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

Coming through a pedestrian light, the light ahead 25m past it just goes red. i know this means the ped one is about to go red most of the time. I roll through slowly but it only turns amber just as I clear it. All fine but a car behind me, by a good bit comes through, in the bus lane. The lights would have been red 3 or 4 seconds. Traffic is busy so this car has come up the bus lane as all other traffic has stopped. There were 7 people waiting to step out at the lights. This car came through on red, with a decent crowd of people stepping out. I looked at them and gave a dirty look. They had two kids in the car with them. Weird giving out as they wave one hand at me but never actually look at me. They slowly creep through the red light on a turn. I don't even bother, it won't mean anything, they know what they done, their kids will do the same, whats the point anymore.

does anyone make 'best of luck in your driving test' stickers i could place on windows of cars, as the situation merits?

eeeee

magicbastarder wrote: »

does anyone make 'best of luck in your driving test' stickers i could place on windows of cars, as the situation merits?

Oooooooh now that's good.

I'd run out in a week :pac:

magicbastarder wrote: »

does anyone make 'best of luck in your driving test' stickers i could place on windows of cars, as the situation merits?

No but I am tempted to carry around a tin of "best of luck in your driving test" poster paint bottle to pour over peoples cars :eek:

Haven't been commuting on the bike in a while, felt good to get back to it this morning.

Highlight was the taxi driver who took the time to scold me as I came on to the quays from Parkgate Street. He was coming across the bridge from Heuston Station, but a distance back so I kept moving through this junction: https://goo.gl/maps/RNq1SL8KzveASNip7

As he pulled level on Wolfe Tone Quay he started shouting out the window at me from the next lane that I should've stopped. I pointed out it was only a yield, and he said I should stop next time. I asked if he needed a hug and he drove off.

What's baffling me is that he could've given out to me for a legitimate complaint, that I had forgotten to properly turn on my back light and was relying on brightly coloured clothes for the whole of my commute (including the pitch black Strawberry Beds) for people to see me from behind. :eek:

Nearly creamed myself this morning. I was following two cars with a fair bit of speed when they both slowed down a bit for no particular reason. I started to overtake on the left, then hauled on the brakes as the front car suddenly swung left without indicating. I braked and shouted '****ing indicate' and tilted my front light up so the beam hit the mirror and the indicator went on mid-turn.

I could see the driver having a look at me as I passed then, and about two nanoseconds later I copped* that they were turning into the Garda station at 6.30 in the morning, so probably just shouted at a Garda. whoops!

*BOOM BOOM

buffalo wrote: »

Nearly creamed myself this morning.

you know the word 'creamed' has more than one meaning?

magicbastarder wrote: »

you know the word 'creamed' has more than one meaning?

I'll leave it to your imagination as to which one I meant. WINK WINK

Coming down the hill from Stillorgan to the bottom of Fosters Avenue, I move into the bus lane as the bike lane goes way off the road and then comes back in leaving you in the blind spot of all those cars that never look properly anyway. So I am in the bus lane, light is red ahead and a car pulls out into the bus lane. Happens all the time, they are going for the second turn and getting in early. I don't like it but it's not dangerous, I am 150m behind them and freewheeling to a red light. Anyway, a few seconds after he pulls into the bus lane, an arm comes out and starts pointing over his car at the bike lane. Its not affecting me, I look around, no other traffic or signs of danger. I slow down as obviously this large gesture has some meaning. I crawl past him and he does it again. I look around after I pass and he looks at me and does it again. That must be it, his indicator is broken and he is letting people know he is turning. It's not the correct signal but better than none. Then he leans out the window and informs me, quite politely that I was lucky he looks out for cyclists and I should get in the bike lane. I call back to say that I am in the bus lane because the next junction is dangerous but thanks for the concern.

I realise as I cycle away that the reason he is doing this is because when he pulled out he had never seen me and was surprised when i appeared behind him seconds after he pulled out, he thinks he pulled out dangerously and is now making excuses. Drivers like this are the reason I go in the bus lane at that junction because he never would have seen me in the bike lane.

So, I did not shower myself in glory this evening. Coming to the roundabout just North of Shankill, I proceed onto the roundabout and a Land Rover pulls out in front of myself and another cyclist. We both stop, no point getting hit and the land rover turns off the roundabout without indicating. As we get to the lights in Shankill, he stops and not being able to bite my tongue, I let him know, in a very nice tone his indicator is broken. He winds down the window to let me know it's not, he just didn't want want to use it. A breath is taken and then he informs me I should mind my own business and I was nothing but a little c&#+.

