How do you guys keep your cool??

DiggingDeeper

Last week I came to screaming to a halt going sideways, eyes half shut, body flinching and waiting for the impact as some driver did a wild right hand turn right in front of me. I stopped, God knows how and he missed me, not through any ability on his behalf. As I stood there trembling with shock staring after him, him looking over his shoulder at me, the thought struck me, It's a dead end down there or at best slow to get out, I could probably catch the mother ........ I almost got hammering after him to go and beat the bejeezas out of him.

I could sense the stattionary traffic and people watching me........Deep breath, started pedalling and carried on home.

Got drunk and had a row with my Father, who I'd actually driven 250 miles the night before to pick up and bring home. The wrong person felt the brunt of my rage, but in reality what would have been achieved had I actually got to the driver. We have had 3 stabbings locally in the last 6 months - I could have been the 4th

Getting back to the OPs point - Rock All, dela with it sensibly and right is with you. Baet them senseless and your just part of the problem.

I have since patched it up with my Dad.

Cycling can be very hazardous - just make sure you do your best I guess.

Hope this helps

DD

Mithras

Here's my take on it...Why get physically involved in an altercation..pointless and you are very likely to be the one in trouble with the law.
Take somebodies wing mirror off and that is criminal damage...Doesn't matter what has happened before hand...Punch someone, it's not going down as self defence if you have chased them down the road for 2oo yards to the next set of lights.
You will get caught, because most of us use the same route at the same time of day every day. Most of us ride the same bike day in day out and and wear roughly the same clothing. Identification isn't going to be much of an issue.
If you really want to do something about it, report it to the Police. Find out who your local Beat manager is. use them as a single point of contact. I'm not saying report every little incident, however the important thing is to make a complaint, give as much inforation as possible, develop a relationship with the Beat manager and in the long term it will pay off. If you are lucky enough to find one that is onside with the cycling lifestyle then good things will happen. If you do get a good result, write to the Chief Constable, or Borough Commander of the force commending the officer. The Carrot is always better than the stick.
I'm working in Peterborough, so I will always be available via this forum to help. Or via my constabulary website.

Now sits back and waits to be flamed!

il_principe

Mithras wrote:

Now sits back and waits to be flamed!

No flaming here, seems like sound advice from our resident copper, cheers!

Tentacles

Quality advice indeed!

From my point of view (i don't seem to have to suffer the same level of insanity that some of you fine people have to deal with on a daily basis!) it's far better to try and shrug off those near misses and focus on not hitting the next near miss.

I'm a pretty angry person by nature so it doesnt take much from our mobile phone wielding- radio adjusting-now where did i put that burger-4x4 loving friends to get me in a right stink of a mood. But i had a bit of an epiphany the other day, mainly brought on by swearing at some chump that decided he could overtake before a traffic island. I got way too into my expletives to notice the parked car that i ever so nearly ramped into the back of!

So yeah, just be careful you don't get so wound up giving someone a bucket of carefully selected verbal that you end up in the middle of the next mess!

Porgy

Mithras wrote:

Here's my take on it...Why get physically involved in an altercation..pointless and you are very likely to be the one in trouble with the law.
Take somebodies wing mirror off and that is criminal damage...Doesn't matter what has happened before hand...Punch someone, it's not going down as self defence if you have chased them down the road for 2oo yards to the next set of lights.
You will get caught, because most of us use the same route at the same time of day every day. Most of us ride the same bike day in day out and and wear roughly the same clothing. Identification isn't going to be much of an issue.
If you really want to do something about it, report it to the Police. Find out who your local Beat manager is. use them as a single point of contact. I'm not saying report every little incident, however the important thing is to make a complaint, give as much inforation as possible, develop a relationship with the Beat manager and in the long term it will pay off. If you are lucky enough to find one that is onside with the cycling lifestyle then good things will happen. If you do get a good result, write to the Chief Constable, or Borough Commander of the force commending the officer. The Carrot is always better than the stick.
I'm working in Peterborough, so I will always be available via this forum to help. Or via my constabulary website.

Now sits back and waits to be flamed!

Probably sound advice anywhere but South London. To be honest the attitude of the police is likely to wind me up more than the actual incident i'm trying to report.

Also - I usually find the phone number almost impossible to get through to, and a two hour wait in the police station.

It's easier just to take these incidents in their stride. If anything really bad happens i'll phone 999 - or someone else will which is what happend when I got really smashed up a few years ago.