to still be fuming today about this cyclist?

[microserf]

i have to rant. i have form ranting on here about how much i hate ill mannered cyclists, but this one really took the piss.

last night, at 5pm (so still sunny) i was walking with my 2 kids in the double buggy and we had to cross a busy road at a crossroads. i waited ages at the crossing for the green man. green man light flicked on, i checked the cars had actually stopped and stepped out onto the crossing. all seemed fine.

only for the buggy to be nearly hit by some fucking asshole who came flying around the corner on his bike and ran the red light (he was going downhill, so had built up a bit of speed) swerved at the last second and cycled off without a word of apology.

i am still furious!!! i was really shaken up by it, and i am really tired of bad cyclists running red lights and cycling over pedestrian crossings when i'm crossing, esp with the kids. it's not like a fully loaded buggy can jump out of the way!

i think we should put license plates on the cycles, so the bad ones can be weeded out! if i did that in my car, i'd not be driving for much longer.

When my children were younger and in a buggy , we had to cross a road where cyclists and motorists would routinely jump the lights

It happened once too often for me as one day a bloke sped straight through the red light , swerving round the buggy and just missing it.I actually chased him up the road,(much fitter then!) grabbed hold of his bike and forced him to stop. He apologised........

As a cyclist I do cycle on pavements -its permitted in certain areas where I live. I will always try to go to the front of a queue of traffic if I can, keeping well left.

I often have people stepping out right in front of me without looking and I have fallen off my bike -never an apology. Also had cars cut me up and pull out without indicating (like yesterday) into another lane causing me to swerve.

I remembered this thread today, when I was driving through my local town, on a bit of dual carriageway, and watched a cyclist ride against the flow of traffic, up the opposite side of the carriageway. Not only was this hazardous for him, but also to pedestrians, who would have been looking for traffic from the right, not the left at that point. I should point out that there is a raised island seperating the carriageways, so there is no way that any vehicle other than an emergency vehicle should be going the wrong way up that bit of road - and they'd have lights and sirens going, whereas a cyclist would be nearly silent.

I don't blame microfight et al for being cross when they see cyclist bashing - it is the few poor cyclists who are behaving so badly. But I do think it is fair for the rude, inconsiderate, sometimes downright dangerous few to be strongly criticised.

can't agree more.

we cyclists cause so much misery on the roads. mow down innocent drivers daily, kill numerous pedestrians, and end up polluting our precious environment.

we are a scourge on civilised society.

hang on a mo......

"we cyclists"

but the rest of us have been talking about specific people who behave badly. Why do you want to lump all cyclists in with them?

erm..precisely my point, T&T. People, esp. non-cyclists will read this stuff and be really wary of cyclists in general.

this "wasn't THIS poorly behaving cyclist hoorible" sort of bollocks is extrordinarily stupid and myopic. Look around a bit more and see which road users are the most damaging. Cyclists are an easy target, in more ways than one.

So, because other road users are worse, we aren't allowed to criticise cyclists who jump red lights and nearly knock over a buggy with children in it, or knock over a child, or knock over an elderly lady, causing injuries that led to her death, or cycle the wrong way up a road, or spit at pedestrians who have the 'nerve' to be on a pedestrian crossing, AwesomePan??

The vast majority of posters on this thread have criticised specific cyclists, demonstrating specific bad behaviour on the road and on the pavement.

Do you think it is OK for a cyclist to jump a red light and cross a pedestrian crossing, nearly hitting a buggy? What if they speed out of a side turning without looking, forcing a driver to slam on their brakes - is that OK? Or cycling too fast along the pavement, weaving through pedestrians, making them leap out of the way or risk being hit (and sometimes verbally abusing the pedestrians for daring to be on the pavement at all) - is that acceptable?

You do decent cyclists no favours by focusing on the people who are voicing reasonable and valid criticisms of dangerous, reckless and inconsiderate cycling and saying that they are the problem, rather than accepting that a minority of cyclists are letting the majority down and need to change their behaviour. Turning a blind eye to this sort of behaviour isn't going to make it go away.

