For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Waveflyer
#1605088
johnm wrote:I don't get this "get out of my way" attitude.

Out here we see runners and walkers, singly and in groups, cyclists, singly and in groups, "horsists" even the occasional animals. Added to that are assorted seasonal agricultural machines. If we come across same we slow down, get out of the way, wait until it's safe to pass, or whatever it's never more than a few minutes. That's life in the country, what's the problem???

You left out abnormal indivisible loads!! What did we do wrong? :D
Flyin'Dutch', Nick, johnm liked this
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By matthew_w100
#1605094
TopCat wrote:But if I were to make a mistake and inadvertently hold him up for a few seconds, I wonder if I'd be on the receiving end of the sort of abuse and rage that seems endemic these days. And on two wheels, I'm a lot more vulnerable.

I can assure you that you absolutely wouldn't! I am a model of tolerance when actually on the road - I may seethe inwardly but I try not to let it show. And I wouldn't even seethe if the holdup wasn't clearly deliberate. "I could have let you past but I have chosen not to" is the only thing that really gets to me. And I genuinely do not know where the horn button on my car is.

But I don't think I'm any different to 90% of drivers. Or cyclists, come to that. But not horsists.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1605102
matthew_w100 wrote:
TopCat wrote:But if I were to make a mistake and inadvertently hold him up for a few seconds, I wonder if I'd be on the receiving end of the sort of abuse and rage that seems endemic these days. And on two wheels, I'm a lot more vulnerable.

I can assure you that you absolutely wouldn't! I am a model of tolerance when actually on the road

Phew! :D

I hang out on a cycling forum too, and the lycra-and-clicky-shoes coefficient there is positively stratospheric. But for the most part, people there would be pretty appalled at the club cyclists that think abuse at drivers is ok. The vast majority of course are drivers too, and want to live and let live.

There is undoubtedly a herd mentality about club rides - I went on a couple shortly after taking up cycling and I didn't much like it. Ironically I've been carved up several times by a swarm of high-speed cyclists, and being Captain Slow myself, I've been overtaken many times with a lot less clearance than I'd usually expect from cars.

Part of the problem is that cycling has got hugely more popular since the 2012 Olympics, and there are a lot of inexperienced riders, and a lot of club rides that haven't really got themselves organised into small enough groups.

There is an asymmetry, though. When a driver gets angry at a cyclist, it's usually because of a brief (albeit, in fairness, not necessarily infrequent) inconvenience. When a cyclist gets angry at a driver, it's often because of an actual risk to life.
Paultheparaglider liked this
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By Jim Jones
#1605109
My anger at cyclists is due to their stupidity that required me to take action to preserve their life. It’s rare I express it, mostly silent fuming, not good for my health but I’m ok with the sacrifice...
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1605118
Jim Jones wrote:My anger at cyclists is due to their stupidity that required me to take action to preserve their life.

There's much too much anger generally, these days.
kanga liked this
#1605133
Very true, Top Cat. Road rage is definitely on the increase, and it is virtually always counterproductive. We have to find a way as a society to break the cycle (pun intended), and that won't happen if we all collectively carry on as we are now.
Nick liked this
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By peter272
#1605155
When a driver gets angry at a cyclist, it's usually because of a brief (albeit, in fairness, not necessarily infrequent) inconvenience.


..and not always that brief. Down our way, along the long and windy country roads that seem to attract the 'peletons' of super-aggressive cyclists, we have never seen them even consider:

a) pulling over for 5 minutes to let 2 miles of traffic pass
b) use the cycle lanes put in at great expense
c) consider using an alternative route that doesn't hold up a main route

Instead they are only concentrating on their own journey and personal best times and have no consideration for other road users or pedestrians. They have their own little cameras to show how hard done by they are. Shame they don't have a personal drone to photograph the disruption behind them....
Chris Martyr liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1605160
Much as I sympathise with the above, I detect a certain amount of hyperbole. To wit:

- Most cyclists are not super-aggressive.
- If you're at the front of the traffic, you don't know it's two miles, and
- If you're at the back of a two mile tailback, you don't know that it's not a tractor causing it.
- Most long windy country roads do not have cycle lanes
- Most cycle lanes in the country are covered in cr4p that would rip tyres to shreds
- Most cycle clubs do tend to vary their routes.
- Their little cameras are there because of the very real threat they often feel. The threat preceded the cameras, I assure you, and the deplorably abusive reactions of cyclists to drivers followed, not preceded the aggression of the drivers.

That said, I do feel your pain. There's a lot the club cyclists could do to behave better.

But in actual fact, you do not have a right to get to your destination quicker than they do, just because you're in a faster vehicle.
nallen liked this
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By peter272
#1605170
But in actual fact, you do not have a right to get to your destination quicker than they do, just because you're in a faster vehicle.


Perhaps

But from my cycling proficiency days we were instructed to look round once in a while and to be sensible as to not impeding faster traffic, even if it meant pulling over. I've rarely seen a cyclist look behind them - it's head down and go

Tractor drivers can be fined for holding up traffic by not giving way , so why not cyclists. Similarly car drivers get arrested for illegal road racing, so why not cyclists?
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1605176
peter272 wrote:I've rarely seen a cyclist look behind them - it's head down and go

You may not have seen them look behind, but the ones at the front and back of the group absolutely do. Every club has a system for warning the ones behind of traffic approaching from the front, and for warning the ones in front of traffic approaching from the rear. And a system for warning riders behind of potholes and other road obstructions.

Whether they use the system to get off the road and let cars through or not is a separate matter, and I totally agree that they should, more often than they do. Part of the problem is that groups are often too big and unwieldy, which makes it very hard for the group leader to get everyone to stop safely.

Tractor drivers can be fined for holding up traffic by not giving way , so why not cyclists.

No reason why not. But it would be just as hard to prove and infrequently enforced as with tractors. There is lots of slow moving country traffic that is at least as inconsiderate as cyclists can be - where's the aggression and vitriol directed at them?
Similarly car drivers get arrested for illegal road racing, so why not cyclists?

That's different. I agree that busy dual carriageways are no place for time trials, but they're in ones, not groups. It's the fact that there's one every mile that's the problem with all the traffic bunching. Personally I think such time trials are crazy, and bloody dangerous, but it is not the same as two lunatic teenagers actually racing each other in cars.

Actual cycle races on the public highway are completely different. They are not illegal, and they are very carefully administered with signage, marshals, and often motorcycle outriders.

People just need to learn to live and let live a bit, and get less angry.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1605186
Ten foot high John Deere tractors with 5 ft tyres are a far greater hazard/inconvenience/danger to motorists in our winding Suffolk lanes than the occasional cyclist....
By chevvron
#1605196
TopCat wrote:
Actual cycle races on the public highway are completely different. They are not illegal, and they are very carefully administered with signage, marshals, and often motorcycle outriders.

Except when I pulled up to reverse into my own drive to get out of the way of a 'pelleton' and the dickhead outrider parked about an inch from my back bumper thus blocking me.
The 'race' wasn't even pre-warned to residents on the route and that's where my house happened to be; you would have thought a notice pinned to a road sign or even a leaflet pushed through your letterbox might have been possible but no, these people seem to think they can just use your residential road without the decency of warning you.
By chevvron
#1605197
rogerb wrote:Dual carriageway s, the one near where I used to live had cyclepaths either side. Lycra chaps never seemed to use them.

In the country I've experienced many a tractor pause in a layby to allow a number of other road users to pass which always refreshes ones belief in humanity but never a gaggle of cyclists.

Traction engines do it too. :D
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