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

Damn I was expecting to see someone end up on the road, i thought that is what you were leading up to. Some downright dangerous cycling in Dublin.

Ray Bloody Purchase wrote: »

I was walking along outside Store Street Garda Station yesterday and a courier cyclist nearly took me out of it on the footpath with their cargo bike.

And as for the lunatics who ride the Dublin Bikes...

So, are you saying we need to get rid of Store Street Garda Station?

On my commute home today I was coming up towards the National Concert Hall, on a wide 3-lane road. I need the right-most of the two lanes in my direction, as at the crossroads ahead the road narrows to just these two lanes before splitting at what is basically a T-junction, left lane to turn left, right lane to turn right.

I glanced over my right shoulder, the only vehicle visible on the road behind me was a taxi at least 100m back, so I moved across to the lane to my right. A few metres later I heard a car horn sound. I wondered briefly whether it was the taxi beeping at me but then reasoned that would be ridiculous so dismissed it. A few seconds after that the taxi drove past, a handful of inches from my right elbow. I haven't had a punishment overtake in a while, I haven't missed them.

He seemed to slow up as his rear wing came alongside me, there was a green light ahead and about 50m of clear road between the taxi and the junction, perhaps the only reason for him to slow up at that point was to (further) scare me. I don't respond well to aggressive behaviour targeted at me, I slapped the car with the palm of my hand, it was so close that I didn't even have to reach. He sped up a little.

Just beyond the junction he had to stop behind the tailback of cars ahead. I stopped too. I wasn't happy. He wasn't happy. Which fuelled my unhappiness further. The "conversation" was predictable:

Him: "What's your problem?!"
Me: "What's *your* problem?"
Him: "You were in the middle of de fukkin' road!!!"
Me: "Which lane are you in?"
Him: "The LANE FOR TURNING RIGHT!"
Me: "SO WAS I!"
Him: ...pause...
Him: ...mental struggle, will I continue to be a complete dick...
Him: ...more mental struggle, fukkin' cyclists, fukk ya, I'm gonna continue to be a complete dick...
Him: "You were all over de fukkin' road, no indicator, nothin'" blah blah

etc.

This was a man that had made a conscious decision to skim closely past me, deliberately putting my life at risk, and I have absolutely no doubt that we would have driven casually away if I'd come off the bike as a direct consequence of his actions. For him this was apparently perfectly rational, perfectly acceptable, and maybe even quite common, behaviour. I couldn't help but wonder what could possibly constitute unacceptable behaviour for someone like him.

Well, that question was answered pretty quickly. "You call yourself a professional driver, and you drive like THAT?!", said I, and at that he lunged for his seatbelt, unclipped it, and flung his door open while yelling something about "I'll come out there AND ....!!!". Clearly I'd crossed a boundary, I'd questioned the standard of someone's driving when all they'd done was endanger the life of someone, I needed sorting out, and bleedin' rapid at that. And he was the man to sort me out.

Except that he wasn't of course. His show of (even further) aggression didn't have the desired effect of scaring me off. And when I said "So, you are going to assault me now are you?", his bluster all but disappeared, probably helped by the presence of a passenger in the rear seat of his car, the presence of the cars containing witnesses ahead, and more cars arriving behind. So he reverted to more verbal nonsense, telling me that the danger to me was myself, blah, blah. I guess that I *made him* drive like a dick. Or something.

I rode off at that point, I wasn't sure what I might say or do if I stayed. When confronted by such a determined level of stupidity and obnoxiousness, things can only go further downhill. He remained stuck in traffic, presumably that too is everyone else's fault but his ("All these bleedin' bastards in their cars, delaying me in my car! GRRRRR!!!!").

It's not like I'm oblivious to the fact that some people place their sense of self-righteousness way ahead of the welfare of everyone around them, but it's shocking and depressing to encounter it face to face. He knows he was "right" and he'll continue to know it, punishment pass after punishment pass, until a punishment pass goes wrong and he hurts or kills someone, at which point he'll have to defend his "it was their own fault" argument in court. Though I do wonder how often such people really do end up in court no matter how appalling and illegal their behaviour.

On the way to work yesterday I had a car pull out in front of me from the parking area in front of a funeral home. A (empty) hearse pulled out first, with plenty of time to spare, the car behind it stopped, the driver looked my way, presumably saw me approach but also saw the line of cars a bit further behind me (I was quicker away from the lights than they were) and decided that it was better to pull out in front of me rather than wait and get stuck behind me plus the cars. So he drove out.

