to think cyclists on country lanes are selfish gits

[justonemorethen]

Ok not talking about children,people nipping around town or coming back from the pub.IMHO thats who bikes were designed for.
I just hate those people who use country lanes to do their time trials and cycle up and down the same hill to make their calves bigger than their brains.

Roads surely were designed to get people from A to B. They weren't designed to be a fitness track or a playground. I really resent getting stuck behind some lyric clad arse (and they are ususally in packs) at 20 miles an hour. I can't overtake cos it's a country lane you see. I'm not a speed freak, I am happy to slow down for horses or to be behind a tractor.The differnce is they are meant to be there. I don't think townie gits who have nothing better to do should clog up our country lanes when they could use country parks or dual carriageways.I wouldn't mind if they even appreciated the countryside they go through but I don't think I've ever seen one stopping to have a picnic or looking at the wildlife.It;s head down with those stupid glasses and clothes that would scare the animals

There are so many on a Sunday where I live that it's getting dangerous. Still it'll be the poor motorist blamed for going about their business rather than the cyclist won't it.

Getorfmyland - I so agree. They do it round here too. I don't mind slowing down for horses but it does annoy me when they regally wave me past to indicate the road is clear when I can see for several miles ahead that it's clear - something childish in me but it gets my blood pressure going..

It is not to indicate the road is clear it is to reassure you that the horse is under control and it is safer for you to pass us then sit behind all day cursing at us.

Some horses are nervous on roads- and they have to learn so don't say they should stay in a field- and a car behind can distress them.

Unfortunately we have to share our public roads with all manor of vehicles so why can't we share and stop being prats.
Yes some cyclists are idiots and yes some horseriders are idiots but so are a great many cardrivers.

Riven How does your DD like her bike?
Is it one where you load up the wheelchair and the adult cycles?
DS loves going on the adapted bikes at our local park, we are getting very fit keeping up with him as well

Quote:
and how many cyclists do you think a have any idea what is in the highway code? If they are also drivers, they may have a very vague knowledge from when they passed their test,"

Well ditto for drivers!

Having passed a driving test doesn't mean that you know the first thing about current road laws or good driving practice.

End quote

The point I was making is that you can get on a bike with absolutely no knowledge of road use at all. You can not drive a car like that, you are tested so at least you did know these things when you started.

Getting on a bike (and i include mopeds etc in here too) whilst utterly clueless does no one any favours whatsoever. I think all road users should be tested and insured before they can venture out. A more robust and standardised cycling proficiency test for example, for adults AND children.

The are inconsiderate twats everywhere in all vehicles. Just because a cyclist is more vulnerable than a car driver doesn't make them immune to being selfish twats any more than being a car driver automatically makes you an inconsiderate git.

tyv, no problem, it was my fault, I didn't really make myself at all clear. Should really not MN when I've had no sleep and can't make myself properly understood.
My attitude tends towards this: if the 'wit and intelligence' of many car drivers is going to lead them to seriously exceed the sensible speed for the conditions, overtake too fast/dangerously, not indicate, drive aggressively, then that's wit and intelligence I'd rather not be relying on to keep me safe...
I only wish I could drive sensibly without some moron up my backside. I had a bloody driving instructor trying to force his way through on my inside on a roundabout the other day, when I was um leaving room for a motorbike. Which the driving instructor clearly hadn't seen.

But soupdragon - you might have been tested in 1945. Or, like a few of my friends in my not-too-distant-youth, you might be a complete tit who was just lucky on the day and didn't happen to kill anyone on the day of the test.

Having passed a test really doesn't guarantee that you are a good driver, or that you retain much of what you were taught.

I think that some kind of profiency test is a good idea actually - but the lack of it doesn't excuse posts like the OP's, and it doesn't mean that all cyclists are idiots. Many of them HAVE taken profiency tests or even cycling safety courses, which probably recommended precisely the kind of "aggressive" behaviour the OP and others on this thread have complained about.

