all the way out, and invite it to travel the 3 metres or so to get to the outside world, but would it listen? Course not. The cat just watched on and smirked. The other cat slept soundly. Dicks.

I tried to ignore the inner voice that kept reminding me that only moments before I’d been handling the curtain-wrapped glazed unit, trying to keep myself well away from a corner that might have contained a rat, and all the while actually holding the rat closer and closer to my body. That voice was not helpful.

I poked at the curtain with the umbrella in the hope that the rat would get fed up and just head straight towards the fresh air that it was surely aware of by now. My mind kept on resurrecting memories form many years ago of a cornered rat jumping for a neighbour’s face . That neighbour had a shotgun. I didn’t. Those memories were not helpful either.

Neither was the non-sleeping cat, who just sat there looking slightly appalled at how boring this was proving to be.

I ended up lying on a countertop above the glazed unit, leaning over and slowly, oh so slowly, unwrapping the curtain. Not for the first time I considered just going to bed and leaving the dick of a cat to sort out his own mess, but the prospect of coming down next morning to not knowing where the rat now was, whether it was alive or dead, and whether it was philosophical about the whole thing or extremely pissed off, made me persist. Nothing was ever unwrapped with such care and attention. Or with such tightly clenched bowels.

The last side of curtain finally fell to the ground. But the now expiosed rat stayed where it was. It looked much bigger this close up but I was getting indignant now. Here was me doing my best to help it and it wasn’t cooperating. The feckin’ nerve! I crankily poked at it with the umbrella. You always mentally prepare yourself for things that you know can move fast, in my case no matter how prepared I feel I am I usually find I’m not. And so, as the rat shot across the floor I manfully smothered a squeal of shock. Jaysus those things can move, it’s like compressing the power of a Kittel into a tiny form, and adding teeth, diseases, and a nasty disposition.

The bored cat sprang to life and chased it. “Chase it out the door”, I almost shouted, momentarily forgetting that cats are dicks and where delicate situations are concerned love nothing more than to lob in a few spanners. So the cat turned the rat towards a dead end. The rat couldn’t go round or over it. So it started screeching. Which does wonders for already frayed nerves. Mine, that is. The cat just looked annoyed, but not annoyed enough to do anything useful. DICK! The other cat briefly raised a sleepy head, and went back to sleep.

I was feeling sorry for the rat now. Acknowledging my utter stupidity to myself I prodded at the rat to direct it towards the open doors again. It ran for them. YESSSSS! Then the cat ran at it from the side and the rat veered back into the room and behind a sideboard. NOOOOOOO!! Ffffffffffffffcuk! Ffffffffcukin cat! D. I. C. K.

The next hour was taken up by my poking the umbrella under and being the sideboard. The rat would run out, along the top of the skirting board (which is all of about 10mm wide - it’s serioualy creepy and disturbing how agile rats are), heading in the direction of the open doors. And the cat would chase it back under the sideboard again. My murderous intentions were well and truly extending towards the cat at this stage.

I tried to negotiate with the cat, if we worked together we could get the rat outside and himself and the rat could work out their (numerous) issues together without me getting in the way. But, of course, cats are as amenable to negotiation as they are to being herded, I was on my own here.

It was after 2am by the time the rat made a final desperate effort to escape. It made it to the open doors. Time stood still as it seemed to hesitate in the open doorway, trying to decide whether to veer left into the garden, or right to go further into the house. Every fibre of my being was yelling GETTDAFUKKK! The cat was looking worried, as if his fun was about to end.

The rat took the garden option. While I threw myself at the doors, to close them, lock them, counter-lock them, and board them up permanently, the cat raced outside after the rat. What a dick. I watched from inside as the now squealing rat jumped at the cat’s face each time the cat made to go for it. It was both fascinating and horrible. The speed of both was impressive. I’m not sure which was worse though, the obvious terror of the rat or the obvious ruthless calculation of the cat. I briefly considered going out to get the cat away from the rat (yes, I am utterly stupid). After a few minutes though the rat escaped through a fence into a neighbour’s garden, leaving a very crestfallen cat behind. I locked the cat flap and left him out there. ‘Cos he is a dick.

It was a relief to come down the next morning knowing that the problem and danger were gone. I took some satisfaction as seeing the cat’s pleading face outside the cat flap too, desperate to get back into the comfort of the house. Ha, he has learned his lesson, I thought to myself.

The relief lasted into the day after that again in fact. I was still enjoying it that evening as I heard the cat flap go, and turned around to see the dick of a cat, his face exclaiming excitedly “Look, I FOUND OUR FRIEND!”, a big rat hanging from his jaws.

