Buffalo & Doozerie - The mild musings of two grumpy old men!

RayCun

brocbrocach wrote: »

Just going on your account I'd think you were trying to make choices for other people.

Any time a motorist decides not to drive into the middle of a junction because the exit is not free, they are making choices for the motorists behind.
Any time someone stops at a red light and blocks the lane they are making choices for the people behind.

brocbrocach

doozerie wrote: »

I was stopped in stationary traffic, as a cyclist, in what you describe as the cycling space. I also had plenty of space to my right to overtake.

Explain to me what's wrong with that picture 'cos I'm not seeing it.

The cyclists coming behind you would have to leave the cycling space, go into the cary part of the lane to overtake you and then pull sharply left to undertake the minivan. If you'd pulled right to take the full lane while stationary then the cyclists could continue along by the kerb to the swarming point.

As it was can you not see how you were being an obstacle in the lane?

magicbastarder

in the past, i have stopped behind HGVs, rather than go up their inside, and cyclists have passed me out to do so anyway.
the notion that i may have been inadvertently blocking them is a little weird.

brocbrocach

What's weird about it? If you're not advancing in the lane take yourself off to the side. The boul doozerie seems to have left (tight) space for a cyclist to his left, say a metre?, and just parked himself where it was hard to go around him. Obviously he's a capable cyclist and probably right to not undertake but it's not his call to block everyone else. Imagine the chaos if every db bike-man suddenly decided to regulate the traffic behind him.

doozerie

brocbrocach wrote: »

What's weird about it? If you're not advancing in the lane take yourself off to the side. The boul doozerie seems to have left (tight) space for a cyclist to his left, say a metre?, and just parked himself where it was hard to go around him. Obviously he's a capable cyclist and probably right to not undertake but it's not his call to block everyone else. Imagine the chaos if every db bike-man suddenly decided to regulate the traffic behind him.

Your logic is flawed. Traffic in the lane (a bus lane in this case) was stopped, the stopped minibus was evidence of that. I was also in the lane. I was traffic. I stopped. That's how traffic works.

Cyclists behind me chose not to stop, that was their choice. I don't care. What I care about was how to chose to get past me. They could easily have overtaken me, but didn't, instead they shoved through on my inside. I cared about that because it has an impact on me.

I didn't "block them", I didn't decide I wanted to block them, I didn't "regulate" them (not even Warren G -style) . I could have pulled further right in the lane, and put myself squarely in front of the next car or bus that pulled up behind, but I didn't because I didn't consider that as safe for me as where I did stop.

You seem to think that my stopping in a lane of stopped traffic is the equivalent of my setting up a border control in a cycle lane. One of these things is not like the other.

Chips Lovell

Nobody has a god-given right to overtake. If there is no room to safely overtake, you wait until there is an opportunity to do so. You don't just barge through regardless.

On the same subject, I inadvertently clattered another cyclist two weeks ago. Was stopped at the lights, they turned green. I put my hand out to signal I was turning left, and struck a chap barreling through on the inside. He wobbled, but stayed up.

brocbrocach

doozerie wrote: »

I was traffic. I stopped. That's how traffic works.

Cyclists behind me chose not to stop, that was their choice. I don't care.

See that, right there, is the problem with society today!

Sure going by that logic every car that qeues at a set of lights could just hug the kerb and block the bike traffic that otherwise would filter through. They're stopped. That's how traffic works.

I don't really know who's right by law as filtering is a grey area but no one cycles in a city without filtering so you will benefit from the good manners of motorists every time you pass on the left. You had one chance to pass on the good karma and you let it slip.

brocbrocach

Chips Lovell wrote: »

Nobody has a god-given right to overtake. If there is no room to safely overtake, you wait until there is an opportunity to do so. You don't just barge through regardless.

True enough. But it's good manners to drive or cycle in such a way as to let others overtake if they can and it's safe to.

doozerie

Chips Lovell wrote: »

On the same subject, I inadvertently clattered another cyclist two weeks ago. Was stopped at the lights, they turned green. I put my hand out to signal I was turning left, and struck a chap barreling through on the inside. He wobbled, but stayed up.

