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Back on topic. I had one this morning. Was ascending Lippitts Hill towards High Beech in Epping. There's a little break half way where you descend briefly and then take a sharp left joining Church Rd. I was trying to hold some momentum and completely mis judged the angle of the bend. I took it like a total dick and drifted hard to the outside of the turn, only to be confronted by a car coming the other way. All I could do was point at the verge to make it clear to the driver that I would only be heading to his left and commit to a crash. Luckily for me, they slammed the anchors on and evaded me.
What a total prick I am. Nearly died in Essex and it would have been nobodies fault but my own.
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Why is it that the cyclist gets done for manslaughter whereas drivers who accidentally kill cyclists get away with a fine?
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Because there's a difference between negligence and assault.
Besides:
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/texting-driver-jailed-for-cyclists-death-14742/
http://blog.pannone.com/personal-injury-listing/personal-injury-blog/driver-jailed-for-death-of-racing-cyclist-major-gareth-rhys-evans
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/driver-jailed-for-death-of-cyclist-1.521100
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-16549133-bus-driver-jailed-for-killing-cyclist.do
http://www.irwinmitchell.com/news/Pages/Driver-Jailed-Over-Cyclist-Death.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/8332527.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11484475They do get jailed.
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No I get that. But manslaughter's fairly straight forward isn't it. No one is saying that the guy intended to kill the admittedly negligent motorist, but the result of his road rage based attack was that the guy lost his life. It's a shit situation all round but if I punch someone and they die, it's my bad.
Indeed. It's an established principle in law that one takes one's victim as one finds them. If they happen to be vulnerable in a way you or to a degree you don't expect, tough (on them and you). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
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Last week on a busy shopping street. I was late for a meeting and powering along at a really healthy speed with a bus behind me. Ahead of me I see a youngish couple step out from behind a parked car without looking, consider shouting, but it's not a close call as I can see they'll be almost over by the time I reach them so leave it. As I get nearer, their child runs out after them, causing me to pretty much fill my pants, but in that split second I am able to swerve left and see that I will miss him. At this point (time has seriously slowed down) yet ANOTHER child runs out, and this one is right under my wheels. I'm already fully locked up and swerving like mad from the first child, and I see my front wheel come literally a couple of centimetres from running over the kid's leg. At the speed I was doing I'm quite sure I could have killed the kid, he was only about 5. When I stopped (managed to stay on), I made sure everything was OK with the kid. Parents seemed pretty pissed, but what parent in their right mind walks out from behind parked cars into traffic and allows their tiny kids to just run after them. Absolutely incredible.
The last ever time I didn't wear a helmet - Coming down a large hill in Southampton, at the bottom I'm doing at least 30, nothing on either side of the road and, stupidly I know, I took my hands off the bars for that "I'm flying" feeling. Not more than 5 seconds later, my front wheel decides to buckle spectacularly, immediately throwing me over the bars. Two things for which I am immensely grateful, firstly that I had only that morning taken off the clips and straps from my pedals as they were getting really tatty, and second I was wearing a very, very heavy coat that saved me any road rash or injury other than bruising. Knowing a couple of guys who have been paralysed in similar incidents, I am so, so thankful I was OK. Rolled an impressive distance along the road, but nothing there to run me over and no head injuries.
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On the subject of road rage from big bald men:
Years ago I was in a car with a mate driving along some little country lanes in rural Worcestershire. We come up behind an old white Range Rover and he's only doing about 40 in the 60, so as there's a decent gap, my mate decides to overtake. Just as we are overhauling him, he floors it, and we have some serious brown trouser time as my mate labours to get past him (with hindsight not sure why he didn't drop back, guess he'd committed) and gets into the gap before the next bend with precious little space to spare. Anyway this guy now rides right on our back bumper and is clearly pissed. We get to a big roundabout and we're in the right lane. We move onto the inside of the roundabout, and as we do, he guns it past us and screeches to a halt with his car diagonally blocking us in against the roundabout. He instantly gets out of the car and comes over, my mate locks the car, big red-faced bald man screams at my mate and punches the wing mirror clean off. My mate panics and reverses back without checking, coming inches from knocking off a guy on a moped coming round this sorry scene in the middle of the roundabout. We gun off and leave him standing in the middle of a roundabout, his car at a 45 degree angle to the road and our wing mirror lying on the tarmac. Absolutely insane behaviour, and all for having the cheek to do a perfectly legit overtake.
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road rage from big bald men...right on our back bumper and clearly pissed... screeches to a halt with his car diagonally blocking us in against the roundabout... big red-faced bald man screams at my mate and punches the wing mirror clean off... all for having the cheek to do a perfectly legit overtake.
What the fuck?! This is just scary. Also, I've seen some weird British road rage cases on Youtube, is driving there really so bad or sth? I don't think Brits are so confrontational as a rule, are you?
