There are two sides to every incident. The last time a driver deliberately cut me off and forced me to stop to avoid serious injury, I was left in no doubt about her motives (or the likelihood of her pretending it was all an accident if I were injured). I didn't bang on her car because I was too busy executing an emergency stop. If I had it wouldn't have been part of trying to make her change direction - she deliberately changed direction towards me. I think reporting incidents like this with video evidence to the police,as I will do next time,would be much more effective. Ironically this will do drivers like that one more harm than youtube or banging
Bike Cameras. The Negatives and Positives of using them
- Thread starter SteveRuss
- Start date
I am like yourself. I will and have banged on a car, truck and van more than once in my years of cycling. There are other posters here that manage to place themselves in a zen like trance whilst cycling that helps them ignore the idiots in cars around them. I am sure it will make their injuries and or fatalities much less tramatising should, god forbid, some white van man runs them over.
Case in point as it happened to me:
Cycling to work I met a funeral processing of several vehicles. I pulled to the side of the road behind a parked car, stopped and removed my helmet (yes, gasp!, I wear a helmet) to pay my respects. A large, flatbed builder truck was following. As the last of the procession went by I started to put my helmet back on. Next thing I know the truck is trying to park in the spot I am sitting. I dropped my helmet and grabbed the side board of the truck shaking it with my two hands and started shouting at the driver to stop, his double back wheels inches from me he stopped. He yelled "Get the F out of the way!", jumped out of his truck and started for me. I pointed to my camera and told him he was being recorded. He turned on his heel, got back in his truck and pulled off again almost running me over. I showed my wife the video when I got home and she cried because of the unprovoked attack on myself by a yob in a truck.
My bloody mirror did not help and the fact I had a camera only prevented a physical confrontation because I dared to vebally protect myself. He certainly did not see I had a camera until I pointed it out. I did absolutely nothing to provoke this vehicular assault on myself. I certainly would have liked to have video recorded some of the afore said posters reacting to the same situation.
As far as stiking a vehicle that is too close, there is highway code 163 that so many drivers ingnore. I, like my zen embracing fellow riders, tend to not react to most that pass by too close. But when one is so close that I can hit it and I have no place to go or to stop, bang on I shall. Stay tuned to youtube.........................
In #36 I said
"In my lifetime, I have been scared by other drivers twice in this country, once in 1977 when a woman driver turned left in front of me (in the rain too) and once in 2005 when a van driver would have killed me coming the other way on an urban road (accelerated to overtake a parked car on his side and I had to brake hard and lean over onto the pavement)."
These incidents happen to us all, but IMO since there is no time to do anything other than take evasive action, then there is no time to bang/tap on someone's car, so banging/tapping is not part of defensive cycling (or driving a car). Brakes are there for things other than slowing down at traffic lights etc, indeed in "roadcraft" the brakes are always your main method of choice (unless it's deliberate to scare someone behind)
hmmm death-wish ....I'd have run out of the way (with my bike if I could) and then ridden off into the sunset. If I didn't get my bike out the way and it got squashed I'd call the police ....maybe zen is good
Well I can not say I am suprised by the flippantcy of this reply. I would have happily gotten out ofthe way. However, if you would have read my post with a bit more focus on what I wrote instead of being so quick to invoke ridicule you would have read that I only had time to drop my helmet. It happened so fast. You have been well blessed to only have had two incidents in your cyling life. Not everyone is as as fortunate and some are dead. But hey, continue to discount the misfortunes of other if it makes you fell good about yourself.
I never ride in a zen like trance, on the contrary I'm constantly alert to the many possible dangers on the road. I just don't get all these incidents that justify a camera use and as said previously, have never been knocked off my bike or motorbike despite most of my life being in London.
I'm sure the difference is in attitude, and the agressive nature of your posts on this subject speaks volumes to me. Clearly you are in a constant state of anger about drivers.
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Yes, I am angry with drivers. You are right, I have made no attempt to hide that fact. But OMG! Did you not read, in my last post, why I might be justified to feel angry and upset. Did you not read I was just sitting there paying my respect to the deceased and mourners only to be almost run over for my kindness. It was a thoughtless, careless and unprovoked action that could have ended quite badly for myself. His truck would not have felt a thing. My attitude about the driver came after the fact not before.
My attitude nor my feelings are not visible to a driver coming at me or from behind. You sir are not me and I am not you. We certainly cycle under a very different set of circumstances. You feel free to ride with your attitude and I shall ride with mine. Good luck to you.
you were flippant with the "zen" remark in the first place, I was just returning the compliment, so don't come high and mighty with me please
I did read what you wrote, and if you have time to shake a tailgate, you have time to step out of the way.
If a driver forces you to get out of the way that's pretty ******* wrong. That deserves at least a bang on the roof if not a dent in their door and perhaps a criminal conviction.
