AIBU to bloody hate cyclists

[FortyAndFlagging]

I have just trailed three cyclists during the course of the day. Honest to God, why don't they just pull over and let people pass?

Make them pay road tax or get them off the road.
It's isn't road tax. It's vehicle excise duty and the rate is linked to the emissions of the vehicle.
It is a wide road designed to accommodate cyclists easily but they chose to ride 3 abreast and make everyone wait for 11 miles on a national speed limit road.
Because it's safer to ride 2 or 3 abreast in a group so that cars can do one safe overtake. What some drivers prefer is that cyclists string out in a long line so they can bunny hop along or squeeze past in a way that is much more risky. Now, on windy country roads sometimes you have to as a cyclist aim to facilitate a car squeezing past because it's the nature of the road, but most of the time it's drivers being impatient and feeling entitled to avoid doing a proper overtake.

For what its worth, I cant stand people on bikes who use pavements, jump red lights, don't signal etc. But what many drivers use as 'reasons I hate cyclists' tend to translate to 'I am impatient and wish to be king of the road and whilst we're at it can I throw in a dig at them in lycra'.

It shouldn’t make a difference if they are single file or two abreast. To give decent room you need to encroach onto the other side of the road when overtaking anyway. Squeezing by them without crossing the Centre line isn’t leaving enough room.

The majority of the roads where I live are one car's width with passing places. There is no way of passing a cyclist unless they stop and they bloody won't. Drives me mad. I sometimes follow them for miles usually while they chat side by side. I'm not impatient or rude but I do feel that a lot, not all cyclists show little consideration to other road users.

No problem with bikes ON the road, although yes, around some of our local roads you could be held up for 11 miles behind cyclists riding 3 abreast. The highway code allows for two abreast, not three. and there is some mention of road conditions. I drive AND cycle regularly and read the highway code at least once a year and refer to it often.

But don't get me started about cyclists on pavements. Daily I am forced to walk in a main road by cyclists riding fast on the narrow pavement who don't even attempt to slow down for the pedestrians. Only this week I have had to support two children (around 9 or 10 years old) and an elderly lady using a walking frame all of whom fell due to older (maybe early 20's) cyclists riding directly at them and just ringing bells and shouting.
I also had to avoid a "group" of 20+ primary aged children supported by 6 adults riding fairly quickly down the narrow pavement next to a fairly quiet road.
These incidents are frequent, four or five times a week, not just an occasional one off. I accept that younger riders may need the calm of a pavement, but they tend to be going fairly slowly and carefully. The cyclists I am concerned about are over 12 years old and usually very rude, often threatening violence, if challenged.

BINGO!

• 2 / 3 abreast
• should be on the pavement
• don't use the cycle paths I paid for
• road tax
• wearing lycra

where do I get my prize?

Ok, I’ll bite on the two or three abreast complaint.

If two riders are side by side, they take up the same space as a car so 1 normal-sized ‘object’ to overtake. If they go one in front, one behind, it’s a longer ‘object’ so you need more time and distance to pass them safely.

So actually, the terrible 2 or 3 abreast people are making your life easier. But you know, go ahead and complain...

AIBU to think that people who start threads about how they hate cyclists are in fact shit drivers who can't pass properly? And probably miserable people who don't get to do anything fun for themselves, and fat and unfit, displacing their general unhappiness onto other people to try and make their grey lives seem better?

Cyclists are one of the very few groups of people that Mumsnet permits posters to be actively nasty about. A thread asking, for instance, whether it was in order to hate all vegetarians or all fat people would be quickly deleted as “not in the spirit”.

@InTheNorth congratulations, you have won the amazing prize of a punishment pass - please collect it form the OP next time you cycle on the roads

BINGO!

• 2 / 3 abreast
• should be on the pavement
• don't use the cycle paths I paid for
• road tax
• wearing lycra

where do I get my prize?

Nah - you missed "they all jump red lights" so no full house for you!!!

