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

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119176811#Comment_119176811

the amount of batshittery i've seen on the roads recently is funny. i had a lovely wide overtake yesterday by a lad in a red yaris, only issue was he came sailing past me about 60m from a crossroads, one where we were approaching from the minor road. i think he copped he'd made a mistake though, he steadfastly ignored my big smiley gestures at him when i caught up with him.

nomdeboardie

Just kidding - left deliberately ambiguous in hope of stick figure drawing with goofy faces and angrily raised digit

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5735697,-6.2825677,3a,75y,220.5h,71.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBEL-timQeGnZ7V8B9edUUQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Needs moar diagrams 😛

of the hand gesture? i was pulled in probably alongside the golf here, with my wheels beside the kerb. well inside the dashed yellow line anyway. the driver was approaching from the road the street view car is on and taking the left.

nomdeboardie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119176713#Comment_119176713

Needs moar diagrams 😛

Got told to “Take it easy” when I went “Heeeyyyy!” at a minibus driver who decided to pull out of a driveway right in front of me. If I’d taken it easy on the brakes he’d have had to clean me off the side of his vehicle 🙄

odd one earlier. pulled in at a corner (and was very definitely in off the main lane); got beeped at - just a quick tap - by someone in a car coming off the minor road at the junction, so i just gave them an 'oh, don't mind me, i'm stopped here' sort of gesture, and she gave me *daggers*; and as she drove past her teenage daughter gave me a dead eyed stare while flipping the bird at me through the window.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118078274#Comment_118078274

Had to pop to the shops at about 9:30 this morning, thought I'd miss the school run otherwise I would've taken the long way around.

Instead I got the full gamut of:

oncoming driver flashing lights to encourage another driver to pull out in front of me - they got halfway out before stopping while I dropped anchor and roared
driver getting super close and I think preparing to overtake when I stopped at a pedestrian crossing outside the school. I took primary which did the trick.
I stayed behind a slow moving driver because my spidey sense was tingling... then they did a simultaneous left turn into an entrance as they flicked on the indicator.
driver overtaking me downhill in the wet and then braking in front of me because there was a slower cyclist ahead of us

All of the above was literally along a kilometre of road. Next time I'll wait half an hour before venturing out.

On the bright side, there was a Bakfiets cargo bike parked at the shop - lifted my spirits!

Steoller

The only recourse is a bike trailer with those chariot wheel blades

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114567838#Comment_114567838

The general extent of my cycling at present is to and from crèche, a round trip of less than 1.5km. Even in that small stretch, I manage to encounter impatient and dangerous drivers. It's particularly disheartening when they're the same people I see at the drop-off/pick-up and they must recognise my distinctive bike. Or when it's a neighbour with a 'baby on board' sign hanging in the back of the car.

I have a back camera, debating a front one.

ARX

I'm not saying that all Golf drivers are aggressive halfwits, but here's a Venn diagram:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115270309#Comment_115270309

cycled out to the stables with my wife today, and back home again. five times we were beeped at, two of those quite aggressively; and each occasion was on a straight stretch of road with no oncoming traffic (they happened on the old N2 and the road along the runway) so there was no case where the driver could even feel aggrieved at being held up. they just did it because they were annoyed at cyclists going two abreast (and one occasion we weren't even two abreast)

it's really **** aggravating. my wife is not confident on the bike so to be bullied like that is really galling.

RobertFoster

Can't figure out how to reduce the size of the quote by editing it like used to be possible with old boards. Maybe there is still a way to do that instead of quoting the whole post?

Paste the text you're quoting and then click/tap the paragraph symbol (¶) on the left (bottom on mobile) and change it to quote.

Fian

Can't figure out how to reduce the size of the quote by editing it like used to be possible with old boards. Maybe there is still a way to do that instead of quoting the whole post?

Rather than a dog collar which would shock drivers if they break the speed limit, what we really need, and could easily have, is automatic Number Plate recognition cameras to pick up those who break red lights and issue automatic fixed penalty notices. Breaking the lights is so ubiquitous, so dangerous and so ridiculously easy to police.

There are countries where parents teach their children to wait for the green man before crossing the road at pedestrian lights. In this country we teach them to wait for the green man and then wait until there are cars actually stopped at the lights.