There is properly no obligation to retreat from an aggressor, in the criminal law, and I think on any decent view, and I think it follows that there is no obligation to retreat from criminally careless or negligent and dangerous people either. Here I am thinking of non-retreat as including shouting and banging on the vehicle.
However even if there were such an obligation, having retreated surely doesn't diminish the wrongfulness and criminality of their behaviour.
I would welcome the day when universal omnidirectional cameras, fast track prosecutions, and zero tolerance for criminal driving behaviour, together obviated the need for vigilantism. Until that moment, drivers who drive at people can properly expect banging on roofs, anger, and YouTube infamy.
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I must say that the logic in some posts is getting more and more bizarre. I presume that your fear of the world would include putting cameras on every street, in every park, in the forests, on the mountains, indeed in houses. But how do we stop aggression in language while we are at it ?
I did of course read your post and sympathise much more than you perhaps realise.
But much of that sympathy is also for the fact that your cycling is such a miserable experience. I don't expect urban cycling to be exactly a delight, but I do expect it to at least leave me reasonably happy with my choice to cycle. If I felt like you at every provocation I would seriously consider stopping cycling altogether.
We are riding in the same circumstances on the same UK city and country roads, and we both meet the bad drivers and their behaviours. The only difference is in our attitudes, where you get very angry and tense, I just shrug and write it off as human nature. I know that whatever either of us do, that nature will not change. Cameras, complaints, banging on vehicles and loss of temper will either have no effect or more likely, make matters worse.
As you rightly say, we will each have to accept our respective ways, but that won't stop my concern for your plight. I just hope that eventually you will be able to achieve some sort of peace of mind with the current poor roads situation.
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Nah. I think you're assuming you know too much about the actual situation that I was in AND you're creating a group of people in your own mind that misbehave by touching the holy grail of someone's personal property (their precious car) and then trying to force me in to that group.
The last thing that will ever go through my mind when I am about to be crushed under somebody's car wheel, that doesn't know i'm there, is "ooh, I better not touch their car". It simply will not happen. It's a form of alert in this case that is probably the only way I can get the attention of the people NOT paying attention.
I don't actually see the relevance of your point any more other than you seem a little cheesed off that anyone just about to be mash potato'd in to the pavement may even dare to touch someone else's property to get their attention. If someone gets pissy with me about it then they can have a go at trying to get their own back.
Maybe I need one of those airhorns that we used to use when we were kids. Is that outside of your "banging/tapping/shouting meme" group?
I have only had cause to bang on one car in my life. I was wheeling my bike, and trying to cross the road. The road, on my side was lined with parked vehicles. I was wheeling my bike between two parked cars, when the mini on my left started reversing. I banged on the boot lid, and he stopped. The driver was apologetic, but the guy who actually owned the car, and was walking towards it from a shop across the road, threatened me with physical violence for hitting his precious car. I pointed out that had I not done so, both my legs would have been broken. To him, that seemed less important than his shiny new car.
I once had one of the Airzound pressure horns. It was devastatingly loud but drivers never realised it could be coming from a bike so just looked all around in puzzlement.
On the other hand, pedestrians needed a change of underwear each time I used it, so in the end I took it off the bike and slung it.
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Perhaps you could please point out for me what part of what I wrote lent itself to what you say it does.
Cars are to be feared. I think we agree on this. After all you did say that people being driven at should fear that and get out of the way.
And as for aggression, what's to be celebrated about unlawful assault using a car? Assault is not a form of free speech.
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I have been looking at some sort of high db horn. There was one on Dragon's Den that is available to buy (forget the name). Possibly good for pedestrians in a short burst but i'm not sure that drivers with their windows closed and the radio on would hear it; let alone get where it's coming from, as you suggested.
There again. There is a sentiment on here that suggests that drivers simply don't like to be told what to do by a puny cyclists whilst they are making a dangerous mistake. Whether it's tapping on the top of their cars as they pass at a distance you couldn't fit a flea's head through or honking some loud horn at them, they likely won't respond well. Sadly there are people that simply hate cyclists. I've met many as i'm sure we all have. Shouting to get their attention seems to be a no-no in some people's mind around here (not meaning yours btw..). To me, that is simply amazing.
The Hornit was on Dragons den I think - http://www.thehornit.com/
I have one and its great - they even replaced it for free when it went faulty after some years of use. I have a bell as well though to use on cyclepaths without frightening the walkers too much!
I have one and its great - they even replaced it for free when it went faulty after some years of use. I have a bell as well though to use on cyclepaths without frightening the walkers too much!
That's the one. Recommended?
The bell is a wonderful thing. I ride the cycle paths a lot and it's a nice polite sound to let people know you're there. Even then, sometimes people react badly to them..
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