As a parent I’ve learned the importance, absolute necessity even, of not immediately reacting to any situation with “For fcuk SAKE!”, no matter how appropriate that reaction is. So I opted to not chase after the cat like a lunatic. The cat himself had that disappointed look in his eye, the look that said “If you give out to me I’ll leave it in your shoe” and he was eyeing up various nooks and crannies in which to hide.

I found myself inviting him to take his friend out into the garden to play. This is what my life has become, trying to calmly reason with a dick of a ruthless killer. In the end he got offended and took his “prize” out anyway as clearly I didn’t deserve it.

He patted it round the garden briefly, got bored, and left it. It was still there a few hours later so it was certainly dead. It was gone the next morning, saving me the unpleasant task of getting rid of it. And life returned to normal again. Just us and the cats. Who are still dicks.

brocbrocach

doozerie wrote: »

it’s like compressing the power of a Kittel into a tiny form, and adding teeth, diseases, and a nasty disposition.

Harsh on the boy Cavendish

stecleary

brocbrocach wrote: »

Harsh on the boy Cavendish

Now, Now, He's had his teeth fixed

doozerie

While stopped directly behind a stationary bus this morning, someone on a bike rolled into the back of my bike. I’m small, maybe he just didn’t see me or my rear light. But a bus is hard to not see, would he have hit the bus if I wasn’t there I wonder?

Anyway, I picked a bad time to ask how he didn’t see me as his feet were apparently so fascinating as to be the sole focus of his attention. I guess that answered my question.

magicbastarder

doozerie wrote: »

his feet were apparently so fascinating as to be the sole focus of his attention.

i see what you did there.

Fian

Weepsie wrote: »

Then there's the absolute chancers in their cars who I've seen plough on through red lights the last few days. RLJing is something that people on bikes are constantly accused of. It's a serious problem with cars now and I don't understand how more people are not injured and how it's not highlighted more.

I have really noticed this alot recently. I had to brake twice this morning for cars who were breaking reds. For one of those junctions it is pretty standard - crossing over the canal there is always at least one car trying to turn right into town who brakes the lights. this time it was three cars all of whom entered the junction after my light was green. Not particularly dangerous, but not dangerous only because speeds there are slow and because most people familiar with the junction expect it. In fairness it is easy to see how frustrating it is to try to turn right there, there are always cars left waiting for the next cycle of the lights. A feeder light would probably be a good idea, either that or just ban right turns there altogether.

That and lots of beeping/frustration etc. Maybe it is Christmas time stress, with people trying to get presents and get organised it is a busy time of year, but for me approaching christmas always puts me in a good mood. That is probably explained by my unfairly abdicating all responsibility to actually organise things to my wife.

cdaly_

Fian wrote: »

That is probably explained by my unfairly abdicating all responsibility to actually organise things to my wife.

Unfairly? Was it not in the contract?

"Till death do us part and you get to organise xmas"...

Fian

cdaly_ wrote: »

Unfairly? Was it not in the contract?

"Till death do us part and you get to organise xmas"...

not expressly, but arguably it was an implied term.

buffalo

Could all the ****wads on the canal with massive headlights (that you need to see the unlit sections) please point them down when approaching people? The ground is the important part, not my squinty blinded bedazzled face.

stecleary

buffalo wrote: »

Could all the ****wads on the canal with massive headlights (that you need to see the unlit sections) please point them down when approaching people? The ground is the important part, not my squinty blinded bedazzled face.

Dublin Bikes!!!! Horrible flash on them, all out of focus and seem to be extra wobbly along the canal :mad:

Chips Lovell

buffalo wrote: »

Could all the ****wads on the canal with massive headlights (that you need to see the unlit sections) please point them down when approaching people? The ground is the important part, not my squinty blinded bedazzled face.

In my view, there are two circumstances in which citizens should be permitted to take the law in their own hands.

In the case of people who use high powered lights, either undipped or on strobe setting, it ought to be permissible for anyone to drag them from their bike and beat them to within an inch of their lives.

The second exception should be for people who put up their Christmas tree before December 1. Their neighbours should be allowed burn them out.

Alek

I point my (medium power) strobe light horizontally. It is there not for illuminating the road, it is to be seen in a mirror of the vehicle turning left in front of me.

buffalo

I perhaps should have been more specific. There's a stretch of towpath on the Royal Canal from Phibsboro to Ashtown which is unlit, and people have a genuine need for higher powered lights to see what's in front of them.

However, the afore-mentioned wanknuts are not familiar with the need to switch from full to dipped headlights on rural roads when there is oncoming traffic, and the similar approach which should be used when meeting oncoming traffic on the towpath.

I can already see myself as an old man, thrusting my walking stick between their spokes. *shakes fist at stupid kids*