He was entirely in the wrong, but his ignorant behaviour was compounded by what he was driving. A stretch "limo". I'd already stopped pedalling as I was convinced he was going to pull out. But as more and more car stretched out in front of me, sideways on, I had to go for my brakes and swing as close to the kerb as I could get.

As is so often the case in this scenario, having completed the turn the driver lost the accelerator, or the gear stick, or consciousness, perhaps all three. So the car sat there as if sighing, and saying "grand so", before starting to move on. And a longer car requires even more time to let out a longer sigh, it seems.

It's no wonder there are so few stretch limos around, evolution has meant that since cyclists generally move faster, the majority of stretch limos have long since been caught and devoured. I didn't devour it though, I'd had my breakfast already, so instead, as I passed him, I waved a hand in the air in that international expression of "What. The. Jaysus?!".

Cue a car horn beeping. I looked back to see him trying to lean through the windscreen, making a big show of his hand jerking up and down. Seemed superfluous to be honest, he was clearly a jerk, miming his condition was unnecessary. A little further on he drove past at speed, staring at me with a face that suggested terrible indigestion with a twist of heartburn. He clearly took his miming seriously, probably a graduate of advanced clown school.

A minute later I pulled up beside him as he was stopped in a line of cars at a traffic light.

Me: "You pulled out in front of me and then YOU give out to ME?"
Him: "You could have slowed down!"
Me: "I had right of way"
Him, glancing at the empty hearse ahead and his own empty car: "HAVE SOME RESPECT!"
Me, glancing at the empty hearse ahead and his own empty car: "Respect? Ha! Are you actually trying to drum up some business or what?"
Him: "GRRRR. Look at the fookin' STAY-ET OF YA!"

...this from the red-faced, clammy-skinned, overweight, imploding, angry-headed man stuck in traffic. Yeah, look at the state of me, 'cos I look pure awesome by comparison, but then anyone/anything would.

What can you do except laugh, including as he swung his car further to the left to cut me up as we started moving again. Apparently I still wasn't showing enough respect, or something, I guess he'll expect more respect if we ever meet again. Maybe by then he'll have looked up "respect" in the dictionary, probably while driving since he clearly doesn't waste his time behind the wheel with trivialities like obeying the rules of the road, observing other traffic, and generally trying not to be a knob.

The complete lack of self-awareness or anticipation of some people - especially when driving - never ceases to amaze me. I'm not sure why at this point.

Coming down the north quays on a manky morning, past the Custom House and through the junction at Talbot Bridge. I'm behind a bus, there's a taxi following me.

On the other side of the junction, the bus starts indicating to pull in. I indicate to pull out around the bus - there are two lanes at this point. I'm trying to keep an eye on the taxi driver to see if he'll cut me off or let me out. He's hesitant, not on top of me, but not really leaving much room. I slip out and past the bus, where the road starts narrowing. The taxi is right on my tail, but I don't want to move in because the surface on the left is brutal. He's aggressively tight though, so I move in a bit so he can squeeze past just before we get to the Scherzer bridge.

He hasn't even fully crossed the bridge before he pops on the hazards, I feather the brakes behind, and he swings left into the George's Dock area, off the road. Clearly always his final destination, and damned if any other road users were worth thinking about on the way!

I suppose she could say that another definition of being an ar$ehole is making a smart comment to some one who has just apologised to you.

cjt156 wrote: »

I suppose she could say that another definition of being an ar$ehole is making a smart comment to some one who has just apologised to you.

gasp ...it was you, wasn't it?...

brocbrocach wrote: »

Why would you not clear the gap though? You chose not to stop in front of the minivan but there's no reason why another cyclist wouldn't think it was a perfectly fine thing to do. Just going on your account I'd think you were trying to make choices for other people.

Clear the gap? There was three quarters of the lane completely free to my right, plenty of space to go around me or, to use the technical term, overtake.

Duckjob wrote:

So many unpleasant incidents on our roads could be turned into pleasant ones if people just re-learned the power of holding their hands up and saying "Sorry, I messed up".

Absolutely. The bit that bothers me most about situations where people refuse to take responsibility for their actions is that it suggests they might carry out that very same action next time round since they seem to see nothing wrong with it. They don't seem to want to learn from their mistakes.