Needless to say, it was a slow pedal through Shankill, and I held the lane for my own safety. I showed him how to indicate as I came onto the next roundabout and then blew him a kiss to show no hard feelings, at which point I can see his passenger filming me. I imagine they were not filming the first half of our encounter but c'est la vie. I await the social media outcry with eagerness.

CramCycle wrote: »

So, I did not shower myself in glory this evening.

i don't see anything wrong with what you've done here?

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't see anything wrong with what you've done here?

The slow pedal was just childish ****e, and I should be a bit more grown up. His passenger had a glint in their eye as they filmed. Interesting to see how bad I look without the context.

Breezer

CramCycle wrote: »

The slow pedal was just childish ****e, and I should be a bit more grown up. His passenger had a glint in their eye as they filmed. Interesting to see how bad I look without the context.

Do you really give a sh1t?

Breezer wrote: »

Do you really give a sh1t?

Not really

doozerie

Career choice is a tricky business, many of us probably get it completely wrong and end up in lines of work which don't suit us or to which we are completely unsuited. I encountered a guy recently who must be an awful disappointment to his school career guidance counsellor. He ended up as a bus driver when he should really have chosen a career better suited to his temperament, something that would allow him to express his sociopathic tendencies in a safe and supporting environment.

I was at a junction with a left-only (bus) lane, and a straight-on (bus) lane. Sandwiched between the two is a cycle lane. The lights go green for straight-on traffic only if triggered. I long ago gave up on being able to trigger the lights by being in the cycle lane, it seems like there might be a sensor there but it has never worked for me and because the straight-on bus lane is so rarely used I've found myself many times sitting in the cycle lane for multiple cycles of the traffic lights without ever getting a green.

So I use the straight-on bus lane instead, there is a sensor at the head of that lane which my bike does trigger almost every time. It's very rare that a bus ends up queueing behind me in that lane, but it happened this week after I'd been stopped at the red light for a minute or two. The bus was now second in a traffic queue of two, the light wasn't due to change in our favour for a couple of minutes or so. But the driver still felt it necessary to blow the horn and gesture that I should get into the cycle lane.

I called out to him that I was in this lane because I wanted to trigger the traffic sensor, and that there is no sensor in the (now busy) bike lane. I shouldn't have bothered, he had already classed me as "the problem" and he shunted his bus towards me to demonstrate just how wronged he was by my apparently terrible behaviour. I ignored him and waited for the light to change.

A couple of hundred metres later I was in the right-most of two lanes, as I was going to be turning right at the T-junction ahead. The bus came up in the left lane and swung in on top of me, I had to swerve right to avoid being hit. The bus had to stop at the back of a line of traffic stopped about 30m ahead, right at the T-junction, so I pulled up alongside the drivers window. I asked him if he knew how close he had come to hitting me, he replied that "it's a pity I wasn't even closer!". He then told me that he had me on camera, I told him that was great as it will have captured his terrible driving. I then questioned his ability to drive, particularly drive a bus, and he said "do you want me to come out and knock your head off!".

Threats are never funny, but there is something slightly hilarious about this kind of scenario. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he doesn't routinely and casually assault people that "get in his way", and that therefore this threat was out of character. So in the heat of the moment he threatened to do something that is clearly irrational and illegal, and then found himself sitting there awkwardly in the immediate silence, in full view of the public (passengers on the bus, motorists stuck in the same line of traffic, pedestrians, etc.). To carry out his threat he'd have to presumably kill the engine of the bus, then leave his seat, open the bus doors, get out and walk around to my side of the bus. In full view of many people. And not knowing at all what the outcome of the assault would be. And still with a busload of people that he is supposed to transport, so his job is potentially at stake along with his personal physical safety, and his ego.

To hopefully add to his discomfort I told him I'd report him and I rode past the bus to get a photo of the license plate. Timing was against me though and before I'd even managed to get my gloves off the traffic started to move, so I moved off too, me in the empty left-most bus lane after the junction. He pulled in on top of me again, presumably just to scare/intimidate me because to actually get past me he'd have had to literally drive over me. I stopped at the next set of red lights, he pulled up close behind me, as soon as the lights went green he overtook me (which can't have been fun for the cars in the lane to his right) and pulled in on top of me again before immediately getting stuck in another traffic queue.

I made a point of taking a photo of his license plate while stopped, stupidly forgetting that I should note his bus route number too. I told him again that I'd report him. There were no further threats, I was now to his left so to be heard he'd have to shout at me and anything he shouted would this time be clearly audible to his passengers, amongst others, and given the traffic congestion he was going to be sharing space with them for a while yet. So he stuck out his tongue at me instead, which summed up well the maturity of his behaviour overall, I thought.

