This morning's commute and other commuting stories

School's back!

Defo felt like summer was over this morning...
Roads were twice as busy today as they have been for the last 2/3 weeks.

Back to the usual picking through traffic all the way to work.
No more segment PBs for another year.

Also saw a cyclist get shouted at for using her phone while riding her bike, by a white van driver who was also using his phone.
Yup. A driver, turning left across a cycle lane while on the phone shouted at a cyclist that she shouldn't be using her phone.

It's a new one on me.

Lovely.

It can't just be school that causes the masses increase in traffic can it? It's people returning from holidays and shit, right? Fucking penises, clogging up the roads. At least the traffic speeds are back to 3mph now..

got passed at a pinch point with about three inches to spare by a #253 on Eversholt street yesterday. Called the driver out in a... robust fashion as i overtook him while he waited at a bus stop. driver then caught up and passed me with about an inch to 'teach me a lesson' - he then leaned out of his drivers window to start calling me RUDE NAMES! unfortunately for him he started his little shit-fit right across the road from plod who was parked there. Plod proceeds to tell the bus driver he should watch what he says on account of being a 'professional driver'. I tell plod about the punishment passes, he says 'i didn't see anything so there's nothing to be done about it'.

/jackiechan.gif

two useless cunts who shouldn't be on the roads if they can't be arsed to do their job properly for the price of one.

did anybody else see the jackiechan meme in their minds eye? did my brain just get trolled?

i cant stop thinking about that damn meme now

jobdone.gif

Yep, those are the roads in question. Even when I got onto the superhighway on embankment, a generally proficient seeming cyclists tried his best to fall off in front of me when moving off at the northern Vauxhall Bridge junction. How hard is it to wait until you've definitely clipped in before trying to give it full beans? His foot slipped off the pedal, face nearly chinned his stem, cue mega wobble and evasive action from the commuting peloton. Relieved to reach the office unscathed and ready for this evening's adventure home.

What's a "Punishment Pass"?

Driver overtakes you with bare minimum of space, threatening your safety and stability, because of some perceived misbehaviour of yours on the road (e.g. not riding in the gutter). Or just because you're a cyclist on the road.

One driver did that to me passing so close that his wing mirror slapped my arse.

Oh, you know what it is. You just didn't know what it's called.

Where a road user passes another unsafely close, in order to 'teach them a lesson' or 'make them more careful in future' or some crap like that. Basically, threatening behaviour.

Bruce got there first!

vehicular cuntitude.

Had a weird one today was cycling along the thornton heath/west croydon bit of my commute when I come up on a huge towering truck parked in the cycle lane by a building site entrance, slow to a stop a visible distance ahead not blocking the entrance as I figure it's turning in or crossing traffic to drive away or going to do something shitty like a zillion point turn. It then creeps forward at me and I get ready to jump out the way to have it stop after 3m or so ahead across the enrrance and driver gets out of cab like I wasn't even there. Pull around it as I know it won't move to see it was a tow truck for a bus.

First day of school term.

One driver did that to me passing so close that his wing mirror slapped my arse.

Is that not rites of passage being a cyclist.

No

it is, in the same way that being slapped on the arse by your boss is rites of passage for being a woman with a job.

@greenhell it's a cyclist and a motorist not 2 cyclists

So on the one hand we have somebody with much more power and protection than the other and the ability to crush their victim, zero awareness that their behaviour is wrong, convinced of their own superiority. And on the other...

Perhaps you should rethink.

@itsbruce if you approached them "parked" facing you on a red route and all sorts how far before you stop? Or should I just have went full pelt past and hope for the best?

Was more than a cars length between us getting near a bus length essentially the whole site entrance and a little more, they just made no indication before moving.

It's sad but my almost daily observations of HGVs doing dumbness is a high/low point of my commute. I remember recently seeing a flatbed truck driver eating a mc flurry with both hands and before thinking "that's dangerous" came "bit cold for ice cream".

Seems to be some talking at cross purposes, here. greenhell was commenting on Canon´s reply to my comment on the Punishment pass question. So I assumed you were replying to that. Now it seems you either misread him (and thought he was replying to your earlier issue) or you are replying to some other message which we cannot see here.

Need to keep their internal body temperature down. Rage = heat.

And now croft is replying to me when I think he meant to reply to you, @clockwise. Something odd happening on this thread?