RoadRaven
12-17-2006, 11:07 AM
Still spewing here... two incidents in one week of the same type of driving involving me and my family.
My partner, 2 of my sons, and the neighbours boy are out for a training ride last week, and a car feels she can "hop" in between the cyclists (the boys) and then overtake the leading cyclist (my partner), on a blind corner and giving him no room to move... the car was centimetres away from him and he nearly came off
(We know her, she lives up the road... and if my partner doesn't "have a word" then I will)
Then, on Saturday during my race, I have fallen off the bunch by about two bike lengths as I go round a corner (cornering at speed is a weakness of mine) and a car who has played dodgems with us for the best part of a kilometre around two other corners and over a bridge decides that she can do it again - this time without indicating her intentions, as we go round the corner.
Yes I went off the road and into the lumpy stuff - and on my beautiful new bike. By the time I got back on the tarseal and back up to speed they bunch had 200m on me... I chased them at 38km per hour, but they were in a bunch and they kept pulling away slowly - after 5km of chasing them they had increased the gap to 400metres and I sat up and waited for another group behind me to catch me so I could work with them.
Thats when the anger hit me - first, my tyres could have blown as I hit the uneven tar... then realisation that I could have come off and my new bike I had owned less than a fortnight could have been scratched - or worse! damaged!
Finally, I also realised I could have gone under her wheels and left my kids motherless... thats when I got really angry.
And the question that is asked so many times on this forum - why to drivers do such stupid things when over the course of their journey they may save 10 seconds from their decision to pass unsafely?
My partner, 2 of my sons, and the neighbours boy are out for a training ride last week, and a car feels she can "hop" in between the cyclists (the boys) and then overtake the leading cyclist (my partner), on a blind corner and giving him no room to move... the car was centimetres away from him and he nearly came off
(We know her, she lives up the road... and if my partner doesn't "have a word" then I will)
Then, on Saturday during my race, I have fallen off the bunch by about two bike lengths as I go round a corner (cornering at speed is a weakness of mine) and a car who has played dodgems with us for the best part of a kilometre around two other corners and over a bridge decides that she can do it again - this time without indicating her intentions, as we go round the corner.
Yes I went off the road and into the lumpy stuff - and on my beautiful new bike. By the time I got back on the tarseal and back up to speed they bunch had 200m on me... I chased them at 38km per hour, but they were in a bunch and they kept pulling away slowly - after 5km of chasing them they had increased the gap to 400metres and I sat up and waited for another group behind me to catch me so I could work with them.
Thats when the anger hit me - first, my tyres could have blown as I hit the uneven tar... then realisation that I could have come off and my new bike I had owned less than a fortnight could have been scratched - or worse! damaged!
Finally, I also realised I could have gone under her wheels and left my kids motherless... thats when I got really angry.
And the question that is asked so many times on this forum - why to drivers do such stupid things when over the course of their journey they may save 10 seconds from their decision to pass unsafely?