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Coming down a high street with a sub set of lights before hitting the main crossroad lights 50yds ahead (NB: no left turn anywhere along this stretch of road at all, at fucking all). I usually proceed with caution at the first set of lights if there aren't any peds crossing or buses filtering in to wait at the second set. Today I waited. First set of lights go green, I move off approaching the second set on the LHS to filter passed the still stationary back runners at the by now green lights. Drawing level with the lead car I notice him encroaching upon my space in the cycle lane to the point whereby I go to bang his passenger side window, until it dawns on me he's about to cut across me and perform an illegal left turn. Adrenalin kicks in, time slows, I retract my fist, grab hold of the bars with two hands again, anchor the brakes and prepare for the worst. I then find myself being launched over the passenger side of his bonnet, bike up in the air still clipped in, bike releases and cartwheels at pace along the junction, I tumble and roll to a crumpled heap 15yds ahead of the impact, 10yds behind my poor steed now parked in the middle of a bus stop. Split second situation assessment, limbs intact, bike somewhere over there, I warily rise up onto my bruised and road rashed mortal frame, lock eyes with the driver and unleash such an un-Godly torrent of curses, venom, pure hatred bile as I storm towards his vehicle that the world seemed to disappear into merely me and my rage and him and his beady eyes sat behind the windshield of a vehicle about to turn into a fully flowing pedestrian crossing (ie: plenty of witnesses). He locks down his vehicle and struggles to find a gear as my lungs roar flames of hatred at the c*nt, with me drawing level he pulls off, thankfully swerving passed my poor bike as he jumps jumps a ped crossing and a subsequent red light.
Number plate is now in Police hands , driver being pursued for Dw/oDC&A, and if he doesn't present himself at a Police station by 1400hrs 07/06/11: leaving the scene of an accident. The junction is littered with CCTV. This f*cker's going down, and I need some new bar tape.
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I was out cycling in the Lakes last year and doing a fair clip down a hill at about 30 or so I imagine. Rounded a bend/dip to see a land rover coming and pretty much blocking the whole country lane. Slammed on the brakes (disks) and instantly locked up so had to ease them off again and somehow careered from one side of the road to the other before finding the foot or so of gap between the land rover and the dry stone wall and flew through it. No idea how I managed that.
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Driving past the White Horse in Parsons Green towards the New Kings Road in my XJ6 normally I would hammer it but being a Saturday I cruised at 20 mph...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVsTCmMfRLE&feature=related"]no
way jose! - YouTube[/ame]:D
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Biggest moment was one I don't remember - riding home with a mate one night, on a cyclepath, then woke up in a bright white room, unable to move. Crapping myself. Is this what death is like? I thought... Why is my wife here?
Turns out I'd hit the stump of a bollard which I hadn't seen as the streetlight was out and bike lights aint that good. Clipped in as well, so that hadn't helped.
The room was the xray theatre of Milton Keynes general hospital and my wife was there because my mate had rung her whilst waiting for the ambulance and I couldn't move because I was on a spine board with head blocks
Knackered my shoes and shirt, but the bike was fine - Halfords build quality :)
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driver being pursued for Dw/oDC&A, and if he doesn't present himself at a Police station by 1400hrs 07/06/11: leaving the scene of an accident. The junction is littered with CCTV. This f*cker's going down, and I need some new bar tape.
Did he turn up ?
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Had a driver do the speed up to overtake to then sharply turn into a side street right in front of you thing the other day, whilst i was going at a fair rate along Hammersmith road.
Technically if they're in front of me and you go into the back/side of them, am i at fault, even if they perform their manoeuvre in a crazy way? -
What the fuck?! This is just scary. Also, I've seen some weird British road rage cases on Youtube, is driving there really so bad or sth? I don't think Brits are so confrontational as a rule, are you?
Depressingly common. When I was 17 I once overtook what I later discovered to be a big angry bald man in a Toyota MR2 and he followed me for almost half an hour. At first I thought it was coincidence, so I took some unusual turns down quiet streets and he kept following, and I started feeling a little bit sick. I kept going round and round the centre of town trying to lose him, and only finally got rid of him at some lights when I just got through a late amber and there was a police car opposite so he didn't dare jump the red. I had to pull over for a bit to calm down I was shaking so much.
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Had a pretty big one this afternoon. Just coming to the end of my ride, decided to put the power down coming back into town, came up on some slower traffic round a bend. Went to pull a skid, left foot pops out of the pedal, do a massive wobble nearly going down into oncoming traffic, and finally manage to save it sitting on the top tube with right foot still spinning around on the pedals, left leg out at 45 degrees. Still had a fair bit of speed going so I coasted into my road and all the way to my drive in the same position.
Maybe I need some new cleats!
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About
"Oh Shit" moments...
Posted by
@Sparky
^ that's my general feeling, I understand the raw frustration (dooring can seriously maim people) at people who dont appear to give a shit about others, but would accept responsibility for my actions.
That's why a good burst of verbal abuse is always better in these circumstances