… until I had a story about drivers from the view point of a cyclist.
This weekend Mike and Helen came and visited. We had some beverages, we had some fish and chips and today we went for a bimble along the coast cycle way to Worthing to stretch legs and grab a hot pasty.
The ride on the whole was highly enjoyable. After sweet ride at Pitch Hill yesterday with Mike, Jim and Jason, it was nice to get out and stretch my legs. It was great to be out with Emma who has improved massively in terms of confidence with her riding over the last 6-7 weeks of riding to work and the station and it was nice to show Mike and Helen the coast.
The only blip was coming out of Shoreham on the way to Worthing.
We were cycling along the road up to the cycle route, just before there is a car park and with the nice weather people were out to have some fun on the beach. A car stopped before getting too far towards the car park - no idea what but they stopped and pulled over. The car that caused issue was the car right behind them. It pulled out. It didn’t check their blind spot, mirrors nor indicate. They didn’t see myself nor Emma who had indicated we were going to over take and pulled out right in front of us. As this happened I did shout at the driver to check their mirrors (the drivers side window was open). The car sped off down the road but had to stop to pay for a parking ticket from the attendant. As Emma, Mike and Helen continued I decided to stop and politely spoke to the doctor.
I asked them to be more considerate. To check their mirrors. Indicate. I explained I was mildly frustrated that the driver almost took myself and my wife out. The driver didn’t look at me and said that she didn’t “almost take us out” and I pointed out that as we both had to swerve that really was incorrect. At this point her partner jumped in and started to get irate. I paused, decided it was non-productive to keep banging on and continued. However, the ability to frustrate and annoy people kicked in, and I feigned a problem with my bike right in front of them to piss them off slightly.
It pissed them off slightly.
This caused the gentleman to make an idiot of himself by shouting obscenities out the window as I went on my way. He threatened to come and take me off my bike and put me in the sea. Clearly imagination was his strong point. I shouted back that I was going to look forward to it and if he played his cards right, I’d give him a kiss. (This provoked a laugh from people watching this situation prevail and will note that whilst he was getting hot headed I was the picture of calm)
They sped through the car park and the man genuinely got out with a desire to face up. I suggested to the others continue on their way as I didn’t want to drag them into the spat. As he got out the car, he shouted at me as I went past on the cycle path to which I responded by blowing him a kiss, saw him get irate and continued to catch up with Mike, Helen and Emma.
The whole situation would have been significantly nicer had the driver admitted that she hadn’t checked her mirrors, hadn’t indicated, hadn’t seen us and simply admitted she made a mistake and was sorry. Instead arrogance and stupidity prevailed. I could probably have not stirred the situation but I was pissed off with the driver but hey-ho got to make it enjoyable.
For those interested the pasty was excellent.
