The Green Cross Code

You can also be pissed as a fart and drive in Barbados ;o))

and I also remember a mate of my brother in laws getting done in Poland whilst pushing a bike when he was drunk, he lost his driving licence for that one

Yep, that's what I'm talking about :-/ That's why it was worth to have the cyclist card, so they don't take away your driving licence.
My mum used to be on one of those community courts and poor dumb alcoholic farmers were fined for drunken cycling on a daily basis.

Speaking of the green cross code, I hit a pedestrian on Friday afternoon. He stepped out in front of a car leaving me with no time to attempt to stop. As a result I went flying over the handlebars and hit the deck, I'm not injured and neither is he, but the collision buckled my front wheel (has been fixed) and bent the fork slightly.
The guy was pretty sound and has offered to pay for the damage to the wheel but I'm not going to pursue the damage to the fork as I intend to replace my frame and fork as soon as I can get some cash together.
This is an all too common occurrence, for the most part cars etc are predicable in their movements on the road, but pedestrians are a nightmare. I have been forced into far too many compromising situations as a result of pedestrians stepping out in front of me.

@ East End Images

someone in Poland found a drunk farmer (totally pissed up) on a county lane bundled him and his bike in to the back of a transit and dropped him off 100km later. I wonder what his thought where when he woke up sober ;p

Speaking of the green cross code, I hit a pedestrian on Friday afternoon. He stepped out in front of a car leaving me with no time to attempt to stop.

Similar happened to me, woman stepped out between two buses in traffic about a meter in front of me, there was no way I could've stopped but panic braked and found myself on the floor with concussion. Didn't get her name as the bike was undamaged.... regret that now, I later had a seizure (as a result of concussion) which meant I had to surrender my licence for a year, I worked for a carclub at the time and therefore ended up sacrificing a lot of work until they could find me another position. It put me in a bad place financially and for that, despite not liking 'litigation culture' on the whole, I would've taken the idiot to court.

Yes, pedestrians are suicidal and there are times when you simply can't avoid hitting them.
But most of the time you need to ride like one is going to step out from behind a van at any moment. I remember Wookie (of Cyclone and Scream fame) not being impressed by how upset I was that peds kept walking out in front of me. I was pretty mad when he told me that it was my fault for not riding like I could hit one at any second, but after I mellowed out and took his advice I've only ever run into them when they ran into me (happened twice, that)

charlie says we should have the prodigy make a song about me

meeeeeoooooowwww

best ever
the way charlies mouth moved when he talked ~~~~~

@ citygent (don't know how to quote)

That is terrible, I hope you have fully recovered! Peds are a nightmare, I try to be careful especially in heavy traffic but when the unavoidable happens you are invariably going to make a mess of yourself/bike/them.

Another thing to watch out for is bus drivers letting people out of buses well before the stop. I had a rather large man literally jump into me on shaftesbury avenue one day. It did make for a pretty entertaining crash. It wasn't really his fault but the bus driver's, so I gave him a piece of my mind!

Yes, pedestrians are suicidal and there are times when you simply can't avoid hitting them.
But most of the time you need to ride like one is going to step out from behind a van at any moment. I remember Wookie (of Cyclone and Scream fame) not being impressed by how upset I was that peds kept walking out in front of me. I was pretty mad when he told me that it was my fault for not riding like I could hit one at any second, but after I mellowed out and took his advice I've only ever run into them when they ran into me (happened twice, that)

Yep, it was a pretty nasty accident but it has certainly stopped me racing around, especially where there are parked cars, or dense traffic close to crossings. Use accidents to make you a safer rider!

Citygent makes a fair point. I've never actually had a kid jump out in front of the bike....unless there was an incredibly irresponsible woman pushing said kid in a pushchair.

Perhaps mothering proficieny classes, involving looking BOTH ways before throwing your most precious posession into the street. I usually just slow up, take a wide arc, make eye contact, shake the head and say "come on now love, there's a baby in there. Look both ways for the little 'un's sake"...as patronising as poss.

In other countries if you attempt to cross the road on the red light, you are killed dead and fined on top of that.

I'm in Vienna this week, and I'm told there's a big fine for walking when there's a red man. No one does.

I even felt like a bit of a dick earlier when I waited for the cars to stop at the red light and started absent-mindedly walking out across the road in anticipation of the green man. No one else did, they just waited patiently for an extra few seconds and secretly tutted at me in their heads while they stared with their icy glares.

i hit a ped today.
brixton high street, she stepped straight out in front of a bus.
slammed on the anchors, pulled the biggest endo scrapping myself up the side of the bus and only just hit her.
are people retarded?
all happened in front of a copper, brilliant!
after checking i was OK the peeler shouted at the ped to watch where she was going.
will be even more careful in the future mind.
good to know the brand new front tyre and brake pads are up to emergency stops.

Almost hit one myself this morning, ended up pulling a stopie, which was entertaining given how low the front of my bike is. Pedestrian ran out from behind a large vehicle to my right, I.e they were headed to the pavement, crossing the road dangerously when the traffic lights were 15 metres down the road.