Not unreasonable at all

Curious it's very frustrating. If horses had even a 1/4 of the routes cyclists had we would be absolutely chuffed to bits. Apparently, according to a cyclist friend of dhs they use the roads because 'its a road bike, not a path bike'. We have absolutely miles of off road riding available, we back onto the trans pennine trail where we live so they could use that. Am shortly going tl be moving the ponies 10 miles and pay double what I currently do to get access to it.

They are a menace on there as well, we've stopped using it sunday mornings to walk the dog as we are forever being almost rode over.

It's not all of them, some are absolutely no bother whatsoever and I take my hat off to those doing their bit for the environment and their health by using cycles instead of cars.

But it seems to be a certain type of cyclist, those doing it for recreational reasons that cause the most problems.

We went to a horse show one sunday morning. Towing a trailer up a steep hill we caught one race rider holding onto the jockey door to get a hitch up! If the trailer had wobbled or we had had to slam on he would have ended up underneath it. Then waiting to turn right a whole pack of them came tearing up and overtook on the outside and the inside. If we had started pulling out would have splattered loads on either side. Twats.

I used to cycle, cant be arsed now, tbh I'm surprised I wasn't killed, my cycling habits were worse than I see now, I try to repay the compliment to the drivers that didn't kill me by giving cyclists plenty of room! There are worse car drivers than cyclists

Nice to be reminded again that many of my fellow drivers are utter twats

cyclist have every right to be there - calm the fuck down and stop being such an impatient driver OP

also - again - Road Tax - I'm embarrassed for whoever mentioned that!

alittlequinnie
Brilliant! I love a game of cycling bingo.

Well I neither drive a car nor ride a bike, but if I was Queen of the world I'd get rid of motorists, all the bloody lot of them. Worst thing humanity has ever done, inventing the internal combustion engine.
I'm not Queen of the world though so cars will continue to kill us all in their different and oh-so-amusing ways, pollution, mowing us over, being fucking selfish, thinking that they have GREATER RIGHTS THAN OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT IN CARS...

Of course you aren't being U. Sensible people realise that lycra loons need legislation and insurance to make them be identifiable so they can be sued or taken to court for their stupidity. They cause accidents and cycle away undentifiable. They should have number plates.

Idiots on 2 wheels with no consideration for any one else in the road bar themselves going at a slugs pace usually and never ride sensibly to allow other road users to pass sensibly thinking they own the road yet pay no road tax.
They should have to pay road tax and insurance to be in the road.

Only today, seen two separate instances where cyclists nearly wiped themselves out by not being aware of vehicles around them.

First was a cyclist merrily peddling away on the left of the road, then just as a car was overtaking him (leaving plenty of room), he suddenly stuck his hand out and veered into the centre of the road to turn right into a drive - the overtaking car had to swerve to avoid hitting him - luckily he'd left enough clearance.

Second was two cyclists, one in front of another, as the car in front of me was about to overtake, the one behind suddenly pulled out into it's path to ride side by side. Again, the overtaking car had to swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid a collision.

Both cases, the cyclist didn't bother to look behind them.

It’s the trophy wives in the Chelsea tractors in London who do my head in. Usually driving along on their own.Why do they need a tank sized vehicle for their slim selves? The environment and the rest of us have to pay the price for their vanity.

Nobody has a full house yet!

They should have number plates There's the next to add to your cards

The road is as much theirs as yours op. Read the Highway Code!

Make them pay road tax or get them off the road

Cyclist bingo. There is no such thing as road tax. Hasn't been since the 1930s. Why do people think there is?

Plus: I cycle. But guess what, I also drive a car (two cars). So I pay two lots of VED (if that's what you think road tax is).

OP could I suggest you borrow the book Cyclecraft from your local library. Great book, very informative and you may learn quite a lot.

MaryJoyce is making her break for the lead with her road / tax twofer...

Road tax was abolished in 1937.....