I hate cyclists. They are so full of themselves! They sit there, two or three abreast on narrow roads, dawdling along having a nice chat, completely oblivious to the queue of traffic behind them. Give them a happy toot (ie, not a nasty long drawn out blast) on the horn to let them know you are there and you get a load of abuse. Nice & friendly!
I was once run over by a cyclist. I was on a pedestrian crossing, with the green man telling me I could cross. The cyclist [must have] overtaken a queue of stationary traffic to get me, but he managed it. He was apparently watching some scantily clad women on the other side of the road, his ipod (other personal stereos are available ;-) ) was turned up as loud as it would go and he hit me.
When he saw what had happened, his excuse was that “the lights were green!” which was highly amusing to the taxi driver at the front of the queue (he said as much out of his window while calling the cyclist a few choice names too) as he had overtaken the taxi in order to get me!
I have also been narrowly missed on numerous occasions when the lights were red (for traffic) by cyclists (usually clad in those tight shiny suits) who apparently do not have to stop at the red lights. When I comment as they pass, that “the lights are red” - they all seem to have serious doubts about the marital status of my parents at the time of my conception! Hang on, I’m the one with right of way so why am I the ‘bastard’?
Don’t bother to mention one way streets either, they are apparently not applicable to cyclists.
Ok, I’m not tarring all cyclists with the same brush, there are many who do have consideration for other road users and indeed the laws of the road and Highway Code too. But so far, not many!
They pay no road tax, no insurance and demand that we give up half of our roads to enable them to have their own dedicated cycle path. Excuse me? In my opinion, cyclists shouldn’t be allowed on the road until they have taken a test and passed it (I at least passed a cycling proficiency test before I was allowed out on the road by my parents) and you should pay at least third party insurance as well. Then you can consider yourselves ‘allowed’ on the public roads (ok, I get the irony of that last bit!) .
If I am driving my car along the road and a cyclist ignores the lights and gets hit by me, I have no come back on him for the damage to my car, caused by him/her and if s/he is dead, how do I claim back from the corpse? Try it and all you will get is a tabloid style attack from the various red tops about how a callous car driver killed an innocent cyclist and then billed his parents for the damage. Best you get insurance then!
To all you human, considerate, and law abiding cyclists out there - well done and thank you. You have my sincere sympathies at the treatment you get from other road users purely because of the insane and selfish behaviour of a number of your peers.
To the rest of you, and you know who you are, get stuffed!
By the way, two bits of black tarmac in the pub having a chat. A red bit of tramac walked in. The bar went quiet. One of the black bits turned to the other and said “do not say anything to him, he will kill you!”. The other replied “Why?”. “Because he’s a cycle-path!” :-D
Are cyclists really friendly to the environment? I don’t think so myself. All that puffing and panting as they cycle slowly up hills must surely be contributing extra CO2 to the atmosphere? (That wasn’t a serious question by the way!)
Cheers.