I didn't see him again after that, I like to think that's he's still out there several days later, stuck in the same line of traffic and questioning his life choices. Maybe he'll have thought about his actions and realised how utterly appalling they were, but more likely he has categorised this incident as further proof that cyclists (or more likely, *everyone but him*) are a scourge on society that need to be crushed. And what better way of crushing them than under the wheels of a bus. Now if only he had access to a bus, and if only he could actually drive one...

Harrybelafonte

Was this a Dublin bus? Can you report him to the company and also to the Gardaí?

doozerie

Yes, Dublin Bus. At the time I rode off with full determination to report him to Dublin Bus, and with thoughts of following up with the Gardaí too.

By the time I got home my determination had waned a little but was still there. By the time I'd finished dinner though I was back in the land of normal/rational people and this incident seemed so far removed from that that it seemed very surreal.

Reporting him would have been the "right" thing to do, he's a danger to everyone behind the wheel of any vehicle and particularly something as large as a bus. But I found myself not wanting to dredge up the anger that I'd have needed to do if I were reporting him and recounting what he had said and done, so I simply let it go.

I must admit too that I'm not very optimistic that reporting him would achieve anything. I'm very conscious that that's a negative attitude though - I don't want to become someone that turns a blind eye to stuff just because it would either inconvenience me to take some action that might prevent it from recurring, or because I choose to accept such behaviour as either inevitable or accepted as normal. But on this occasion I've let apathy win out.

Posting about it here helps to burn off some of the lingering frustration, the Internet is my unpaid therapist

I'd like to think too that the driver himself has learned from the incident that he needs to think twice, and three times, before resorting to aggression and dangerous driving for probably no more reason than him being "in a mood". I have a hard time convincing myself of the likelihood of that though, it's just as likely that he is always in such a mood towards the world around him and his grasp of what is socially acceptable behaviour is fundamentally broken.

Harrybelafonte

Weepsie wrote: »

Someone that dangerous should be reported though, if it's on the record and something happens again then at least there's a history. You're probably not the first

I'd agree with this. I very much think that it's high-time we all reported serious events to the Gardaí. We could debate close passes and other similar poor driving, but this is in the realm of malicious intent and a record of it should most definitely be kept. Considering you have footage of the incident, an email to Dublin Bus and Trafficwatch would be a positive move. I mean that in the sense of your comments about trying to deflate the anger and negativity. I think reporting the incident would be the reasonable and rational thing to do, now that the anger has passed.

Fian

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

I'd agree with this. I very much think that it's high-time we all reported serious events to the Gardaí. We could debate close passes and other similar poor driving, but this is in the realm of malicious intent and a record of it should most definitely be kept. Considering you have footage of the incident, an email to Dublin Bus and Trafficwatch would be a positive move. I mean that in the sense of your comments about trying to deflate the anger and negativity. I think reporting the incident would be the reasonable and rational thing to do, now that the anger has passed.

I think this type of behavior will persist until enough camera's are monitoring the road that people realise they will no longer get away with it.

Not a criticism of you Doozerie, since I am clearly worse. I wear a "go-pro" clone on my helmet for the last few months, picked it up in Lidl during their black friday event for about €30.

It has been extremely effective at performing its intended function - moderating the behaviour of drivers around me. I took great satisfaction from pointing at it and telling a driver - who punishment passed me and then pulled alongside me, lowered his window and told me I had forced him to the wrong side of the road (presumably by having the temerity to exist and occupy volume) - that he had been recorded and could expect a summons in 3 to 6 weeks.

I have charged it up but I have not actually turned it on, well I turned it on in my home to check it worked, but I have not turned it on since it was attached to my helmet. So I suppose I am free riding on the back of those cyclists who have one and will actually submit footage of bad driving, I am getting the benefit of drivers behaving themselves in case I submit footage, but not actually recording any footage to discipline drivers who are out of line. Actually having typed this out I think I will start pressing the on switch and charging it up when it runs out of juice. And maybe even submitting footage where appropriate.

Cycling down the Dublin quays this morning, there's a green bus parked outside the Custom House blocking the entrance to the cycle lane. With this in mind, I position myself primary in the lefthand traffic lane at Liberty Hall. After I pass the bus, I opt not to swerve back between the orcas, but instead to continue down the general lane, and end up behind one car at the next lights. I feel a bus looming behind me, but know I'll be on the bumper of the car in front so I won't 'hold up' the bus. Car indicates left as we pull off, turning across the cycle lane into the carpark - glad I wasn't in the cycle lane as at best it would've been an awkward braking situation.