There are also countries where a green light on one road in the junction comes on almost immediately after the red light on the other, rather than waiting 10/15 seconds to let the red light breakers fly through before allowing other traffic into the junction. If we actually policed breaking red lights we could cut down that delay and traffic would actually get to its destination faster.

to be fair, i'd flipped him the bird about 30s earlier, but a chap in a ford ranger pulled in ahead of me and stuck his head out the window to shout at me (so i decided to just cycle on and not react to him) but he shouted 'DO YA WANNA TAKE UP THE ENTIRE F***ING ROAD, DO YA?'

so in hindsight i wish i had stopped to question him about his sense of self awareness, and whether he'd been blindfolded while climbing into his truck this morning.

(he'd overtaken me on a blind bend and seemed unimpressed with my hand gestures intending to indicate that this was a poor choice of location to try and overtake - on the ward roundabout to st margaret's golf club road, and i had a westerly tailwind so i was chugging along nicely anyway, probably around 35km/h)

I've seen the studies showing that a lot of drivers view people on bikes as 'subhuman', just a hazard, etc., and I think after so long cycling (and driving) and witnessing the behaviour of drivers, the opposite is starting to happen to me. I didn't even noticed it until today when I passed a crash - it appeared as though a driver had driven their car very heavily into the pole of a traffic light. This being a light for a pedestrian crossing on a pretty straight road with a 60kph limit, at which I cross regularly with my son, I didn't even slow down. Later I felt bad because it turned out to be more serious, but I didn't feel that bad.

Of course, I then had to slow down for the driver coming the other direction who decided an oncoming bike with a child on the crossbar was the perfect opportunity to go around the crashed vehicle.

doozerie

I saw a guy in a shiny car driving erratically as I descended into Glenasmole earlier today. He was slowing down randomly, then speeding up again. I assumed he was doing the stereotypical tourist thing of hitting the brakes each time he saw an appealing view. As I got close to him he slowed yet again, and swung his car across the road and onto the grass verge on the other side. No indicator, no hint of him even looking around, he seemed oblivious to everything around him. The soft top on his car was down, you’d expect this would make him more aware of his surroundings but apparently not.

I encountered him again as I climbed back out of the valley on a different road. I could see his car stopped in the middle of the very narrow road ahead, on the hill. There was no more than 50cm between his car and the ditch on either side. The driver was standing beside the car, entirely blocking the small space on that side. I saw two descending pairs of cyclists having to slowly manoeuvre their bikes past the car in the couple of minutes as I climbed up to it.

As I got closer the driver started to pick up some bits of rubbish scattered along the ditch. I thought maybe he had stopped in order to tidy the area up, so I didn’t bother saying anything to him as I struggled past the car. He said something to me that sounded a lot like “Go on past there, just watch the car”, but surely no-one could be that self-entitled and obnoxious so I assumed I had misheard and continued on my way.

A few minutes further up the hill I turned around to go back down and repeat my intervals up the climb. The road had doubled back on itself before I turned and I could see the driver below me, he was taking photos of his car with the valley as the backdrop. I realised then that he was picking up the rubbish so that it wouldn’t appear in his photos, presumably he chucked it all back onto the ground just out of shot. There were several “parking” areas off the same road that he could have used without blocking the road, there was one about 100m behind him and another about 100m ahead, but presumably they were less attractive to his eye than where he chose to stop.

He was still there, still blocking the road by the time I descended back down. He was still standing on the road and admiring his car, not a worry in the world. He casually waved me on again, like earlier, but this time I said "You can’t just block the road like that!". Which was clearly incorrect of course, as clearly he could do so, and was actively doing so. Instantly the "I’m soooo in love!" expression dropped from his face, replaced by horrified indignation. "Go and **** off!", he replied.

I could have chosen to ignore him, just sucked up his obnoxious and aggressive behaviour and continued on my way. But why should I accept being subjected to that? So, having squeezed past the car, again, I stopped ahead of it. And because the road was so narrow it meant he couldn’t drive past me, which hadn’t been my intention just a consequence of where he himself had chosen to stop.

His face changed again, this time it adopted an expression of mild panic. I reckon he feared for the welfare of his car, 'cos, as the letters pages of the Irish Times are keen to tell us, cyclists are the scourge of the roads and all motorists live in constant fear, inside their urban tanks, of rabid cyclists.