We all make mistakes and it's often hard to acknowledge them, I certainly struggle with it. But if we can't or won't acknowledge them to ourselves we'll never learn from them and we'll likely repeat them again and again.

brocbrocach wrote: »

Just going on your account I'd think you were trying to make choices for other people.

Any time a motorist decides not to drive into the middle of a junction because the exit is not free, they are making choices for the motorists behind.
Any time someone stops at a red light and blocks the lane they are making choices for the people behind.

brocbrocach wrote: »

What's weird about it? If you're not advancing in the lane take yourself off to the side. The boul doozerie seems to have left (tight) space for a cyclist to his left, say a metre?, and just parked himself where it was hard to go around him. Obviously he's a capable cyclist and probably right to not undertake but it's not his call to block everyone else. Imagine the chaos if every db bike-man suddenly decided to regulate the traffic behind him.

Your logic is flawed. Traffic in the lane (a bus lane in this case) was stopped, the stopped minibus was evidence of that. I was also in the lane. I was traffic. I stopped. That's how traffic works.

Cyclists behind me chose not to stop, that was their choice. I don't care. What I care about was how to chose to get past me. They could easily have overtaken me, but didn't, instead they shoved through on my inside. I cared about that because it has an impact on me.

I didn't "block them", I didn't decide I wanted to block them, I didn't "regulate" them (not even Warren G -style) . I could have pulled further right in the lane, and put myself squarely in front of the next car or bus that pulled up behind, but I didn't because I didn't consider that as safe for me as where I did stop.

You seem to think that my stopping in a lane of stopped traffic is the equivalent of my setting up a border control in a cycle lane. One of these things is not like the other.

doozerie wrote: »

I was traffic. I stopped. That's how traffic works.

Cyclists behind me chose not to stop, that was their choice. I don't care.

See that, right there, is the problem with society today!

Sure going by that logic every car that qeues at a set of lights could just hug the kerb and block the bike traffic that otherwise would filter through. They're stopped. That's how traffic works.

I don't really know who's right by law as filtering is a grey area but no one cycles in a city without filtering so you will benefit from the good manners of motorists every time you pass on the left. You had one chance to pass on the good karma and you let it slip.

Chips Lovell wrote: »

On the same subject, I inadvertently clattered another cyclist two weeks ago. Was stopped at the lights, they turned green. I put my hand out to signal I was turning left, and struck a chap barreling through on the inside. He wobbled, but stayed up.

I'm picturing this now, but a back-handed clothesline which is apparently too awesome to have been captured by the Internet:



Not sure about the yellow lycra though, an intervention may be needed there.

brocbrocach wrote:

But it's good manners to drive or cycle in such a way as to let others overtake if they can and it's safe to.

I did exactly that. And yet...:

brocbrocach wrote: »

See that, right there, is the problem with society today!

Sure going by that logic every car that qeues at a set of lights could just hug the kerb and block the bike traffic that otherwise would filter through. They're stopped. That's how traffic works.

I don't really know who's right by law as filtering is a grey area but no one cycles in a city without filtering so you will benefit from the good manners of motorists every time you pass on the left. You had one chance to pass on the good karma and you let it slip.

The tone for today's commute was set with a close pass about 100m from my house - a stretch which has been artificially narrowed for traffic calming, and the token cycle track on the footpath which loses priority at every side road and estate entrance, and doesn't even have dished ramps at those points.

The repressed cyclist in me of course still feels guilty for not using it and holding up traffic (I know, I know), so I have a tendency to try push it to 40kph along this stretch. Wasn't enough for the big orange SUV driver, who sat behind me revving loudly until he decided to just bully his way past. I was not willing to put myself under his wheels to prove a point.

Next was an overtake while entering a roundabout. I should've taken the lane probably, but then there was enough room for us both to get around on the actual roundabout itself. I noticed that not once did the driver check his mirrors or check to see where I was.

Then there was the lad at the top of the queue at the bridge at Lucan. I was filtering up on the right and got to the top just as the lights went green. No indicator, no mirror or blindspot check, just swung across the road, blinking into the rising sun. As an experienced cyclist, this sort of stuff is an occupational hazard, but it would've been so simple just to flick on an indicator. Especially when you've been sitting waiting for the last two minutes.

Two close passes on the Strawberry Beds, including one from a small van as we approached the ramped section. So I end up yo-yoing off his back bumper, occasionally yelling 'faster! faster!' Not the most sound thing I've done, I'll admit, but maybe he'll think twice about just blasting past in future. After a while he stopped with his window down, I think he wanted a 'chat', but I just zipped past him. He left plenty of space on the next overtake.