The problem is that basically what is convenient for drivers is for cyclists to efface themselves as far as possible. Whereas what is safest for cyclists is the reverse. You are never going to get over that basic clash of priorities until drivers like the OP understand that being in a car doesn't give you seniority over other road user.

Anyway, I think I've argued my position as far as I possibly can and I'm going to bow out from this thread now.

But truly, as someone with a DH who rides to work in lycra and then comes home sweating and shaking because yet again someone has tried to kill him - either accidentally or in a few cases deliberately - it's heart-breaking to read threads like this and realise the depth of hostility and ignorance about law-abiding people who are basically just trying to get from a-b.

That "twat in lycra" ahead of you might be my lovely, considerate, law-abiding DH who has never hurt a fly in his life and is only trying to get to work in one piece. That's a scary and upsetting thought.

My dad, who has cycled for 50 years in this country - regularly commuting a 12 mile round trip (at one point, it was 40 miles), going on cycling holidays around the world with my mum (Karakoram Highway, Vietnam, Mongolia, India, Uraguay......) has recently started, for the first time in his life, cycling on the pavement from home to the local village. He says the road has just got too busy and the cars take no prisoners (it;s a "main" - as in A road - short cut between one part of Glasgow to a wealthy suburb).

Part of his concern is that he can't risk anything happening to him, as he is now Mum's full-time carer, as she continues to decline as a direct result of the head injury she got while cycling (in India) 3 years ago

It says a lot for how little regarded cyclists are on the roads of today that despite all his epxerience, he doesn't feel he can take the risk

It used to be recommended in the Highway Code that cyclists cycle 2 abreast; I remember being shown that page when I first came to live in the UK (18.5 years ago). Recommended because it made cyclists safer and drivers had to think more carefully about when it was safe to overtake.

I guess it says a lot about the hostility and selfishness of many modern folk that attitudes have changed so much.

I can remember that too - I passed my test 25 years ago.

op get some lessons in driving and overtaking
if you can't overtake

and remember that bikes and roads came before cars and lorries

and its nice to share properly and not be nasty

For every motorist that knocks a cycle - perhaps a before they can drive agian a driving test - find test cyclist aswell and if they knock someone over they have to take the test agian before they can cycle.

if you are a good driver you would not knock a cyclist - if they run into you of course they need to pay for any damage and take their own test.

SMiDSY - sorry mate I didn't see you may become a thing of the past.

make eye contact with motorists - this way they are more likely to see you and remember you - if you are cycling on a major road and a car is waiting to come out of a side road.

Just remebr drivers every time you see a person ona bike - think they are not clogging the road up as they could be in a car in front of me.

YABU, and a twat, and possibly jeremy clarkson.

No cyclists should not need insurance. This is just a ruse from motorists who want to keep them off the road.

The reality is that while many thousands are killed by cars each year, bicycles are far less deadly than say pet dogs, or livestock.

Yes there's a case for cycle training to protect cyclists from some of the twattish drivers in this thread, but the result of that training would likely be MORE pissed off twats, because people would learn to block drivers from overtaking when it's unsafe, rather than hiding away in the gutter like some here would have them do.

yikes, I took my bike out for the first time in 6 years yesterday (dentist appt.) and where there was a cycle lane the buses and lorries all sat in it when traffic was slow/not moving so I couldn't get along it anyway.