He hopped into the car, started the engine, stalled it, started it again, and then struggled badly as he tried to reverse it back up the hill without swerving off the narrow road and into a ditch. And while giving this impressive demonstration of truly awful driving he continued to give out to me. I didn’t catch much of it to be honest, but the "I’ve only been here 5 seconds!" was hard to miss as the blatant lie that it was. I guess he was so engrossed in his love affair with his car that time had lost all sense of meaning to him.

I could have yelled "YOU SMELL!" at him but that would have been childish and undignified. Instead I yelled "Your car is UGLY AS FCUK!". I’d like to think that as he drives around "his" roads later today, at the wheel of the love of his life, having to put up with the "unfairness" of other people expecting to be able to use those same roads, that a little voice in the back of his head will nag at him about the fact that someone said the love of his life is ugly. That might cause him a very small bit of actual pain. Marginal Pains. But a marginal pain is still a pain.

rollingscone

CramCycle wrote: »

I forgot I had another cyclist call me a pr1ck the other day. Now, as it turns out, they are 100% correct but it still doesn't mean they were in the right in general. Coming up to a bus stop, I seen a person standing behind a bin but arm out o stop the bus which was already passing me. I slowed as they were goign to be there before me. Anyway, turns out that they person was actually going for the bus behind that one, we laughed but two passengers were alighting form the 1st bus so I held back from moving off when a guy with lights on his arms, what looked like a hi vis stab vest with lights, 2 rear lights and 2 front lights came through as they stepped off. He slammed on but didn't really stop, and then continued as they fell back a bit. Anyway, off they got, and i pushed off. As I passed him, I passed comment that it was odd that with all his lights he couldn't see the passengers getting off the bus.

Red light and I stopped and he caught up with me to ask what I said, so I repeated it, no raised voices. he informed me he did stop. I told him he didn't and neither did the two people who fell out of his way think he did either. As the light went green, I pushed off and he called me a pr1ck, to which I responded, if you have to resort to that kind of language, you have already lost the argument.

It was pointless and petty but I felt great smiling at him as I pulled away

Vive le Monsieur Securité...ðŸ˜

FWIW I've been skateboarding to work for the last couple of months as they city centre Cycle gutters have become intolerable.

CramCycle

I forgot I had another cyclist call me a pr1ck the other day. Now, as it turns out, they are 100% correct but it still doesn't mean they were in the right in general. Coming up to a bus stop, I seen a person standing behind a bin but arm out o stop the bus which was already passing me. I slowed as they were goign to be there before me. Anyway, turns out that they person was actually going for the bus behind that one, we laughed but two passengers were alighting form the 1st bus so I held back from moving off when a guy with lights on his arms, what looked like a hi vis stab vest with lights, 2 rear lights and 2 front lights came through as they stepped off. He slammed on but didn't really stop, and then continued as they fell back a bit. Anyway, off they got, and i pushed off. As I passed him, I passed comment that it was odd that with all his lights he couldn't see the passengers getting off the bus.

Red light and I stopped and he caught up with me to ask what I said, so I repeated it, no raised voices. he informed me he did stop. I told him he didn't and neither did the two people who fell out of his way think he did either. As the light went green, I pushed off and he called me a pr1ck, to which I responded, if you have to resort to that kind of language, you have already lost the argument.

It was pointless and petty but I felt great smiling at him as I pulled away

Wildly Boaring wrote: »

Haven't been on that road in a while.

Ch be chainagr
Could easily be for resurfacing.
Could also be fealls about to hack the place up and lay pipes &#55356;&#56355;

Oh they've being laying green wavin on the industrial estate for the past month, barriers and cones all over the road due to the wind today. Another outfit has been working on Matthews Lane at night the last few weeks.

Wish they would resurface left at the bottom of Mary's St along the church as there are horrible ruts along there where a pipe was layed at some point.

Wildly Boaring

Haven't been on that road in a while.

Ch be chainage
Could easily be for resurfacing.
Could also be fealls about to hack the place up and lay pipes ðŸ€£

Haven't been out that way for a while, have you seen the 2 car length speed bump on Donore Rd in Drogheda I mentioned ?

I heard some clatter from a car behind me earlier while I was coming up it on the bike. The sign to mark it is currently on a cone pretty much at the bump. Also noticed some CH-000 spray markings the whole way up like there are plans to resurface there too.

Wildly Boaring

There is currently 4 sets of roadworks in bettystown mornington.
(1 is a new road tying in)
3 are the council rushing to spend.