I start moving over to the left and I get a blast of the horn from the bus driver. While I turn around to non-verbally ask why, I hit a section with a lot of manholes and potholes, so I probably look like I'm weaving to be a dickhead. He overtakes with no issue, and then pulls in 200m down the road at his stop outside Jury's.

I'm generally not a fan of interacting with drivers, as I find the instinctive, irrational part of my brain (that has been activated by the raised heartrate, often a surge of adrenaline and a 'threat') generally does not come across well in what should be a rational conversation of "here's why what you did was not very nice/safe/correct". Nonetheless, the irrational part of my brain overruled the rational part of my brain which was saying "don't bother" and I stopped for a chat.

I think, and this might be a first, that some of my points may have gotten through.

He opened with the unsurprising argument that I should be in the cycle lane like 'the other cyclist', I said the other cyclist could do what he wants, I preferred the road. He said the cycle lane was there for my safety, I said it would've brought me up the inside of the left-turning car. He said he didn't see that car (which was the car directly in front of me and just ahead of him, so that's a little worrying!). He said I should've been in the cycle lane before that, it was there in front of the Custom House for my safety. I said if it was really for my safety then they wouldn't have put a bus stop in it. He accepted that was valid.

He said I shouldn't be in the road because someone would run me over. I asked if he was going to run me over, he said no, I said he was the only person behind me, so if he didn't run me over, nobody else would. He said somebody else might choose to run me over, I said well then the cycle lane isn't going to be much help if somebody really wants to run me over.

He said I should take some responsibility for my safety. I pointed out my bright rear light and said there's me taking responsibility for my safety. He said somebody might not see that. Again, I said if someone doesn't see that, sure the cycle lane isn't going to help.

He said that he had a friend who killed a cyclist after the cyclist broke a red light, and that his friend couldn't bring himself to drive for a year. I said that's terrible, but I didn't break any red lights.

We went round in circles for a little while, but I think he took my point on board that cycle lanes are not always the safest option - due to the presence of left-turning traffic.

After about five minutes, I'd said all I could say and went on my way. He didn't try and run me over for the 200m of road we shared after that, so that was nice.

cdaly_

So this morning in Baldoyle I'm cycling up to the traffic light junction at the school and there's a car in the cycle lane. Not your ordinary car-across-the-lane but parallel to the car in the correct lane. But not just that but the pair of them are blocking the junction for crossing traffic. There's a solid tailback for 1km to the railway gates so they're going nowhere for a good while.

So I stop, knock on the window. Driver rolls down the window. "Please don't block the cycle lane." I say*. "Do you not see the traffic?" she responds!

Really madam, that's your excuse? You do understand that you're part of the traffic?

*No really, quiet, calm, polite.

cdaly_ wrote: »

"Do you not see the traffic?" she responds!

Really madam, that's your excuse? You do understand that you're part of the traffic?

They never get it, I don't say anything, a disapproving look or a sarcastic clap is enough, they go mental, every time it is the same response, wild frantic hands, frothing at the mouth, followed by mouthing "what do you expect me to do?". It is incredible the levels of detachment from the situation they put themselves in that some people have.

Breezer

CramCycle wrote: »

They never get it, I don't say anything, a disapproving look or a sarcastic clap is enough, they go mental, every time it is the same response, wild frantic hands, frothing at the mouth, followed by mouthing "what do you expect me to do?". It is incredible the levels of detachment from the situation they put themselves in that some people have.

My favourite example of this was years ago when I was in the car, parked in a bay in a car park. There is a car in each bay to either side of me. A girl in a Punto drives up and proceeds to squeeze her car in between mine (a Toyota Aygo) and the car in the bay beside me (something similarly small). There’s now about 2 centimetres of room between each of the three cars. Unless she is going to climb out her sunroof or break through her front or back windows, there is no way for her to get out of her car.

I put on my incredulous face and gesture to her to get back out of the non-spot. She waves her hands above her head in a panic and mouths “There’s no spots!” I mouth and wave “I don’t care, get out!” She did.

In hindsight I wish I’d sat there and let the situation play out without my intervention, it would have made for an interesting study!

doozerie

Re reporting the Dublin Bus driver that I wrote about above, as a general rule I am all in favour of reporting incidents like this. But if you are reporting incidents you should be willing to carry through with it, which if the gardai are involved potentially means going to a garda station to make a statement and making yourself available afterwards if needed.

