Fudding Motorcyclist!...

[xen_]

I can only speak from my own perspective I would not presume to dictate to others what they should and should not do.

Before I became a parent I did not understand how it feels and how you want to look after your child. I do not claim to be clever or have more knowledge and you may well be correct BUT it is my decision and for all you say in that tiny tiny chance that it makes them look in the back before the front and save him rather than me then so be it.

Your understanding for what it's like to care for a child or your feelings have zero relation to the procedures the emergency services follow though. You should but an "driver only on board" sign on when you are driving on your own, so the emergency services don't waste time looking in the back and make sure you survive to look after your kid.

 

[snail1]

Your understanding for what it's like to care for a child or your feelings have zero relation to the procedures the emergency services follow though.

That is a very insightful and constructive comment, which I do appreciate.

You should but an "driver only on board" sign on when you are driving on your own, so the emergency services don't waste time looking in the back and make sure you survive to look after your kid.

Mrs Snail would not approve, she would prefer the cash payout.

 

[Dogbreath]

After we had a child, I spent a long time thinking about the best way to ensure her safety when she was in the car. In the end I narrowed it down to driving carefully with plenty of observation and anticipation of other drivers, or putting a bloody stupid sticker on the back of the car. I was in Halfords choosing the sticker when my wife explained that it would probably be less effective than the other choice, so I saved myself £2.99.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Sounds like 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other to me.

You misjudged his speed and cut him up and he took exception to this, the speed he/she was doing is irrelevant (whenever I'm on the motorways the majority are doing in excess of 70 mph anyway). His over exageration in avoiding you may have been playing safe incase you went straight from lane 1 to lane 3.

You complain about his speeding and then undertake him .

You then plow through road cones scattering them and knocking one onto the carriageway, real clever that. There seems to be a theme here regarding your observational skills

Chances are if you'd just mouthed sorry instead of shrugging your shoulders at him he'd have just cleared off.

On the flip side for the lashing out thing being are more common occurence, there's a great deal more drivers who actively try to block or push riders out of lanes. I've also had people swerve at me whilst travelling in the other direction, not funny at all.

Fog

 

[Griffo]

Sounds like 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other to me.

You misjudged his speed and cut him up and he took exception to this, the speed he/she was doing is irrelevant (whenever I'm on the motorways the majority are doing in excess of 70 mph anyway). His over exageration in avoiding you may have been playing safe incase you went straight from lane 1 to lane 3.

You complain about his speeding and then undertake him .

You then plow through road cones scattering them and knocking one onto the carriageway, real clever that. There seems to be a theme here regarding your observational skills

Chances are if you'd just mouthed sorry instead of shrugging your shoulders at him he'd have just cleared off.

On the flip side for the lashing out thing being are more common occurence, there's a great deal more drivers who actively try to block or push riders out of lanes. I've also had people swerve at me whilst travelling in the other direction, not funny at all.

Fog

Last paragraph: Heck yes, and only in 4 months or whatnot!

It sounds to me like perhaps you did the thing that people love to do on the M4 and every road in England and indicated with maybe one flash, or perhaps no flash and changed lanes. That's providing the bike chap wasn't completely mental, or his wife hadn't just left him for a guy who owned the same car as you.

Also FogLeg's 4th paragraph: Heck yes, that's crazy-panic stuff we just don't need, imagine if there'd been another idiot on the same bit of road who got hit in the kisser/windscreen by the cone and also panicked... I'm imagining pain for a few dozen people, and maybe their families. I hope you can appreciate, regardless of the bike event your actions appear from your description to be of more deadly import. Oh, and my reference to the 'idiot', i'm undecided which was the bigger. :/

Christ, if I got hit by a cone on my bike I'd probably not be happy, or sad, but maybe a magpie would get a bit of my eye and feed his kids.

 

[doran1801]

i ride to work everyday and, with no exceptions have to avoid a ****** in a car trying to pass me dangerously. think "if i don't his dick will be bigger than mine"

There have been times where i have had to brake so hard my back wheel has been off the deck due to drivers blocking my way.

And for the drivers out there

IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL FOR ME TO FILTER BETWEEN THE LANES AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT SOLID LINES

 

[gord]

It's never going to make a difference. Although you are a parent, which makes you second only to Einstein in terms of knowledge (Us non parents could never understand), you should still be able to realise that Emergency Services will search an ENTIRE car every single time there is an accident they are called to. This is what they are trained to do. The sign is utterley irrelevent.

