T'other day I was heading home from market, in the white van. We were in nose to tail traffic, moving along in short yardages on tick over, heading along a very crowded Botley Road at maximum rush hour when I heard this almighty BANG. I looked in the left mirror and could see a tangle of legs and bike on the pavement.
"OI" loudly and directly into my left ear.
I turned to look.
"You just knocked him off"
He was puce, smug and in my face.
I laughed. "It's not funny" said the strident man on his bike festooned with various luggage carrying devices. He adjusted his helmet, and I noticed his suit trousers all neatly wrapped in dayglo yellow ankle bands. "I'm just wondering how I managed to knock someone over when I wasn't moving" I said.
He deflated and rode off.
Really. I thought he might have argued, but he didn't, he just went (I bet he's a right prig at work). I pulled into a pub car park and as I walked back to the scene, the tumbling cyclist came towards me. Was he dazed? He was all over the pavement, wheeling his wobbly bike. I wasn't clear who was holding who up.
At the same moment my mate who was in the car directly behind me came up. He too was laughing.
"Did you see that," he said " he just rode straight into your van. Your bloody great big white van. He just didn't see it!"
"Cycle lane" said the drunken cyclist, drunkenly. Very very drunkenly.
We pointed out the complete lack of any cycle lane. And also the lack of movement in the van at the time of the impact.
"Yersh," he mumbled, 'but my bikeshhfugged. Ishhh'com'le ...hic... telyfugged."
But afterwards I was a bit indignant. I haven't conveyed just how cross the man in the dayglo ankle straps was. And his aggression, and presumption that because I was in a motorised vehicle I must somehow be guilty, made me cross.
And ever since then the cycling fascists in Oxford have really got on my tits. Big style. Sorry Fran (if you ever come by here) but they cycle on the pavement, ignore traffic lights and signs, they put themselves and others at risk, and then they have the utter (if slightly sweaty) balls to blame motorists for all their ills. But they lack a normal sense of responsibility.
Like the woman I saw the very next Thursday. Again I was on the way home, sitting first in the queue at the lights. These lights are on a right angled bend and you can't see what is coming, and it could be a bus heading for the station, or a car, van; anything and they can come at some speed. She had one of those 'buggy' seats on the back, you know the kind that attach by a curved arm and have a child seat over a wheel. And in the seat was a child.
So there I am sitting at the lights and I watch her come up on my right and go sailing through the lights as if they weren't there. She didn't even check for pedestrians, just sailed straight on across the road, onto the pavement opposite scattering those pedestrians too and into the traffic on Hythe Bridge St. She was oblivious to the bus that had to swerve to avoid her - he had right of way. She put herself and her innocent child into an incredible amount of danger. And that pissed me off even more.
But not as much as the fact that by the time I had my window down to shout at her, she was already gone.
It's official, I hate Oxford cyclists and I hope the Police prosecute the lot of them. Last week they caught more than 50 breaking a traffic law in less than three hours on one spot. Multiply that by all the spots in Oxford and you have cycling anarchy. And they are so smug with it, but so little to be smug about.
No one in a cycle helmet, or in lycra, or in dayglo little frickin ankle straps has right to be smug about anything.
And if we drove cars with the same attitude they bring to riding their bikes, there would be death and carnage everywhere. Luckily we're not cyclists.
Something to be grateful for, and exceedingly smug about.
5 comments:
they are a total nightmare in London Town too
not paying attention to red lights, pedestrians, putting their children at risk. . .
coming up far too close on the inside of the lane when you are already indicating you want to turn left. . .
:-(
I can't believe the places people put their children. Those buggy seats on the back terrify me. And those appalling trolley things they pull along behind them. Behind them! Practically on the road!
We're told to treat them as if they had the same rights as cars. Fair enough. But they ought to realise they have the same responsibilities too.
The stories I could tell about cyclists. The inquests I've been to (I used to work in insurance - lorry turning left, cyclist deciding to overtake on the inside, squashed cyclist)...
Gosh! Thanks! I expected to absolutely hammered for these views. It is so un-PC to criticise cyclists. I feel buoyed up!
I used to cycle in Oxford a lot. And I used to break the traffic laws on a minute by minute basis. But (big but) I didn't endanger pedestrians by riding on the pavement and I didn't have a kid on the back.
It's quite a fun sort of activity really; anarchic, bit dangerous, sort of extreme sport. I liken it to parcour (urban running) for the 80s.
And, if I came off, there was no automatic assumption of driver-in-the-wrong either. Just treat it like falling over snowboarding: can be painful, it happens to everyone, no point blaming the ice-patch.
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