In 2019 I managed 500k of works for clare co co.
Had to be finished for Irish open.
Could not get paid, in fact could not get account agreed for months.
1st of December the council engineer rang in a big panic desperate to pay me by year end.
"Might never get you the money if we miss it"

It's absolutely ridiculous.

Oh, it always happens in November and December.

Are county councils around the country going mad rushing to use up their budgets? Seems like a lot of work is going on near me on the roads. One I use nearly every day has got some head scratching additions this week.

A speed bump on a hill which I'd normally take at 35+ and would be the natural point at which I'd break anyway as well as cars as it's coming to where traffic starts to queue at a sizeable junction and is probably the slowest part of the road in general. Further up not one but 2 traffic islands have been installed for pedestrians to cross as it's a fairly wide road (both unlit) great in normal circumstances except for the fact that both these crossings are with in 50-70 meters of junctions which have lights for pedestrians to cross. So now what was a decent road for me in terms of cycling it has a launch pad and 2 pinch points to worry about.

hesker

I remember being in Italy a few years ago standing at a pedestrian crossing with my foot out. No pedestrian lights. Local guide said cars don’t stop until you start walking across and that’s accepted practice. Nervous leap of faith required. And remarkably all the cars stopped.

I remember crossing on a greenman with my mother a couple of years ago and thumped a car as it whizzed by us as we got half way across. A second or two later one or both of us would have been seriously hurt or dead.

Guy hit the breaks and it took him 15-20m to stop. We went to have a word and the first thing he said while still holding the phone was he didn't see us. "Or the red light you went through " my mam said to him I won't repeat the rest of what was said.

One of the closer calls I've had, and had a similar one with one of the kids at the same junction on a ridiculously stale red.

CramCycle

magicbastarder wrote: »

it was the fact that he drove past a primary school, clearly as kids were leaving, at about 70km/h and about a metre to spare from the lollipop lady, i.e. the kerb the kids would have been standing at; and was genuinely amused that i would object to this, which was just odd.

Means nothing. I have seen land rovers grab air off the speed bump at the traffic lights outside the local school, People drive through clear reds as people walk onto the crossing with a buggy. Its not like these were easy to miss things (and I say this knowing well that this is no excuse). Christ, I have seen parents pick up their kids and drive off texting with their head down, so obliviousness to kids in the area can't be claimed in any scenario. Last Friday one parent dove through a red, head down, kids in the back, in one of those Renault space wagon things.

People are selfish ****s, not a majority but enough to make it a danger. I am jealous of places where the concept of walking onto a junction with a green pedestrian light without being overly worried is the norm, there have been occasions where we have missed the green light because cars just kept going. Hell, I have seen multiple cars drive through a junction a lollipop person was standing out on, not walking onto or walking off (which are both bad) but actually while they were standing there and holding up their sign. Until the gardai start handing out fines or people start hurling rocks, nothing will change.

magicbastarder wrote: »

'did you not slow down when you saw the lollipop lady?'
'what lollipop lady?'

I had a close pass one day in town. Caught up with driver at next lights (200m up the road, naturally):

"That was really close back there."
"You should be in the cycle lane."
"The one with the truck parked in it?"
"What truck?"

If you can't spot a truck while driving because you're too busy trying to execute a punishment pass, well... I suppose I should be grateful for your concentration.

it was the fact that he drove past a primary school, clearly as kids were leaving, at about 70km/h and about a metre to spare from the lollipop lady, i.e. the kerb the kids would have been standing at; and was genuinely amused that i would object to this, which was just odd.

CramCycle

magicbastarder wrote: »

'did you not slow down when you saw the lollipop lady?'
'what lollipop lady?'

Its at this point a reasonable human being would think, oh f*ck, maybe I was the danger. Unfortunately, as I have witnessed outside my own kids school and on various points on my commute, they really don't care. I have pointed things like this out on occasion where there was a near miss, and the response is either "No I didn't" or "There wasn't anyone there you liar". It boggles the mind and I start to think of ideas to help this behaviour, like those dog collars that give a tiny shock if the dog crosses a boundary, one of these every time they break the limit or maybe a sensor in their car, much like the HSE Covid app, detects when, while moving, another person comes within 1.5m and just stores up the punishment for when it is safe to shock them. Possibly an an car voice that sounds like HAL from a space odyssey. Just so they know its coming.

Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this.