AIBU to find cyclists annoying

[MumOfTheNorth]

This probably is unreasonable but I just find cyclists so annoying. Not saying every cyclist does every one of these things. It just seems to happen a lot. Am I the only one that gets this irrational irritation?

What I find annoying...

• Taking up the whole road so you can't leave enough space to safely over take
• Weaving in and out of traffic
• Walking around cafes or the office in sweaty lycra with their click clacky shoes
• Running red lights when I'm trying to cross on a green man
• Cycling on the pavement
• Not tucking in on small country roads once in a while when there's a massive que of traffic behind them
• Having no lights or helmet on in the dark
• And most of all... talking to me about cycling

The traditional things that make a road dangerous. Poor visibility, narrow, winding, uneven camber, the darkness etc.

I wouldn't cycle on those with cars any more than I'd drive my car on the train tracks.

As an experienced driver and a disabled pedestrian my heart sinks when I see one anywhere.

If you tried driving a car on a railway line you'd end up in court. Cycling on a country road on the other hand is perfectly legal. I should not be prevented from travelling to work in a sustainable and economical way because some people are incapable of driving their cars in accordance with the conditions.

Perhaps we need stricter speed limits and harsher enforcement.

Legal doesn't mean safe.

If you're ok with risking your life and massively inconveniencing other people, not to mention potentially causing enormous trauma to anyone who hits you, no, I can't stop you. But there's no way I'm condoning it. It's absolutely stupid and selfish behaviour as far as I'm concerned.

Amwrestlingwithchasndave, even those ones getting killed on their way to work, do you hste them too?

That's what you really hate, isn't it? It's transparently obvious. That some car driver might be "inconvenienced" by having to wait two seconds before there's a safe opportunity to pass. Never mind that they might get hurt feelings if they kill someone through a reckless pass.

Re-read please.

No. I don't care about a very brief delay. I care about being held up for miles and miles.

And as I've already said, I've spoken to people who have killed someone or caused life changing injuries in a vehicle. It's absolutely horrific to even hear the chilling tone of their voice and I've absolutely no wish to become one of them because of some idiotic cyclist with a death wish.

If you pass wide and slow then you aren't going to cause anyone's death.

Drivers who think that public roads (open to all: cyclists, horses, pedestrians) are their personal race tracks are the problem. Because roads aren't signalled like railways are, you are expected to drive on sight, prepared to stop short of any obstruction. So when approaching a blind bend or summit you slow right down.

I'm perfectly competent at driving. What I can't do is prevent any accidents from occurring ever. No one can. No one should be so arrogant as to assume an accident will never occur because they're a good driver. And cyclists on dangerous roads, particularly all in black at night with no lights are a liability. So I don't like them being on the road with me.

It’s people that cause roads to be dangerous and accident seems to be a word regularly used instead of crash

As a driver I don’t have any feeling over seeing other road users up ahead, just wait until safe to overtake cyclist. Never been inconvenienced by a cyclist up ahead.

yesterday though several hundred people sat for more than an hour on M40 and it’s not an uncommon occurrence. Many times the local town gets grid kicked if there is a crash as drivers reroute from M40

@WereYouListeningToTheDudesStory

If you genuinely think that you might kill a cyclist, get off the road.

Armwrestling what us it you'd like me to reread

Were you listening - I know people who have been killed on their bikes, but let's hold our sympathy for the ones driving the machines that kill

Were you listening- 'if you're OK with risking your life, massively inconveniencing other people not to mention potentially causing enormous trauma to anyone you hit', I can't stop you either. You see it works both ways. Why do you think you have more right to be on the road, because your vehicle of choice us bigger?

Alika · 07/10/2023 15:45
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@MrsSkylerWhite Probably still little chance of identifying him and therefore being able to find his address (the police, that is). Unless he was already known to them so they recognised him straight away, the only extra info a dashcam would give is possibly his make of bike, if it was clear enough.”
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that’s very true but a visible dashcam is often enough to put people off of behaving so badly.

@user1477391263

We’ve always found Japanese people to be infinitely more considerate and polite in every aspect of life than our fellow Brits. Doesn’t surprise me at all that that extends to cyclists.

I used to cycle and drive in Oxford, and it was the cyclists who really angered me, even as a cyclist myself!

They used to undertake, jump lights or go onto the pavement to avoid red lights, or just ride on the pavements. Many have headphones in so are not aware of their surroundings.

