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Today's rubbish driving...

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Started 12 years ago by Stepdoh
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algo
Member

Yesterday after a nice round around the seat to feed the swans (actually mainly the seagulls) with daughter on bike, I was cycling in primary westbound on West Preston Street, following the van in front to the red lights. The car behind (silver ford SK53THU) decided to overtake into a non-existent space and tried to shove us over to the left. The driver shouted that I should be in the cycle lane, and I pointed out there was none and that I was intending to go right. As I set off she drove along side me very close with her passenger shouting various threats, but mainly justified by some classic helmet nonsense. My daughter does wear a helmet - I do not - for what it's worth. Needless to say I found it ironic that while they were driving very close alongside shouting threats and abuse, it was apparently all my fault for not wearing a helmet. I simply said "I appreciate your concern".

The positive from this unremarkable story is that having decided to report it to 101, I went today to give a statement. The PC who took the statement had recently taken up cycling and was very encouraging - he also said that video evidence from a helmet cam or similar (which I don't have) corroborating the story and showing the driver's face counts as equivalent to another witness. This was PC Grant Palmer 11344 - incredibly helpful and sympathetic. I believe other people had been advised otherwise about the validity of video camera evidence - so perhaps it might be possible in future to request a statement be taken by PC Palmer at St Leonard's police station.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@algo

Sorry your Sunday ride got wrecked, but glad to hear you didn't take it lying down.

Anyone shouting at children from a moving motor vehicle will be up to other stuff as well. A visit from a constable will doubtless be useful for all of society.

Posted 9 years ago #
algo
Member

thanks @IWRATS - I appreciate the affirmation... luckily the little person only remembers the ducks (seagulls) and river (the sea at Portobello)..

Posted 9 years ago #
wingpig
Member

Cappers Plant Hire truck CW08 EWC, whose driver decided to try and overtake me and another cyclist on the bit of Torphichen Street where there was a stationary bus parked on the right-hand side of the road. I'd pulled into the West Maitland ASZ behind the other cyclist, so stayed behind them across the tracks and round the corner, though a whizzbag who'd come up into the ASL via the tram tracks just went through. The truck seemed to be getting a bit revvy at the idea of cyclists wanting to take a more perpendicular route across slipperywet tram tracks, so I deliberately stayed much further out from the left than the cyclist-in-front as there was a parked car on the left shortly before the parked bus on the right and I wanted to leave a space for the gutter-hugging cyclist-in-front to be able to move into. The truck therefore tried to overtake after the car parked on the left, so got a fair bit of waving and shouting to get him to back off. As this was probably heading to the works on Morrison St and another truck (weaving across West Maitland in front of this one) was probably leaving the works on Morrison Street I might email the site manager as well as Cappers Plant Hire.

Posted 9 years ago #
Stickman
Member

Wingpig: I must have been a few cars behind you. I'd seen the Cappers truck (noted the unusual name) as I approached the traffic lights at West Maitland, so followed my usual policy of staying away from large heavy scary things, so I didn't filter to the front. I saw your whizzbag shoot up the right on the tram tracks ahead of the truck, which I thought was a bit stupid. Didn't see the bad overtake attempt though.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Got the first automobile skiddy-slide of the year in the rainy gloom last night. Cranking up Cluny Gardens and a car chose to emerge from Hermitage Gardens and then slam on the anchors as I passed by. Suspect it was the classic incident where her observation fell in the time when the cone of my front laser light was past and the side lights on my rear thumper had yet to reach her. Presumably the batteries in all of my Scotchlite had gone flat.

Apologetic SMIDSY type wave from the drivist. Obscene Italian gesture from IWRATS.

Posted 9 years ago #
cb
Member

@IWRATS
It's hard to believe from
looking at Streetview but that wee metal box on Cluny Gardens at the foot of Hermitage Gardens does an incredible job of obscuring cyclists (and cars) from drivists pulling out of HG.

Not that that excuses your skidder in any way of course.

Posted 9 years ago #
urchaidh
Member

From the 'annoying rather than dangerous' department comes this driver, who probably should know better. Bonus points for overtaking me in order get to the box first.

Posted 9 years ago #
condor2378
Member

@urchaidh

I would not have been able to stop myself from sitting in front and centre of the Police car, then starting off really slowly, just out of sheer devilment.

