"Cycle Hero" or aggressive lycra lout..?

Small Fish

Last night I had a typical SMIDSY incident - I'm on long straight road going at a fair speed, car tries to zip across a crossroads from right to left in front of me, forcing me to do an emergency stop.

As I skid towards the car I take a deep breath and yell "OOOYYYYY", driver looks out through his pasenger window and gives me a sheepish wave of apology…

There's a few people around who hear me shout and look up - and up to this point I reckon I'm 'cycle hero', the clear victim of a stupid driver, managing to avoid an accident by my quick wits and excellent bike control!!

But then, as I swerved round the back of his car, adreneline pumping, I couldn't resist looking over my left shoulder and bellowing 'TW@T' at him as I passed… His expression changed from sheepish to aggressive and he waved a fist at me, the couple of people on the pavement looked a bit anxious, someone in another car yelled something that didn't sound nice and for the rest of my journey home I was looking over my shoulder anxious that the guy I'd called a twat might have turned round and come after me...

I've only recently discovered shouting and only needed to do it 3 times - but maybe being abusive does more harm than good - cos sadly I reckon that although I was the one in the right most people who heard the incident will think I was aggressive - and the car driver certainly won't have warm cozy feelings towards cyclists… whereas before I called him a tw@t he did look pretty apologetic...

Gussio

If the cap fits.....

ChrisLS

...sadly you have come over as an aggressive lycra lout Small Fish...it is difficult not to let fly, done it myself, but you always end up looking the baddie of the situation...

BentMikey

Doing the friendly thing, waving back, smiling, and saying no problem is usually much more satisfying for yourself in the long run. Just very hard to do, at least for me.

Eat My Dust

To be honest, when this happens, people will think you are a "lycra lout", but then it's not their lives beeing put at risk.

Teuchter

Hard not to react like that at the time, I find.

This morning I had a SMIDSY on my motorbike (I normally drop my partner off at her work on the motorbike at 7am then cycle to my own work for 9am).

Large 4wd pulled right out on me from a side road, causing me to do an emergency stop. It's happened before at this exact place so I wasn't wholly surprised - I wonder if it's something to do with the angle that they approach the junction at. Anyway he stops at the nearby traffic lights and I filter next to him and angrily shout "Are you &&&&ing blind!?"

He rolls down his window and I think "oh here we go" but he was very apologetic with the usual "Sorry Mate, I didn't see you."

Wind taken out of my sails, I just muttered "fair enough", the lights changed and I rode off.

I guess it's accepting that some people do make mistakes and if nobody's hurt, they will hopefully think twice before doing it again. It's the tw@ts who clearly do it deliberately that really deserve our anger.

BentMikey

We all make mistakes, I've made a few more than I'd like to this year, so the friendly response is better karma, and more likely to influence their future behaviour.

JustRidecp

It is hard not to let fly when you've had a particularly close one. I always regret it afterwords. But to be fair, I dont think "I didnt see you" is a valid excuse. I feel that this is a prime example that the driver is not attentive enough and is a hazard to themselves and other road users. Saying that though, I'm always sympathetic to drivers that guenuinely make an error and appologise for it (as I hope they are with me when I stuff up on the road). The thing that really makes me see the red mist though are those countless occasions when I've stared a driver right in the eyes and they pull out anyway forcing me to brake. I think there's a select minority of drivers that expect cycles to give way to cars unconditionally. I wonder if they'd change their attitudes if they relised how vulnerable cyclists can be on the road. Afterall we're only wearing 10kg or so of bike not a tonne of car.

Porgy

I find myself in this sort of situation nearly everyday - and my approach to it varies according to my mood, and the behaviour of the other person(s).

The most satisfying is when I get an apology and I can go 'fair enough' - and it happens quite a lot.

Sometimes sorry just does not cut it.

the other person does something outrageous - cutting me up, pulling out without looking, or looking, seeing me, and pulling out anyweay, edge into my lane and pushing me out, etc. and then when I have the usual reaction - maybe an emergency stop - the adrenaline rush that goes with this - relief that I'm in one piece - and then anger - probably as a result of the rush I've just had. They try the lame - 'sorry mate'.

Now if I'm lying in the road - as I am sometimes - and I get sorry mate thrown at me - I usually say something along the lines of "that's all very well, but you still just ran me over" - or somesuch - but with more creative use of language.

Faced with a display of anger they get arsey too and storm off, tell me to f off, get back in their vehicle and drive off. I had a taxi driver give me a good kicking to add to my buckled wheel, on one notable occasion.

Now I've noticed from being a motorists that vehicle drivers are not averse to giving out advice on other people's driving - in quite colourful terms generally.

As a cyclist I've noticed very ill informed advice being aimed at me. I'm guessing most of the drivers that tell me to get to the side of the road - or to use the cycle lane / pavement - aren't cyclists themselves - at least not not the roads.

So surely they should have some self awareness - how would they feel if someone put them at risk by carrying out illegal or stupid maneuovre on the roads? Would it matter if they got an apology? Would the anger just dissipate immediately? I'm guessing it wouldn't, unless its they're kind of Zen practitioner.

I soemtimes try to point this out to them - and sometimes they listen.

I alos try not to get so angry myself - but if you get two or three of these incidents in succession it becomes increasingly difficult.

Hey - we're all human aren't we?