This morning's commute and other commuting stories

cuntery is definitely on the rise

That would seem to be a very accurate assessment!

Yeah - rules of the road definitely optional in London these days.

Not just there, in Belfast it's bedlam as well lately. Red lights are purely advisory, cyclists/peds are in each other's way due to shared paths which everybody seems to see as THEIR path and the state of the driving is set to shambles in rush hour.

Schools are closed, which means very light traffic. Borrowed The Manfriend's Brompton, much fun! 3rd gear is a little too heavy though for me, so zoomed through on 2.

I walked past a huge traffic queue on the kerb, took the ped green and then put myself on the green cycle ASL box, I couldn't cycle through the gap in the queue either as it was properly blocked. Felt a little naughty...though technically I don't think I broke any rules.

CrimeCyclists Friday :)

Has this one been posted? Searched and it didnt come up. Not sure who is more shaken, the driver or the cyclist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHvIhC4rcXA

Was part of my commute for years, that. Have to say, I wouldn't have placed myself where he did at the junction, relative to the cab, if I could have avoided it. If I had no choice but to be there, I wouldn't have handled it like he did. He's in the blind spot at the start and never leaves it, but drifts to the right as if the lorry isn't there. But then he only seems to care about racing the other cyclists.

The guy with the camera can only offer the justification that many cyclists are dicks and the driver should now that.

Blind spot my arse.

Five people well ahead of the truck, nowhere near a blind spot and the truck has Category 5 mirrors that show exactly what's nearside. The driver knew perfectly well they were there, went for a stupid, dangerous overtake through a junction and caused a collision. I could ride into drivers in the wrong lane every day, I don't do it cos I'm not a big baby rage-filled tosser out to prove a point. Silly cycling, sociopathic driving.

Exactly. The driver knew there were cyclists to his left at the junction - he even tells the rider where that rider had come from. No one would dispute that those riders made bad choices but the driver's action was a punishment pass - in an HGV. You drive (and ride) to the conditions that exist, not as they should be or you want them to be.

That video was posted on a "bad drivers" NI feed. It's pretty stupid of the cyclists (though if you don't know that junction, it's quite possible you didn't realize it was left-turn only cos you missed the arrow) but as lorries/cars kill, I always think a driver needs to be more careful.

Today was brought to me by pedestrian walking out when it went green for me/motorists...a random guy whacking a lamppost and then smashing a half broken bottle into tiny bits (which no doubt will find their way into my tyre on the way back...) and a kerb cycling RJL who then goes on the road, kerb hogs, then turns left on red...with a cyclist/motorist coming from the right (and it is a narrow road with no cycle lane, nowhere to go job)

Happy Monday!!!! :)

cyclist/motorist

You mean a motorcyclist?

Shouted at a cabbie for jumping a red on my way in this morning (it was slightly understandable, there was a clusterfuck in the hatchings of junction and he was already over the line when he had green, but then kept going when it was clear despite him now being red and me green) and much to my surprise he apologised profusely.

Well that's something I'm still to see! Generally taxis terrify me more so than lorries; nothing instills an acute wariness and desire for eyes in the back of my head than the sound of a taxi out of my view.

Or worse when you don't hear them creep up and end up doing a shoulder check shudder because one is coasting a metre behind your back wheel at close to 20mph

I was obviously in the wrong on Friday evening as I shouted as the approaching jogger in the busy cycle lane on Southwark Bridge that he must have been "fucking joking", otherwise why else would he try to push me off my bike as I passed him? Suppose I was also in the wrong in calling him a "cunt", but hey, fuck him.

I mean a cyclists followed by a motorist...so the cyclist could really not go anywhere :)

I read a post down that you got apologies from a taxi driver... :)
Win

I see that over in Belfast too, it's technically jogging on the road, isn't it?

Probably, and usually it doesn't bother me, but this particular cycle lane is on the few sections of Cycle Superhighway that is separated from the road by low wall, leaving cyclists with little maneuvering room in the event of anything disruptive happening in the lane (ie twat joggers confusing it for a running track).

He was a runner, so 1/3 of the way to being a triathlete, so obviously a cunt.

You are a cyclist...

Perhaps this line of argument doesn't work

Well I'm definitely one, but in the right way.

On here I wonder?

Highbury corner this am.
Baby blue Planet X fixie.
Loud music playing on speaker
Chainset tat on right calf with a forgettable slogan.

I would be interested to see some traffic stats on when you get nice weather like this, I'm sure the large number of cyclists is messing with the flow. Going past Liverpool street in the morning you end up going from complete congestion to eerie quiet if you manage to get ahead of pack.

Also why does it smell like horse shit on Bishopsgate?

I noticed the cabby didn't have the black and orange 'C.U.N.T'* badge on his dashboard so this might explain his lack of dickheadishness.

(*LTDA)

Rather strange commute this morning.. An old lady in a Volvo was driving down the segregated cycling lane in Hyde Park opposite the army barracks... I would've stopped to take a photo but several people were already on it. What was most worrying/confusing was how she even managed to get on the path!?

Nice ride home until some prick decided he was not going to wait at the lights on the North-South Cycle Highway at Stamford Street. We were all waiting to proceed south towards Southwark station and just as the lights go green some bellend on a fixie goes into the oncoming lane at high speed (he's obviously timed it just right) in the hope to overtake the cluster of cyclists just starting to move, and then nip in. However there are people stopping in the right side of our lane as they need to turn right, and there is oncoming cyclists etc. This mouth breather was just over the line when he does what I assume is a 'fixie skid', which I have to say makes him stop impressively quickly; and he then cuts across all the forward moving cyclists as he wants to go left down Southwark St. This causes all the cyclists that are just getting up to momentum to have to quickly make way/stop/dismount etc. I just can't fathom some cyclists' selfishness and impatience to do things like that; or why do that to fellow cyclists?

Did it look cool tho?