I've reported incidents before, when I felt the level of danger or aggression was beyond mad and where I formed the impression that the person was likely to behave the same way in the future. The Traffic Watch (LINK) service is very useful for reporting something at the time, it's just a phonecall but if you want to pursue it through court you then have to provide statement, etc.

I've had some reassuring results on a couple of occasions of using Traffic Watch. In both cases I didn't want a court case as it was enough for me that the drivers were on record plus were contacted by a garda, hopefully the combination will make them think twice before acting like a raving lunatic next time. And a couple of times I heard nothing more after reporting something.

As bad as it was, this bus driver's behaviour was not the worst that I've been subjected to. I'd hate to think that my tolerance for dangerous driving is growing, I don't believe it is, but on this occasion the whole incident left me sort of fed up more than angry. I need to be in the right frame of mind to kick off the formal process of reporting. I'd be putting myself in the position of trying to convince a garda of the truth of what happened and its severity, and even with the most receptive garda there is no guarantee that they'll accept or understand my version of events - apart from anything else, they'll likely hear a totally different version of events from the bus driver. And while I was angry at the time, that didn't last long enough for me to overcome that general sense of yerra-fukkit.

Also, on the one occasion that I called the gardai out to an incident (a few years ago now), I found myself being told that the gardai were giving the driver the option of charging me with criminal damage. The alleged criminal damage was a dent that he claimed I had put in his bonnet with my fist, it's quite possible that I did as I was kinda worked up at the time, but the gardai apparently entirely forgot about the snapped "unbreakable" rear mudguard on my bike that I showed them at the time, caused by the driver driving at me with his car while I was cycling (car hitting bike preceded me punching car, and yes punching a car is a ridiculously stupid and pointless thing to be doing!). So despite the circumstances I found myself facing the possibility of a criminal damage prosecution due to an unaccompanied young learner driver deliberately targeting me with his car while driving in a bus lane at rush hour. He didn't press charges, incidentally, but I was left with that prospect hanging over me for a week or two.

An incident like that does not stop me believing that serious incidents should be reported, but even years later it has left me sometimes thinking twice and three times before taking that step. In the worst case I, as the cyclist, will have to overcome that social disease that seems common amongst the gardai as much as in other areas of society, the disease that has people believing that the motorist is automatically in the right because they somehow have greater rights on the road and sure aren't all cyclists just red-light-breaking louts anyway. Sometimes I just can't be arsed facing the prospect of that kind of attitude.

JMcL

Had one of the (thankfully) few genuinely terrifying experiences of my life from some bell-end driver on the way home last night. I was heading down the road here https://goo.gl/maps/oA4zvFwZx7UeVCTR6 to turn right at the roundabout. To put it into context, it's a 5-6% downhill gradient that's maybe 5-600m in length, so I always take the right hand lane and put the boot down to keep in the traffic flow. Which is what I did. I checked behind me maybe 400m from the roundabout and while there was a car in the outer lane it was still about 250m back so I moved out and accelerated as they're generally MGIF merchants who crawl past to then pull in on top of you. I was starting to brake slightly on the approach to the roundabout but still doing of the order of 50km/h and to my mind well occupying the lane, about 1/3 to 1/2 way across, when I became aware that there was an engine noise very close behind. Luckily I instinctively pulled slightly left as this bell-end sped through the non-existent space between me and the concrete median wall. Unfortunately I didn't get the full licence number as a) I was in shock, and b) (s)he took off like a rocket. With hindsight it's lucky for both driver and myself they didn't get held at the roundabout as with the adrenaline rush I had I can't imagine it would have been a very civilised affair. I would have been straight off to the guards though if I'd gotten the full plate as this was genuinely one of the worst pieces of "driving" I have seen in 30 odd years of driving/cycling.

Is it just me or are we now past the honeymoon period following the dangerous passing legislation when they've twigged that there's no enforcement? Certainly I find personally there's been an upsurge since Christmas

On a positive note, the Gardai were out in force yesterday morning on the N11. It was odd, that once they stopped people using the bus lane, buses got through quicker and traffic was not delayed anymore than usual. It was as if when people do what they are meant to do, it kind of works better.

less than an hour ago, out in the car, i sat behind a cyclist for about 500m because he was cycling a pitch black road, on a bike with neither reflectors nor lights, dressed in black.
partly to use my headlights to give him something to see by, partly because i was acting as a barrier for any other cars that might have happened along. my wife and i were agog at the notion that he could cycle that road, you genuinely would have had trouble seeing your hand in front of your face, let alone the road.

also - the number of one eyed jacks out there seems to reaching its seasonal peak; maybe it's the weather, i had to replace one of the bulbs in my car headlights yesterday.