Infact instead of spending a fiver on a crap sign, donate a fiver to the Air Ambulance instead. Far, far more useful.

Ive brought you a heart from the Wizard of Oz tin man. Your weekly objective is to empathise with at least 10 OcUK members.

As for the incident the way its described can be distinctly different from both points of view, but its good that nothing really came of it. Coming from a biking family all I know is that as soon as I see a bike on the road I am cautious of where he is and what he is doing.

 

[Mr Jack]

It's never going to make a difference. Although you are a parent, which makes you second only to Einstein in terms of knowledge (Us non parents could never understand), you should still be able to realise that Emergency Services will search an ENTIRE car every single time there is an accident they are called to. This is what they are trained to do. The sign is utterley irrelevent.

Infact instead of spending a fiver on a crap sign, donate a fiver to the Air Ambulance instead. Far, far more useful.

Except that, in actual fact, baby-on-board signs do affect the behaviour of other drivers. It's stupid. It makes no sense; but it does work.

 

[Flukester]

Biker over reacted, it happens... one thing that I do find slightly worrying is you 'smashing through cones' to get to the hard shoulder and endangering everyone elses lives.... you did not really need to enter the hard shoulder at that point.

i got physically assaulted at a petrol station once for giving the finger at a car driver who cut me up... I caught up with his silver shadow roller a couple of miles down the road and smashed his mirror off with fist. It felt good

Only time I've ever done something like that and was a real 'red mist' moment... I suspect unless the biker was insane he must have also been in total 'red mist' phase, I'm guessing you really provoked him into this reaction by scarying the $%^& out of him.

Some details in ops post probably missing (like op was playing with car stereo, looked in mirror 'only' in heavy traffic without checking blind spot, almost killed biker)

There are idiot bikers on road
There are idiot cars on road

Everyone is stupid sometimes... if someone nearly killed me on the road i must admit i can see the joy of a little payback, though as i said i only once done this.


Just abit of advice to op, if you do cut someone up... don't just shrug, put you arm up and wave as if to say sorry. Quite a lot of people these days do it.. kinda makes the situation a lot better. Shrugging says 'i dont care', thats only gonna make the situation worse.

 

[PaulyJay]

i got physically assaulted at a petrol station once for giving the finger at a car driver who cut me up... I caught up with his silver shadow roller a couple of miles down the road and smashed his mirror off with fist. It felt good

Wow don't you sound like a pleasant biker, swearing at car drivers and then smashing wing mirrors!

Just abit of advice to op, if you do cut someone up... don't just shrug, put you arm up and wave as if to say sorry. Quite a lot of people these days do it.. kinda makes the situation a lot better. Shrugging says 'i dont care', thats only gonna make the situation worse.

While this almost makes sense, smashing off a wing mirror is hardly justified. If it happened to me I'd get the plate and report you. Also I can fit the amount of bikers who have cut me and said thanks with wave on 1 hand.

 

[Draeger]

Hang on.

The biker kicked the wing mirror off as he was passing @70mph?.

Without stacking his bike and stuffing it into the armco?.

Errrrm......no.

I find that almost impossible to believe, sorry.

 

[PardonTheWait]

Wow don't you sound like a pleasant biker, swearing at car drivers and then smashing wing mirrors!



While this almost makes sense, smashing off a wing mirror is hardly justified. If it happened to me I'd get the plate and report you. Also I can fit the amount of bikers who have cut me and said thanks with wave on 1 hand.

You're missing out the fact that to provoke him swearing, he was cut up and had his life put in danger, and to provoke him knocking off a wing mirror he was physically assaulted.

I think what some people fail to grasp is that when you cut up a car driver you annoy them, but when you cut up a biker you could quite easily get him seriously hurt.

 

[oap]

Hang on.

The biker kicked the wing mirror off as he was passing @70mph?.

Without stacking his bike and stuffing it into the armco?.

Errrrm......no.

I find that almost impossible to believe, sorry.

Agreed.

 

[Fireskull]

I think what some people fail to grasp is that when you cut up a car driver you annoy them, but when you cut up a biker you could quite easily get him seriously hurt.

Thats the point most people dont get, you could easily compare it to pulling a knife on someone in the street then walking off, when you cut up a biker you could easily kill him, do they think were just going to say oh well nevermind?

as for the OP aint really getting any of the information to make a comment but no way unless it was a harley could he kick off a mirror at 70, it unstables the bike enough at that speed if you stick your arm out lol.