Lastly at the Knockmaroon gate of the Phoenix Park, shout out to the driver who turned in to the entrance, realised it was closed, and then swung a U-turn back out through the red light and across the junction while the rest of us were trying to cross through it.

Was it just me this morning?

JMcL wrote:

Meaningful education for drivers is the only solution, but this doesn't even happen from what I can see on the one time in their lives when they *do* get instruction, and with the current reluctance to enforce/punish poor driver behaviour, never mind have them sit a retest (should be mandatory whenever a license has been lost for whatever reason), it won't happen again.

This thinking is what I keep coming back to time and again too. Education is typically the last thing I want to impart to a driver who has just put my life in danger in order that they (usually fail to) shave a few seconds off their journey. In the heat of that kind of moment I'd much prefer to impart a bucket load of frustration and anger, but no matter how justified that would be, all too often it will have the opposite affect of educating them about the potential consequences of their actions.

The worst offenders are essentially like children, yell at them and they'll dig their heels in and persist with the same behaviour again and again, educate them instead and there is at least a chance that their behaviour will improve. The lack of a real threat of punishment is a huge problem too, of course, for some people that's the only thing that would moderate their behaviour.

I encountered yet another example of the irrational nature of people at the weekend. There was another cyclist in the oncoming lane, just me cycling in my lane. An SUV behind the other cyclist drove into my lane to overtake him, my being there was no deterrent whatsoever. I waved a hand in the air in that universal expression of "What. The. ....?". The driver completely ignored me but the person in the passenger seat started gesticulating wildly at me.

I'm not sure who was worse, the driver that made a conscious decision to overtake when it wasn't safe (for me) to do so, and then refused to even acknowledge their actions. Or the passenger who witnessed this behaviour and then got offended on behalf of the driver, to the point of basically categorising me as the problem. Neither person would appear to have an ounce of understanding of the reality of the situation, their sense of personal safety was never threatened and they either didn't understand or care that mine was. My guess is they'd both do the same thing again and again because of their pure ignorance and complete lack of empathy. I like to think that education would address that, that it might break through their self-serving cocoon (...although I'd still like to precede it with a hefty kick up the hole for both of them, I must admit).

JMcL wrote: »

Meaningful education for drivers is the only solution, but this doesn't even happen from what I can see on the one time in their lives when they do get instruction, and with the current reluctance to enforce/punish poor driver behaviour, never mind have them sit a retest (should be mandatory whenever a license has been lost for whatever reason), it won't happen again.

I've been close passed recently by a couple of learner drivers out on lessons. If driving instructors aren't even teaching or enforcing good behaviour then it's no wonder this stuff happens so frequently.

I'd normally ring my bell if i needed to alert someone to my presence on a footpath/cycle path

Breezer wrote: »

Some general silliness this evening from white van woman (women can be muppets in white vans too now, what an age we live in!)

We pull away from a junction on green, me ahead of her. On the other side of the junction there begins a cycle lane. In this cycle lane is parked a car. I make to cycle past this car, rather than through it. Beep beep. I pass the car. She passes me. Wild gesticulating in a generally leftwards direction from white van woman and angry glares from white van passenger.

Within sixty seconds I've caught up to them at the next light, as usual. Big grin and thumbs up from me. Sheepish expression from white van passenger. Major effort on the part of white van woman to hide behind white van passenger. All's well that ends well.

I'm still not entirely sure though whether she wanted me to cycle through the car, or to swerve around it in front of her at the last second.

You don't know how to quantum tunnell:rolleyes:

Breezer wrote: »

Some general silliness this evening from white van woman (women can be muppets in white vans too now, what an age we live in!)

We pull away from a junction on green, me ahead of her. On the other side of the junction there begins a cycle lane. In this cycle lane is parked a car. I make to cycle past this car, rather than through it. Beep beep. I pass the car. She passes me. Wild gesticulating in a generally leftwards direction from white van woman and angry glares from white van passenger.

Within sixty seconds I've caught up to them at the next light, as usual. Big grin and thumbs up from me. Sheepish expression from white van passenger. Major effort on the part of white van woman to hide behind white van passenger. All's well that ends well.

I'm still not entirely sure though whether she wanted me to cycle through the car, or to swerve around it in front of her at the last second.

Fly over it obviously, have you never seen ET?!?