I'm picturing this now, but a back-handed clothesline which is apparently too awesome to have been captured by the Internet:



Not sure about the yellow lycra though, an intervention may be needed there.

brocbrocach

Good tan lines though

doozerie

brocbrocach wrote:

But it's good manners to drive or cycle in such a way as to let others overtake if they can and it's safe to.

I did exactly that. And yet...:

brocbrocach wrote: »

See that, right there, is the problem with society today!

Sure going by that logic every car that qeues at a set of lights could just hug the kerb and block the bike traffic that otherwise would filter through. They're stopped. That's how traffic works.

I don't really know who's right by law as filtering is a grey area but no one cycles in a city without filtering so you will benefit from the good manners of motorists every time you pass on the left. You had one chance to pass on the good karma and you let it slip.

brocbrocach

Everyone knows undertake is overtake in commuter-speak. It's like cool is hot etc

buffalo

The tone for today's commute was set with a close pass about 100m from my house - a stretch which has been artificially narrowed for traffic calming, and the token cycle track on the footpath which loses priority at every side road and estate entrance, and doesn't even have dished ramps at those points.

The repressed cyclist in me of course still feels guilty for not using it and holding up traffic (I know, I know), so I have a tendency to try push it to 40kph along this stretch. Wasn't enough for the big orange SUV driver, who sat behind me revving loudly until he decided to just bully his way past. I was not willing to put myself under his wheels to prove a point.

Next was an overtake while entering a roundabout. I should've taken the lane probably, but then there was enough room for us both to get around on the actual roundabout itself. I noticed that not once did the driver check his mirrors or check to see where I was.

Then there was the lad at the top of the queue at the bridge at Lucan. I was filtering up on the right and got to the top just as the lights went green. No indicator, no mirror or blindspot check, just swung across the road, blinking into the rising sun. As an experienced cyclist, this sort of stuff is an occupational hazard, but it would've been so simple just to flick on an indicator. Especially when you've been sitting waiting for the last two minutes.

Two close passes on the Strawberry Beds, including one from a small van as we approached the ramped section. So I end up yo-yoing off his back bumper, occasionally yelling 'faster! faster!' Not the most sound thing I've done, I'll admit, but maybe he'll think twice about just blasting past in future. After a while he stopped with his window down, I think he wanted a 'chat', but I just zipped past him. He left plenty of space on the next overtake.

Lastly at the Knockmaroon gate of the Phoenix Park, shout out to the driver who turned in to the entrance, realised it was closed, and then swung a U-turn back out through the red light and across the junction while the rest of us were trying to cross through it.

Was it just me this morning?

JMcL

buffalo wrote: »

Was it just me this morning?

I personally think close passes have upped in frequency. Rare is the day at the moment when I don't have at least one on my to or from work. I'm in Waterford, not Dublin and about half the commute is on the dual carriageway ring road which while it possesses a "cycle track" said track is a shared use yoke on one side of the road only with no demarcation for pedestrians/cyclists and give way at the frequent roundabouts - all in all as useful as a chocolate teapot.

In the past week alone I've had close passes from:

* A tipper truck - about 1m away at full speed
* A cement mixes - see above
* Boxed in on two occasions on a roundabout by artics - me about 20m from roundabout; taking the left lane - they straddle the lanes and bully their way through, no option but pull over and let them go
* 2 x cockwombles who both absolutely had to overtake me to join the lengthy tailback at the bottom of a steep hill in the left lane, despite me making it plain I was trying to move to the right lane to turn right. Audi man came within a meter at full speed while pulling in on top of me at the same time

More commonly it's the usual nonsense about drivers not being arsed leaving their own lane with an empty lane beside them, or them being overtaken but barreling on through anyway.