Frankly the same applies to drivers. I know that there are some appalling drivers out there - I don't know how many there are, but I've seen plenty of examples both when I've been driving and as a pedestrian - and if someone points out and criticises dangerous or inconsiderate or bad driving, I will place the blame firmly where it belongs - with the driver. I've taken direct action in the past - when a driver attempted to skip a traffic queue by driving over the pavement, opposite the dses school, at home time, I jumped in front of his car and forced him back on the road. Drivers like him give good, safe drivers a bad name, and I'm not going to excuse him at all.

we're allowed to criticise them, but the "pro-cyclists" won't face up to the bad behaviour we talk about. Count how many have said if they disapprove of red-light jumping, cyling on pavements, going the wrong way up one-way streets, or riding at night without lights.

They avoid admitting that this is bad behaviour and try to pretend that there is an anti-cycling vendetta instead of justified criticism of bad behaviour.

YABU to STILL be fuming if it happened last night! Move on

YANBU

as the OP, i'm going to say AGAIN: the reason I criticised this cyclist is he nearly hit my buggy while running a red light. sadly, when you are a pedestrian, unfortunately the road users you are most in conflict with are bad cyclists who run red lights/ride on the pavement/break the road rules.

i fully accept a cyclist's analysis of the dangers around them is different. they are at risk of getting hit by inconsiderate or aggressive car, truck and bus drivers. they may have to contend with pedestrians who step out without warning where pedestrians should not be. i understand these things are frustrating and dangerous.

however, i don't think any of the above detracts from my being able to say that this particular cyclist really upset me as he broke the road rules and nearly hit my buggy. i'm not fuming anymore though, i reserve my fuming for the decorators who keep changing my move in date...

i am getting a bit tired of cyclists saying it's unfair to criticise bad cyclists. apparently, i didn't realise that we should all be uncritically supportive of anyone on a cycle regardless of how he or she conducts themselves on the road and with respect to other road users. frankly, it's getting a little orwellian.

but just to throw the cat among the pigeons: today I was passed by a woman riding her bike on the pavement and texting. i had ample opportunity to see her coming and stayed well out of her way. would cyclists agree this is an acceptable behaviour? she was on her way to pick up her kid, as i passed her later chatting with other mums at the school gate.

trouble is that 'the laws of the road' are supposed to assist all road users. But they don't in reality. When I cycle I take up a smidgeon of a car or a van's width, or a trucks - get told 'didn't see you there mate, sorry' when I am 6 foot with a bright yellow jacket and helmet and ride a hybrid bike that puts my height about 6 foot six - I weigh nothing like a bus, and am a mighty bit smaller - and yes lots of drivers wouldn't, and haven't, given a flying fuck if they hit me. I am extremely vulnerable in a basic life-and-death sort of way. When you bike it isn't a computer game. Game over means game over.

sooo,

yes I do cycle on the pavements regularly (in fact most days when I bike to work.) I do go up one-way streets if there are no cops about.(one in particular again most days) I tend not to go through red lights, only for my own sake, but can see why other bikers do.

so in this desparatly unfair battle for survival on our roads, I have no time at all for those who bleat ad nauseum about the odd infringement, at no-one elses' cost, regarding red lights and pavements. Yes if people expereince poor inter-personal stuff from cyclists it's always a regret. But put it all in proportion FGS.

we don't kill people, except in a very very and very again, rare circumstance. But we get killed massively.

So no, I really don't give much weight to threads like this, and will happily denounce them. When I could be bothered to.

OP a similar thing happened to me on Monday. Stopped at a crossing, waited for the green man, checked the cars had stopped, stepped out with my pram and WHOOSH! a cyclist came out of nowhere and swerved to avoid the pram. Madness!!! There's a bad habit where I live as well of cycling on the pavement.

I'm a past cyclist, a driver and a pedestrian, and all three have people who behave badly, I've nearly been knocked off my bike, nearly been knocked over by cyclists, am regularly cut up by other drivers, and have pedestrians wander out in front of my car all the time.

I actually don't take too much issue with cyclists who go through a red light as long as they have checked there are no hazzards, but those that just cycle on regardless, simply swerving and weaving, need a good slap. I was mightily annoyed on Monday that cyclists don't have number plates as he would have been reported immediately!

It seems like noone, no matter what their means of getting from A to B, seem to have any respect for others around them anymore. In London at least, anyway.

AwesomePan, I wasn't aware cycling to work was some sort of extreme sport.