I've seen so many near misses due to poor choices made my cyclists, mainly going up the inside of lorries in the blind spot then almost getting knocked off when the lorry moves and cannot see them.

A friend of mine had a HUGE dent in the back of a car where a cyclist was slipstreaming her. She had to brake suddenly due to all the traffic suddenly stopping in town and the cyclist ploughed into the back of her car! Needless to say the cyclist was not very forthcoming in paying for the damage to the car.

There are some awful car drivers out there, but compared to cyclists it's a much smaller percentage!

Recognise that @towriteyoumustlive ! Oxford is nuts, especially for unaware visitors!

I am a cyclist and a driver. I see occasional poor behaviour from cyclists and motorists, but cars are much more dangerous given their speed and weight and also contribute to pollution. Public policy should favour cyclists and pedestrians over cars in my view, though balance is important. It is not in any cyclists interests to have cars getting frustrated and unable to pass us when we are cycling.

I spend quite a lot of time driving rurally and the type of driving that pp is saying results in inevitable deaths is all too common. The answer is for people to stop driving like that though, not for other road users to cede access to the roads. People that drive corners based on the idea they've done it 700 times in the last 2 years and there wasn't a bike/horse/person/rear end of a lorry waiting round there are a menace to themselves and to everyone, not just cyclists. If you regularly find yourself engaging in driving that would likely result in death and serious injury you could just try and do a bit better?

I think the biggest difference is probably that cycling here is a "normal" activity.

It is something everyone does and is not seen as something guys do to be tough or get thrills from (most people cycle for practical purposes and ride sit-up-and-beg bikes while wearing their normal clothing), so most cyclists are sensible about slowing down when they are on pavements that pedestrians are on....and on the other side, very few people don't cycle at all so virtually all drivers have plenty of experience of cycling and empathize with cyclists; there is not the element that likes to antagonize cyclists, which you tend to get in the UK.

This kind of thing is not exclusive to Japan, mind you: Jason Slaughter (Canadian but now living in the Netherlands) has talked about the same kind of phenomenon in the Netherlands, where cycling is also very normalized as part of society.

You will of course meet dangerous and inconsiderate drivers in Japan at times though, and occasionally you do get rude cyclists who are too fast on the pavement and cause annoyance to walkers.... no place is a paradise, for sure! All in all, though, I prefer having cyclists on the pavement in return for quiet roads with few cars.

I think people's responses here might be coloured by where they live, tbh. I live in a city, there's a bike path on an old railway line nearby, bike tracks in the city, plenty of segregated parts as well as some annoying shared use bits. Driving in the city means having bikes and scooters around, there is no avoiding it. Most of the city is a 20mph zone.

If you live in a town where you get to A roads quickly, not many cyclists around, not many bike paths (or not useful/well maintained ones at least) - you probably are less confident driving around cyclists, see them as an aberration, see them as slowing you down in a 30 or 40mph zone or even on dual carriageways etc.

I'm not sure that drivers always realise how much cyclists have to contend with shit infrastructure and keep their wits about them to stay safe. You're constantly making a calculation about what the road layout tells you to do, whether this is actually safe to do or if it's geared towards cars or is a bad design, and how to get where you're going avoiding the hairiest roads with multi lane traffic etc. All while also watching out for pedestrians and scanning the road for lumps and bumps that could knock you off.

I don't condone jumping red lights or not giving way to pedestrians at all. I think sometimes you have to have experience of cycling to understand cyclist behaviour. It would be beneficial for everyone on the roads if more people cycled, at least occasionally. It might stop some of the belligerence from motorists.

If they're displaying no lights at night then they're not legal. But it's their own life they've put at risk.

I however have been cycling through my nearest town dressed from head-to-toe in orange hi-vis. Despite this I still get idiots pull out in front of me because they seem to be incapable of looking when pulling out of a junction. Those car drivers are putting my life at risk. Guess which one I'm more annoyed about.

Incidentally, genuine "accidents" are very rare. In almost all cases one party, the other, or both is culpable. Statistics show that cars are more likely to have contributed to an accident than a bike. They also show that "cyclist wearing dark clothing at night" was only a contributory factor in 3% of accidents involving bicycles. In 23% of accidents involving cars however "failed to look properly on their part" was a contributory factor.