I don't know whether this is in any way causally linked to Ross's (speaking of chocolate teapots) craven climbdown on the MPDL which got a fair amount of publicity, or just increased levels of traffic. Meaningful education for drivers is the only solution, but this doesn't even happen from what I can see on the one time in their lives when they do get instruction, and with the current reluctance to enforce/punish poor driver behaviour, never mind have them sit a retest (should be mandatory whenever a license has been lost for whatever reason), it won't happen again. Irish roads and indeed the road traffic act have changed greatly since I first got my license in the late 80s, but how many people actually even bother looking at the Rules of the Road never mind the underlying legislation as soon as they get on the road

doozerie

JMcL wrote:

Meaningful education for drivers is the only solution, but this doesn't even happen from what I can see on the one time in their lives when they *do* get instruction, and with the current reluctance to enforce/punish poor driver behaviour, never mind have them sit a retest (should be mandatory whenever a license has been lost for whatever reason), it won't happen again.

This thinking is what I keep coming back to time and again too. Education is typically the last thing I want to impart to a driver who has just put my life in danger in order that they (usually fail to) shave a few seconds off their journey. In the heat of that kind of moment I'd much prefer to impart a bucket load of frustration and anger, but no matter how justified that would be, all too often it will have the opposite affect of educating them about the potential consequences of their actions.

The worst offenders are essentially like children, yell at them and they'll dig their heels in and persist with the same behaviour again and again, educate them instead and there is at least a chance that their behaviour will improve. The lack of a real threat of punishment is a huge problem too, of course, for some people that's the only thing that would moderate their behaviour.

I encountered yet another example of the irrational nature of people at the weekend. There was another cyclist in the oncoming lane, just me cycling in my lane. An SUV behind the other cyclist drove into my lane to overtake him, my being there was no deterrent whatsoever. I waved a hand in the air in that universal expression of "What. The. ....?". The driver completely ignored me but the person in the passenger seat started gesticulating wildly at me.

I'm not sure who was worse, the driver that made a conscious decision to overtake when it wasn't safe (for me) to do so, and then refused to even acknowledge their actions. Or the passenger who witnessed this behaviour and then got offended on behalf of the driver, to the point of basically categorising me as the problem. Neither person would appear to have an ounce of understanding of the reality of the situation, their sense of personal safety was never threatened and they either didn't understand or care that mine was. My guess is they'd both do the same thing again and again because of their pure ignorance and complete lack of empathy. I like to think that education would address that, that it might break through their self-serving cocoon (...although I'd still like to precede it with a hefty kick up the hole for both of them, I must admit).

Leroy42

It all stems from the creation of driving as something personal, a time for you to be you. To express yourself. To be in control. It is at the core of all motor ads, but is the dominant theme when you discuss driving with anyone. People take driving very personally, thus they they people that get in the way, in the cases of this thread cyclists, as a personal affront to them. The "offender" has taken an action to deliberately curtail their enjoyment, their work, their time.

As long as we continue to view driving as some sort of personal past-time, rather than a social interaction and simply a means to an end, the problems discussed throughout this thread will continue.

"You are in my way, you are slowing me down, you are taking up too much space on my lane" are all common remarks and they show a level of arrogance and expectation.

One way that I have started to move the conversations when they inevitably turn to how cyclists are ruining everything for everybody, is to ask the person raising the point how often they needed to wait for a person illegally parked. Or not paying attention when the light turn. Or three point turns. Or simply having to give way as the road has cars parked and not wide enough. Or people going into yellow boxes to block the traffic? Or taxis pulling in to pick up or drop off when there is no room to pass.

When you start to add all these up they soon realise that the real problems are other vehicles. Sure bikes cause them a problem, but nothing even close to the time wasted from the above.

ChrisJ84

JMcL wrote: »

Meaningful education for drivers is the only solution, but this doesn't even happen from what I can see on the one time in their lives when they do get instruction, and with the current reluctance to enforce/punish poor driver behaviour, never mind have them sit a retest (should be mandatory whenever a license has been lost for whatever reason), it won't happen again.

I've been close passed recently by a couple of learner drivers out on lessons. If driving instructors aren't even teaching or enforcing good behaviour then it's no wonder this stuff happens so frequently.

nomdeboardie

ChrisJ84 wrote: »

I've been close passed recently by a couple of learner drivers out on lessons. If driving instructors aren't even teaching or enforcing good behaviour then it's no wonder this stuff happens so frequently.