Posted 9 years ago #
Min
Member

Abysmal driving from serial offenders La Favourita last night. Branded car, firstly driving the wrong way up Eyre Place, then driver realised he were about to get taken out by vehicles coming towards him, so he reversed back to Canon Lane and drove down there. Then accelerated extremely fast up Canonmills and blew the red light when he got to the junction. Total tossbag.

Posted 9 years ago #
fimm
Member

Driver of a decent-sized flatbed truck accelerated towards an orange light at the five-way Gorgie/Dalry Road junction. Light went red but of course the truck couldn't stop by then. Nearly took out a car that had been sitting at the bottom of Henderson Terrace, wanting to go into Murieston Road, waiting for the Gorgie Road to Henderson Terrace traffic to get a red light. Seemed quite a near miss. Totally the fault of the driver of the flat-bed.

Oh, and last week sometime. Mr Kerr, I think, Electricals, thinks that because the presence of a cyclist has caused him to miss a green light that he otherwise would have got, he is allowed to run the red one. He got as far as the next red light, a whole 50m down the road. Oh how I laughed.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

The rider of the un-plated dirt bike on the canal towpath last night, might want to have a read of this;

http://www.roadcraft.co.uk/motorcycle-roadcraft

The slick wet cement under bridge 7A offered little grip to the chunky off-road tyres and the poor guy nearly went in the drink after brake/swerving to avoid a head-on collision with my ratty nineties hybrid.

Proper use of the IPSGA system would have avoided this situation, as would abstinence on the part of the young rider's parents.

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

@iwrats I feel if there was any justice in the world the boy should have gone in. Then you could have rescued him but left the motorbike in the canal?

There are other forms of birth control available apart from being total abstainers (obscure reference to sublime andrew Davies sitcom Very Peculiar Practice where Old Jock the head of the campus medical practice played by Graham Crowden whom I spotted once at an edinburgh bus stop, offers Dr Stephen Daker, played by Peter Davidson, a whisky, but then Old Jock recalls, aw that's right you are a total abstainer, what a pity. Dr Daker is not a total abstainer Old Jock just thinks this. also old jock pours himself a very large whisky and then says Ah well, it's time for old Jock to fall to pieces again. The chancellor of the uni is played brilliantly by John Bird, his name is Jack Daniels. warning, show also contains some very bad nuns).

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@gembo

I like your idea of targeted abstinence, where an iPad application shows you the human being that will result if you fail to get off at the Haymarket. Pretty sure this dude's ma'n'pa would have endured a half hour stoney silence before going their seperate ways.

Posted 9 years ago #
gembo
Member

@iwrats one day I will tell you my story of a couple who did not get off at Haymarket on the last train back from Glasgow one Saturday night, I spotted them in a darkened carriage as I alighted at Haymarket station.

There is mileage in your idea of a device for determining the rightness of fit. Alas of course the EUgenics Society thought This should be IQ whereas that is quite a bad predictor. For example if two members of Mensa decided to procreate to produce offspring of genius level IQ they might find that with regression towards the mean this would not occur, although IQ does rise over time.

There is a movie I can lend you which is a low budget british film that employs devices to work out why things go wrong. It isn't too long but suffers slightly from the two psychic detectives not being actors.

Two people who are alike, eg both accountants might produce accountant offspring but would need to check the slide rule

Similarly there are some people who should avoid particular drugs. A device to tell people they should avoid Cocaine as they will like it too much and fail to notice it's effect on them and their loved ones would be good. again more like the movie I am going on about than some kind of sanction. Boy george used to swear by something called the black box

Posted 9 years ago #
twq
Member

This morning's incident wasn't too scary but really annoying. I was approaching the roundabout from Holyrood Park up to Holyrood Rd, and indicated to move into primary to turn right at said roundabout. Teal BMW convertible S381 NSN decides that's a good time to overtake. I politely ask what he's doing, and get a middle finger in return. He opens his window and proceeds to give me abuse, while overtaking round the roundabout. Includes the fact that he didn't overtake a few seconds before when a bus was passing the other way (how nice of him!) and that I should be wearing brighter clothes. Filtered past him about 10m up the road.
One to file under: not worth reporting to police

Posted 9 years ago #
Broony84
Member

Nearly taken out twice this morning.