Riven, it doesn't always force them to wait for a gap. Some people are twats and just go anyway. One nearly crashed head-on into me the other week doing just that. Overtaking over double white lines too. Not that I'm suggesting that's the fault of the cyclists. It's not. It's the fault of the twattish drivers. Who have, so far, made sure I'll never ride a horse or a motorbike on public roads again, and are going the same way with my car. I'm sick of nearly being crashed into and it not being my fault. And yes, I appreciate, having been there, that it's about a billion times worse if there's no little metal box around you to protect you.
FWIW, I approach overtaking cyclists with extreme caution, am careful to leave them enough room that if they encounter a pothole whilst I'm overtaking, they have room to manoeuvre round it, and am really especially careful passing them on windy days. I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression of my feelings to anyone. I had just been really shaken up to think 'if I'd been going faster, even just because I'd lost concentration, I could have killed somebody'. The fact that I didn't hit her, because I was driving sensibly, doesn't cheer me up too much, because I am an inveterate worrier, and have managed to process the whole situation to 'what happens if next time I've misjudged my speed, or something goes wrong?', and 'what would have happened if I'd been doing 10mph more?' Granted, this probably makes me a safer driver, but it doesn't half make it difficult getting in the car...
That said, that's probably no bad thing. I think far too many people take driving far too lightly.
Perhaps the answer is not necessarily just to have training for cyclists (although something along the lines of the motorbike CBT would probably be good), but to make everybody who wants to drive a car first cycle and ride a horse and motorbike on the road. Nothing like personal experience to put a new slant on attitudes.

I found an interesting article here

I like this paragraph: "The CTC say the reasons why cycling becomes safer the more people cycle are: 1. Drivers become more aware and better able to anticipate cyclists? behaviour; 2, more people are likely to both drivers and cyclists and therefore be in the know; 3, the more people cycle the greater the political will to improve road conditions. "

Excuse me! I happen to have paid for those roads just as you have, and I happen to live in the country and thus need to travel along those country roads.

And if you are the type of selfish git that has attempted to knock me off my bike, that stops in order to swear at me, that has put two fingers up at me, then your opinions are of no value to anyone, least of all me. I'll refrain from saying that I hope you have an unpleasant accident while driving inconsiderately on a country road, because I am actually a nice person and would not wish that on you and your children.

Of course, the best thing is that the selfish gits who complain about cyclists on the roads - the roads that the cyclists have paid for - are exactly the same people who swell in vicarious pride when the Team GB cyclists do well at the Olympics.

'lyric clad arse'

Do excuse my picking up the typo - not meanly, I promise - I just love the idea of all those cyclists and their poetic bottoms. Some of them are pure poetry, I must say...

YBVU, by the way! Loads of cyclists round me and I applaud them for getting out and enjoying the rush of blood to the limbs and the wind in their ears. Good luck to them. They are not dangerous if you're a safe driver.

I wish I could lyrically present my behind.

My bottom's more epic than lyric, I'm afraid...

Excllent point grendelsmum about team GB cyclists.

well, glad we're talking about hogging roads. Range Rovers and 4x4's? In a city? No rough terrain, nothing that would indicate a need for such all terrain vehicles. School runs within walking distance? What the hell's wrong with WALKING? Time poor working mother's who have to do everything in a rush? Is that why you need to take the car the 250 yards to the school gates? Grid locking roads while individual women sit smugly waiting for little darlings who are perfectly capable of walking...in fact, it would be far more benificial to walk. We all remember being young. We all remember WALKING to school.
Education departments have been selling off playing fealds for a couple of decades now. Children become less and less active.
Cyclists? I see em every now and then.

op you are a miserable sod, get a life,you need to, if this is all you have to whinge about.

I nearly lost my husband who was doing a time trail on a dual carriage way back dsome 19 years ago - even though he was cycling on the white line a woman came from behind and went into the back of him.

He had a 52 stiches in the back of his head, lost all the skin and most of the muscel of the back of his leg, had grazing like orange peel running over his other leg and finaley had a heamorage (sp) in his brain and a fractured skull along with a broken collar bone.

he lived

The police didn't see it in the public intrest to prosecute

he sued and won

Time Trails are now not done here and country lanes are used instead.

OP perhaps one day you may have to sit at a bedside and worry and stress if someone you love is going to live or die or be brain damaged for the rest of his/her life - you may love that perosn and wonder why and how a driver could be so stupid.

Periodicly there are threads like this on her - usually the cyclists come aout in force the same ones.

This thread is almost like a troll, regardless of whether you are a regular it is offensive they way you post. It would be silly of me or anyone else to come along and pick and be nasty about a particluar group of people.e.g.

People form the countryside should stay there and not venture into the city where they are not welcome - it would be just as bizare as your post - troll like and sad