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@hats
Yesterday evening Oz and I had a bit of an altercation with a lorry driver – heading east on the south circular, coming through Wandsworth and giving ourselves quite a lot of space on the turn up East Hill, a Co-op lorry decides that we’re in the way and first drives super close to Oz’s wheel, then swings in front of me as fast as he can, leaving me with that scary ever-diminishing-road-oh-my-god-the-side-of-that-lorry-is-inches-from-my-face feeling. At the next lights I stop next to the lorry and have the following exchange:
Me: Dude, you need to give cyclists a bit more space than that!
Dickface lorry driver: Fuck off! You’re all fucking mental!
Me: What? You need to drive more considerately.
DFL: Fuck you! You shouldn’t be in the road, fuck off! Fuck off and die.
Me: …
DFL: You should be wearing a helmet anyway
Me: That’s irrelevant. You really need to be more careful.
DFL: (revving his lorry) Fuck you!! Did you hear me, FUCK OFF!
Me: You know I have your licence plate, right? I am going to report you.
DFL: Fuck you!
Although he had quite a limited vocabulary, it still wasn’t particularly pleasant and I felt a bit shaken up by it. All the way home I was wondering what the hell makes people act like that. If he hadn’t seen us (which would be difficult to do, given that we were riding in front of him, in primary, in ALL THE BRIGHT COLOURS) then a “sorry” might have been nice. And if he had seen us, and drove like that anyway, then… I don’t know, is that sociopathic? Is it acceptable that people can drive massive lumps of metal around, scaring the shit out of other road users. I guess he was pissed off, it was a sunny Sunday and he was sat in a hot lorry. Yeah, and that makes it okay to shout abuse at people…
This morning I called the Co-op Head Office and made an official complaint, and got an apology and a promise that this will be thoroughly investigated. I hope he gets in serious shit. And then I hope he gets haemorrhoids.