I once let a learner driver on a lesson know that they passed too close only to be told by the instructor that I was "too far out in the road" :rolleyes: There is indeed no hope
(In retrospect, I should have addressed the instructor directly, but he'd probably have said the same thing)

CramCycle

nomdeboardie wrote: »

I once let a learner driver on a lesson know that they passed too close only to be told by the instructor that I was "too far out in the road" :rolleyes: There is indeed no hope
(In retrospect, I should have addressed the instructor directly, but he'd probably have said the same thing)

You done the right thing addressing the driver, they are in charge of the vehicle.

nomdeboardie

CramCycle wrote: »

You done the right thing addressing the driver, they are in charge of the vehicle.

Maybe, though felt a bit bad in case they were already stressed

eeeee

I feel that there has been a lack of empathy growing in society as a whole, with the growing binary of left and right politically, and the rise of more fundamentalist thinking flourishing in the echo chambers we now socialise and live within.
Add the entitlement and cocooned de-humanisation that happens when someone steps into a car - pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers are stripped of their humanity and become obstacles etc. and it's a recipe for disaster.

There is a lack of understanding from everyone for everyone else, and a generalised unwillingness to learn I feel. I believe once people do have an idea of how their behaviour impacts other people they are more open to change. It feels like that space is closing.
I feel the fact that 80% of cyclists are drivers but only 10% of the drivers are cyclists is a big part of the problem.





On a separate note, Heading home on the bike lane in the Phoenix Park, down Chesterfield Avenue, a family with 3 small children were walking with their backs to the direction of travel. I came up behind them, said 'excuse me'. No one moved. I said it again, stopped behind them, and got 'So, what's your problem'. They, ironically were just walking over the no walking sign painted on the path. The smallest child, about a year and a half, was in a little electric car thing right in the middle of the lane. I couldn't get by them. The parents continued to be, er 'unhelpful', and I, compounding their dislike of cyclists, swore at the father as he kept on being a total prick as I tried to get by. I was shocked at how dangerous a position they put really vulnerable people they made in. And the cycle begins again...

I had a more positive "excuse me" moment last week when I was out walking with the youngest in her buggy. I was in the middle of the footpath and traffic was heavy so noisy. I got an excuse me from behind in a polite and almost sing song tone, audible over traffic but not shouting, had a glance over my shoulder to see a girl of about 5 or 6 coming on her scooter a few meters back and slowing, I moved over with the buggy and waved her through and cruised down the hill passed us with a little wave and a thanks.

Thought occurred me that kid had more cop on than a lot of people 4, 5 or 6 times her age and more I've had ride up behind me on foot paths over the years.

Mc Love

I'd normally ring my bell if i needed to alert someone to my presence on a footpath/cycle path

ChrisJ84

You know that weird spidey-sense that lets you know a car driver is about to do something stupid or dangerous? Well, this morning I found out that it also works on other cyclists.

I was coming up behind a cyclist and found myself thinking, "I need to slow down, he's going to pull across the road without looking." And he did!

My only worry is that this power extends beyond mere discernment, and that I made him do it

magicbastarder

so i get into the office this morning, first time in here in a few weeks, and they've replaced the office coffee machine (which used to take beans) with some giant nespresso monstrosity. and the pods are 50c each.

i am slightly agog. has no-one been listening to the protests and media coverage about reducing waste?

Breezer

Some general silliness this evening from white van woman (women can be muppets in white vans too now, what an age we live in!)

We pull away from a junction on green, me ahead of her. On the other side of the junction there begins a cycle lane. In this cycle lane is parked a car. I make to cycle past this car, rather than through it. Beep beep. I pass the car. She passes me. Wild gesticulating in a generally leftwards direction from white van woman and angry glares from white van passenger.

Within sixty seconds I've caught up to them at the next light, as usual. Big grin and thumbs up from me. Sheepish expression from white van passenger. Major effort on the part of white van woman to hide behind white van passenger. All's well that ends well.

I'm still not entirely sure though whether she wanted me to cycle through the car, or to swerve around it in front of her at the last second.

nomdeboardie

Breezer wrote: »

Some general silliness this evening from white van woman (women can be muppets in white vans too now, what an age we live in!)