FGS, if it is that dangerous, get a bus ticket and leave your bike at home. I'd hate to live anywhere near your route to work.

microserf - try cycling in any built up area. It isn't a sport.

and there isn't a bus from where I live to where I work.

awesomePan - this thread is about people being put at risk, and it staggers me that anyone would condone such behaviour. Views and arrogance like yours do nothing to advance the cause of cyclists.

One question - if a cyclist cycles dangerously and without due care and attention commits one of your 'minor infringements' - for example jumping a red light, or going the wrong way up a one way road/cycling against the flow of traffic, or speeding out of a junction without looking, and they are hit by a car that is being driven carefully, within the rules of the road and which finds this loose cannon suddenly under its wheels - whose fault is it?
Are you going to bleat that the cyclist is not at fault, and the driver 'should' have stopped in time? Or are you big enough to accept that if you take stupid risks and get hurt, it's your own damn silly fault??!

don't be absurd SDTG - being civilised to each other is the over-arching concern. Trouble is, when drivers forget to be civil the consequences on cyclists are more profound.

I am not arrogant btw - I am simply being careful when I bike - I would like to stay alive and the 'rules of the road' often don't assist me in that, so I have to make up my own ones, which hurt no-one else.

That doesn't answer my question, AwesomePan - and it's a genuine one. If a cyclist breaks a rule of the road or cycles without due care, and gets hurt - is it their fault, or someone else's? If they plough into someone on a pedestrian crossing, when the light is on red and the green man is flashing - is it their fault or the fault of the pedestrian - or indeed, the child in the buggy, if one takes the OP's near miss as an example?

And saying "...So no, I really don't give much weight to threads like this, and will happily denounce them. When I could be bothered to." doesn't strike me as 'over-archingly civil', either.

I think Pan has expressed his views. He doesn't think it's wrong to jump red lights, or cycle on pavements, or go the wrong way up one-way streets. I can't tell if he's in favour of riding at night without lights, but he won't say it's wrong.

What sort of road user is he? Considerate or a self-centred bully?

"If you can't see that it is cyclist bashing to say you hate all of them based upon a minority of stupid ones then that is your downfall."

Sorry to single out the above sentence, just want to use it to make a point.

On every thread I read about bad cyclists, there is always at least one person (usually several) who will state something along the lines of the sentence above. There will be the defensive standpoint taken of 'not tarring all with the same brush because it is the minority and unfair'.

But looking at these threads, and going on my day to day experiences alone, I would argue that actually, it is the other way around. That because cyclists can indeed get away with more (not having licence plates and camera's not being able to pick them up on it for instance), it is rather the majority of cyclists who utilise this to their own selfish benefit while the minority are in fact the good cyclists.

I say this because I see cyclists do horrid things regularly everyday. My DH cycles and even he sees it. I do notice good cyclists too, because I watch cyclists as I am (was before getting pregnant and will resume after baby is born) learning to ride on my local roads. But the number of cyclists I see doing things they should not be doing far outnumber the good cyclists I see.

As a pedestrian, I can honestly say that I have been put in the way of harm more frequently by cyclists in the last few years than cars. Just the other day another cyclist came round a corner by my home so quickly that had I been one step further into the road, he most definitely would have knocked me down. I am 6 months pregnant and would not have been able to move out of the way fast enough.

In fact, I would say I fear being hurt by a cyclist far more than by a car, and I have noticed this fear has gotten worse over the past year as I have experienced being almost knocked down by one more than once recently.

oh T&T you're thinking is much much too narrow!!

as an option try 'polite, considerate road (and pavement)-user who improvises on the very poor provision for bike riders in this country in order to remain alive when commuting by bike due to acute vulnerability to the section of the motor vehicle drivers who couldn't care less'. that just about fits it! never bullied anyone, ever.

SDTG - we both know the answer to your question.

see the 'driver ranty' thread going on currently in AIBU to witness why cyclists have to improvise.

good night.

Have been hit by a cyclist once, going through a red light, almost been hit by one going up the inside of the bus as i got off with buggy, avoided serious injury by inches as one whizzed through a zebra crossing, almost hit one with DH in car as he decided to try to go past on the inside as we turned a corner (indicating) and live in fear every day when stepping out of enclosed bus shelter with DD as cyclists keep whizzing past and you cannot see them.

It's people like that who give cyclists a bad name, not op for starting thread.

oh Pan your thinking is much much too egocentric!!

You refuse to admit it is bad behaviour because you're too wrapped up in doing whatever suits you and sod the rest of the world.