Had to to stop in the middle of the mini roundabout on Clermiston Road/Clerwood Terrace to give way to a car coming from my left. The driver still didnt realise I was there and that she was suppose to give way to her right despite missing my front wheel by a couple of feet. Cut up by a German plated car on Queensferry Road who was in the wrong lane. Managed to brake to avoid any dramas but thought a wee wave from the driver to apologise might have been in order. Didn't throw any verbals at any of them. Just swore in my head.

Posted 9 years ago #
wishicouldgofaster
Member

Broony, I changed my route to avoid crossing that roundabout as I was having too many close calls due to bad drivers. I now cycle past the Fox Covert schools and take a left on to that roundabout.

Posted 9 years ago #
Broony84
Member

Yeah. I might have to go back to using the cut through paths. I've nearly been hit when driving as well which suggests its only a matter of time.

Posted 9 years ago #
dougal
Member

Overtaken on the inside while attempting to exit the London Road/Leith Walk roundabout this morning ~0720. Luckily the kind of driver who performs ill-advised manoeuvres usually does so with aggressive acceleration - so I could tell there was an idiot coming up behind me without even looking.

Posted 9 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

"The rider of the un-plated dirt bike on the canal towpath last night, might want to have a read of this;"

I was on a not very frequent ride along the canal and possibly came across the same numpty last night, about 7:20pm, he was heading townwards, around Harrison Park area.

I could hear him, but my not so bright dynamo light (as my previous light ) didn't pick him up until he was right in front of me, just about .... myself.

Posted 9 years ago #
wingpig
Member

A large silver car was driven right at me as I waited in the narrowed cycle-only right-turn lane into George Street this evening. I mouthed things at the driver, who then stopped and eased her way back into the appropriate lane.

Posted 9 years ago #
fimm
Member

At the 5-way Gorgie Road / Dalry Road junction, again. I'm in the left hand lane, & have a green light to go from Gorgie Road to Dalry Road. A number of vehicles are queued at a red light in the right hand lane, waiting for a green light to go up Henderson Terrace. The front vehicle is a medium sized truck. The driver of the truck decides that he can't be bothered to wait for a green, and pulls away through the red light. My flabber was well and truly ghasted. Didn't think to get company name or reg plate.

I "need" a head cam...

Posted 9 years ago #
dougal
Member

There seem to have been an exceptional number of lane-squeezers this morning. If you were the cyclist behind me on the way through Picardy Place this morning then I apologise for the robust language directed at the drivers taking liberties...

Posted 9 years ago #
GDR
Member

Actually Sunday not today. "Red Driving School" car turning from Viewforth onto Gilmore Place. Driver on his mobile. Might be one for the "companies to avoid" thread?

Posted 9 years ago #
HankChief
Member

Rubbish shouting really.

I was pedestrianising on Hope Park Terrace at 10.30pm tonight and saw a studenty bike rider filtering up the inside of a Tesco van BG11ZPH. The driver lowered his windows and started telling the chap that he needed to have a helmet on.

I enquired why?

Because he could get hurt.

All a bit odd really. I got the impression that the driver wasn't impressed with something the rider had done coming through the meadows. It's not really Tesco's role in life to opine on the helmet debate, so late at night and from the comfort of their driving seat.

Posted 9 years ago #
acsimpson
Member

Did you ask the driver where his was? After all he could get hurt too.

Posted 9 years ago #
Kenny
Member

Can't quite work out which of these two incidents from Monday and Tuesday are worse.

This driver was uninterested in discussing the incident. The police will be paying her a visit:

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My brakes were confirmed to still be working the next morning:

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I couldn't be bothered to remonstrate with the driver. I'll be speaking to his employer.

Posted 9 years ago #
Ed1
Member

The fiat 500 turning left looks a closer mis also seems like an easier mistake to avoid as the car overtook so should have been aware of your presence etc.

Posted 9 years ago #
algo
Member

@Kenny - I don't think I've seen such a perfectly formed example of a left hook with MGIF and a spectacularly well executed SMIDGAF.... some lick you're going at, but impressive reactions and reading of the situation on both.

Posted 9 years ago #