We pull away from a junction on green, me ahead of her. On the other side of the junction there begins a cycle lane. In this cycle lane is parked a car. I make to cycle past this car, rather than through it. Beep beep. I pass the car. She passes me. Wild gesticulating in a generally leftwards direction from white van woman and angry glares from white van passenger.

Within sixty seconds I've caught up to them at the next light, as usual. Big grin and thumbs up from me. Sheepish expression from white van passenger. Major effort on the part of white van woman to hide behind white van passenger. All's well that ends well.

I'm still not entirely sure though whether she wanted me to cycle through the car, or to swerve around it in front of her at the last second.

You don't know how to quantum tunnell:rolleyes:

doozerie

I was waiting, on the bike, at a T-junction recently. I was waiting to turn right so obviously had to wait for a suitable gap in both lanes that crossed the top of the T.

There was a solid line of cars in the lane I was heading for, the queue spanned both sides of the junction, and the yellow box in the centre of the junction was being routinely ignored so was almost constantly full. Traffic in the near lane was more sporadic, but there was no prospect of merging with traffic in the clogged lane so I waited, and waited.

I registered a car roll up behind me. It stopped relatively close to my rear wheel. After a few seconds it rolled up even closer. A few seconds after that the line of cars across the junction shuffled forward again. They were still moving slowly when the car behind blew the horn.

I turned around to see the driver gesturing wildly at me. Her life, it seemed, was over and it was apparently my fault.

I asked loudly whether she expected me to cycle under one of the moving cars. She couldn't answer as all of her efforts were directed into mouthing slowly and clearly "I've been waiting 5 MINUTES!". She did this while holding up both hands, proudly displaying 10 fingers. I briefly considered pointing out that she'd actually been waiting no more than 20 seconds, but basic sums didn't seem to be her strong point so I didn't bother event trying.

I was afraid of what else I might say so I turned my attention back to the traffic again. The traffic in the far lane had now stopped moving, leaving the yellow box clear this time. A car in the near lane approaching from the right meant that I could go nowhere but that didn't stop another beep from the fuming lunatic behind me. More gesturing, this time suggesting that I was mentally deficient, which was both, er, lovely, and ironic.

No sooner had that car from the right gone past than a car several positions short of the junction in the far lane chose to pull out into the near lane and drive the wrong way along it to turn right across me. That prompted a van driver to do the same.

I was glad to get away from the whole lot of them. And seeing as how it was apparently all my fault I can only assume that the fuming lunatic was delighted to see me go, I'm guessing she sat there in the stagnant traffic jam for ages afterwards, utterly content at the lack of a a feckin' cyclist to hold her up. More likely though she probably just assumed that some feckin' cyclist was at the head of the long queue, dedicating their apparently worthless life to holding everyone else up. Sure what else could explain so many motorists sitting in a large volume of stopped cars, motorists are the hapless victims of traffic congestion after all, ...

ChrisJ84

Breezer wrote: »

Some general silliness this evening from white van woman (women can be muppets in white vans too now, what an age we live in!)

We pull away from a junction on green, me ahead of her. On the other side of the junction there begins a cycle lane. In this cycle lane is parked a car. I make to cycle past this car, rather than through it. Beep beep. I pass the car. She passes me. Wild gesticulating in a generally leftwards direction from white van woman and angry glares from white van passenger.

Within sixty seconds I've caught up to them at the next light, as usual. Big grin and thumbs up from me. Sheepish expression from white van passenger. Major effort on the part of white van woman to hide behind white van passenger. All's well that ends well.

I'm still not entirely sure though whether she wanted me to cycle through the car, or to swerve around it in front of her at the last second.

Fly over it obviously, have you never seen ET?!?

doozerie

ChrisJ84 wrote: »

Fly over it obviously, have you never seen ET?!?

Now there is a can of worms. That was clearly an early e-bike but the question that demands an answer is whether it was pedal-assist, or strictly illegal under Irish laws?

And that's before we even consider whether the kid cyclist stuck to cycling-designated air space, or recklessly used all of the airspace as if he was somehow entitled to. (Did he even PAY HIS AIR TAX???)

I foresee angry letters from the RSA, and like-minded people who all have only the best interests of the little bastard brat child at heart.