This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Sounds a total dick.

Don't touch/hit/caress/spit traffic though.
What's the end plan?

Don't touch/hit/caress/spit traffic though.
What's the end plan?

Not to get splatted. I've not done it often but most times it's been blatantly obvious afterwards they haven't been paying attention and would have carried on drifting over until I was under the wheels.

Brakes?

Thing is, hitting a car to jump the driver to attention is gonna make the car react quickly and without predictable thought.
The driver might also think he has actually hit you.
Defensive anxious road users tend to not be grateful nothing actually happened but extremely angry they got a wee scare.
Like when peds step out.
It's not "glad I didn't hit them" it's "you funking cunt look where you're fucking going" which is dumb af really.

Again, nothing excuses his behaviour during or after. Just about picking the right battles really :)

Had a veeeerrry similar experience to doug1e on the Queensbridge Road a while back, met @max inside the Dalston shopping centre as I’d ended up going in the back entrance there trying to lose this guy, who was following me while doing really scary starsky & hutch type driving. Max will remember I was a gibbering wreck when I turned up.

The plan is to let them know I’m there and make them move over? If you’ve got centimetres between you and the curb and the same between you and the path of the car, with a gap that’s rapidly decreasing; brakes are only going to help if you stop on the spot in a perfectly straight line and they continue on at the same speed in the same trajectory. I wasn’t just merrily cycling along and felt like letting them know they’re being unaware, it’s ‘woah you’re about to drive into me’. If it seems clear that they haven’t seen you, and inevitable that they are about to drive into you, do you really just brake and hope that they don’t hit you? to save them the fright or a bad reaction. Obviously it wasn’t a good outcome regardless.

Hoping that whoever is behind me also emergency stops and you stop quick enough to avoid being squished by the vehicle alongside you is also risky.

At least when drivers think they might have hit you they tend to steer away from the sudden bang.

Other reaction of course is the studiously ignore your very existence in the hope everyone will forget they were staring at their phone a second ago.

Surely when you brake they just go past?

Like in every escape scene from the 70s.

Then you can flip the bird as you both get on with your day.

If they jerk to the right,probably a bit too heavy, they're gonna jerk back to the left otherwise they wouldn't close pass and just cross the line?
Yes some people do it on purpose, dougs lout may well have done, I just wouldnt escalate by whacking a car and not expecting summat to happen back to me.
Spesh a roid head in his German.

do you really just brake and hope...

Yes.

Avoiding a collision by hitting/colliding has a low success rate in my experience.

Through rigorous scientific study (one subject) I have determined that by far the most dangerous part of my journey is the mile between home and the Waterlink Way. Close passes, ignoring my signals, squeezing me at pinch points, ignoring right of way at roundabouts, pulling out without looking. A mile of pure joy. Not sure what it is that makes it different to the rest of London but I'm putting it down to the 'Kent' factor.

Yesterday afternoon seemed a bit more hectic than usual… did anyone see the pedal van wedge between the bollards on Blackfriars bridge? Went past the the rider was looking rather embarrassed while a group of pissed up city boys filmed and laughed… the cab was proper stuck by the looks of it!

Also, what looked like multiple sting operations by undercover plod along q1 near the den to Deptford? Car had crashed into the bollards just before the south Bermondsey station bridge! Hope no one was cycling through at the time…

Also a police car completely smashed up in a crash with a civilian car taking down a traffic light in the middle of Camberwell yesterday evening

!

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That's the one!

I wonder if it was going through a red with the sirens on and someone just didn't see/hear it.
Must happen all the time

I actually asked a guy who was a traffic cop this once and he said that they are trained so highly that this rarely happens (police car getting in traffic accident)... I hope they're not all as overly confident as he was.

he said that they are trained so highly that this rarely happens

Trafpol are so fucking up themselves it's unreal.

Have posted this separately in MTB thread (don't ask) but I thought it was worth posting here too.

Mullet bike spotted on my commute yesterday between Oval and Toulouse Lautrec section of CS7

https://youtu.be/bsXuTcKpk4Q

Is it stupid to consider the 25mile (round trip) commute tomorrow? I’ve been told our team can work from home, but my job requires me being on site for most of the time and I’m really not sure how much work I’ll get done from home.

I couldn't do it. My commute is ~28 miles round trip. Leaving home at 05:30 was fine.
Leaving work at 15:00 was utter murder - and that wasn't in temperatures as high as those forecast for the next couple of days.

Mines about 27/28 miles and I'll be doing it this week COVID test permitting. I expect it to be unpleasant but bearable. I'll take my time, take 2 bottles of water

similar distance for me. we've been told we can WFH Mon + Tues as our office is pretty unbearable when it's hot. (old mill building, no air con)
I think I'll start early / finish early / work in my pants.

Just dress appropriately, drench yourself in suncream and drink loads of water. Should be alright! I'll be commuting by bike the next couple of days, the alternative is the overground which would be an actual nightmare.

When did people start doing such monster commutes?

eBikes or gravel adventure?

Or brakless track fixed?

I'll probably be heading in on Tuesday, 9 miles each way.

Fixed on track gearing, just to avoid disappointing @mashton

Chef's Kiss

doug1e your story is terrifying.. i have met idiot car drivers you described, the rage, the unreasonable behaviour, the threats.. I hope you are okay..

for me, grateful for a breeze / headwind this morning east / west.. bar a couple of selfish road users, 'twas very pleasant.. however this evening will be another matter.. especially in my local area where boy racers will be out in numbers zooming down one way street despite the speed bumps

which means I either tolerate the heat from west / east at 6pm, or i tolerate the beef from 8pm..