did you get the connecting bit finks?
Well walking along a busy street this morning (6 lanes), I was waiting at the lights to cross and noticed an old lady with thin white hair on her bike in the midst of the morning fray of traffic. She crossed two lanes and then went to cross over the lanes of opposing traffic too, stopping in the middle between a truck and a van, so not highly visible. At the time I just thought, eek an old lady feeling confident to cycle like that. I'd have crossed at the lights with the pedestrians.
Next thing I see she is on the other side of the street, bike on the floor and she and a man are going at it hammer and tongs. If I ride a bike here it is only ever on the pavement or a bike lane, never on the street.
So I went across to see if she was alright. They were both in the right of course and having a real go at each other. I asked her if she was ok, seemed to be, the bike was fine, the van was fine, the driver was fine. So I would have just left it but the old woman called the police in. Why though? Would you? I mean there were no witnesses to the actual accident, no one hurt, no Sachschaden and they both had an almighty shock but that was it. You couldn't prove who had been in the right.
I said as much to a lady on a bike near me and she told them to listen to the "young woman" (young?!). Thanks. So they both turned on me like I was official arbiter and ranted on their side ofthe story. Bizarre. Didn't know what to do with them really. In the end I felt a bit sorry forthe van driver, 50 odd , just looked like someone's dad on the way to work and really not a dangerous driver. There was no calming the woman down though. She had to have the police over.
Totally put me off driving. I had been considering getting a small car to get dd to school but I have a stressful route - through the centre of town a bit, onto the Stadtautobahn and round a dodgy round-about, after that it's ok but getting to there is going to be nerve-wracking every morning.