 

[PaulyJay]

I think what some people fail to grasp is that when you cut up a car driver you annoy them, but when you cut up a biker you could quite easily get him seriously hurt.

Accidents happen, especially when someone is in your blind spot going over the speed limit. But obviously even though it's an accident the biker is fully justified to break your mirror because you could have seriously hurt them?

 

[thepharcyde]

Serious enthusiasts would have read the first post and wondered why it didn't add up... at all, from your reply it would appear you didn't or took it at face value without any thought.

As for couriers/commuters who actually learn to ride year round whatever the weather and take care of the machines they have (as it's usually the main form of transport/livelihood) comment are you telling me the fair weather weekend Power Rangers are the knights of the road ? Half of them go out with bikes that have stood for months at a time on tyres that haven't been deflated and rotated over the winter/checked in years (due to doing sweet fa miles so it must be fine) and try to corner like Rossi and perform suicidal overtakes.

For reference I work and used to live in an area well loved by bikers - myself included. I spend more time cursing the 'Power Rangers' for killing themselves and others in spectacularly stupid ways than i've ever spent moaning about commuters or couriers being disrespectful. For the record it's been a quiet year, only 3 fatal crashes and two of those were solely rider error.

try driving around london when these road runners go up no entries and stuff like that

 

[Flukester]

Wow don't you sound like a pleasant biker, swearing at car drivers and then smashing wing mirrors!

While this almost makes sense, smashing off a wing mirror is hardly justified. If it happened to me I'd get the plate and report you. Also I can fit the amount of bikers who have cut me and said thanks with wave on 1 hand.

The case in question, the driver got the finger for cutting across from wrong lane of a roundabout nearly killing me, he then followed me into a petrol station and while I was filling up got me by throat slamming me against pump offering for a fight.

His wife was in tears, petrol everywhere... a real mess. I refused to take lid off as he requested, eventually his crying wife pulled the fat balding businessman back into his silver shadow and he wheelspan away.

I was shaking with anger and thinking of what I should have done... seeing him sat in traffic at a standstill a few miles down road just was to much to resist... the thought of that guy sat fuming in his car as £500 of wing mirror shattered felt sweet.


I'm doubting so many things in the ops story the more I read it... do you know how hard it would be to kick a wing mirror at 70mph without losing your balance. The force of the impact would knock you off bike.

Still this is the interweb, and fairytales are everywhere

Also, generally bikers don't 'cut' people up... the reason being not that they are better drivers, it's just they are exposed and in a collision would come off many times worse. Many car drivers just trundle along oblivious in there little cocoons without a care in the world. Just my 5p, we all make dumb mistakes and see red sometimes... it's just life.


All of this would have not happened if op had acknowledged to biker that he had possibly made a error, and not just shrugged as if not to care...drivers who don't care should not be on the road!

 

[PyroboyUK]

The knocking the wing mirror was totally out of order - I hate when idiots give us other bikers a bad name.

Having said that, if we posted a thread everytime a car driver acted like a **** and nearly killed us there would be dozens of threads a day.

Yes, there are idiot bikers, just as there are car drivers.

This is true, there are a lot of bikers out there that can give us sensible ones a bad name. Not all of use go around racing at 100+ mph and pulling silly moves.

However i use my bike for a very heavy mileage as i dont have a car, and if i was to list all the car drivers that have in some way endangered or come close to knocking me off, i would be here all day.

Just have to accept it at the end of the day. There are idiots out there on bikes, and there are also idiots out there in cars.

 

[PardonTheWait]

Accidents happen, especially when someone is in your blind spot going over the speed limit. But obviously even though it's an accident the biker is fully justified to break your mirror because you could have seriously hurt them?

If you did it out of spite (this DOES happen), then yes. I would seriously consider knocking some part or other off your car. Same if I'd been physically assaulted like Flukester was.

If it happened through someone not looking or something similar, I wouldn't dream of it. As you say, accidents happen and no one's perfect. Biker mentioned in the OP sounds like a total ****, but in fairness the OP didn't make much of a case for himself either.

 

[i-bert]

It happened to me on my bike yesterday. I was going along a quiet road doing about 25 and there was a junction on my left. I had a good view of the junction and saw this white van driver coming. He had no intention of stopping and just pulled straight out in front of me.

He gave a sorry gesture and i didn't mind at all. It would have been the same situation if i had been in a car. He probably just took the situation for granted because he does it every day and its a quiet road.