• I'm surprised. Has your perception really changed so much since going to Spain?

    I have never let bad driving affect my love of cycling, but I've done nearly 20 years of traffic activism and I understand the reasons. I can totally see how it's frustrating for many people. I haven't cycled in Spain, but I enjoy cycling here far more than in Germany.

    The main issues concerning driving in this country are caused by poor legislation governing road traffic (loopholes, difficulty of securing convictions, etc.) and the almost complete lack of enforcement.

    Spatial planning is an important factor; the fact that infrastructure (by which I refer to shops, workplaces, etc.) is poorly distributed, almost non-existent in some areas, so that it causes a very high need to travel, largely to subsidise businesses trying to save costs by operating from very few large(r) sites and passing the costs on to people's fuel consumption, itself artificially subsidised by artificially suppressed fuel prices. This is obviously related to poor public transport in many areas, but even better public transport wouldn't address the spatial issues that are the underlying problem.

    As for being facetious, well, there's probably a serious core to that. As per the link I posted, older drivers are a lot less likely to be involved in crashes than younger, more impetuous, probably less experienced drivers, so I wouldn't worry about them as much. It's still without question that many people drive who shouldn't, for all sorts of reasons.

  • Has your perception really changed so much since going to Spain?

    I came back here and immediately questioned why I stayed in London. I can work from anywhere so why, when I have the choice, do I live in a place full of pricks (the drivers, not you lot)? Maybe the writing was already on the wall when I'd finally caved and bought cameras for the bike because of all the negative interactions on my commute. Maybe getting sent to hospital with the rear-ender sealed the deal. What I do know is I have more bad (malicious and stupid) driving in a 30-40min than I see in 2 weeks looping Spain. It's also why I started looking at gravel options and why I like riding 200k - because more of the ride is in the countryside where there's fewer impatient knobheads to deal with.

    Anyway, I was still in a bad mood our Sat ride after another idiot driver incident so probably a bit more ranty than usual. Maybe I've just got "to old for this shit".

  • So to summarise: next time I should get the fuck up off the floor, channel my inner peace loving hippy vibes,roundhouse kick that old woman in the face (because I wouldn't want to be ageist as everyone deserves a good kicking every now and then) then demand her insurance details so I can sue her for all her worth?

    Fighting words, I like it.

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