It matters if the difference to the victim is going to be a few grazes or a broken leg compared with major and probably fatal trauma to vital organs and/or the brain.
It is quite shocking how many of those sorts of videos are around on Youtube.
There certainly are a lot of psychopathic drivers around and not just in the crazy USA.
UK too.
In this case where the cyclist is expected to die (severe head injuries), the driver was arrested with the charge of attempted murder.
Officers were called to reports the driver of a white Mercedes had deliberately hit a cyclist on Chartwell Road in Norwich just after 5pm.
The cyclist, a man in his 50s, suffered serious head injuries and remains in hospital in a critical condition.
The Mercedes driver, a man aged in his 40s, failed to stop at the scene and was later arrested in Bignold Road, Norwich, shortly before 7pm and questioned at Wymondham Police Investigation Centre.
What is causing this hatred towards cyclists?
Motorists often phone home, telling their nearest-and-dearest that they are going to be late due to a one-hour tailback on the motorway.
No-one ever phones home saying they are going to be late because they were held up behind a cyclist for twenty seconds.
Like many things these days, I suspect social media and some more mainstream media outlets, and certain politicians (Ian Duncan Smith in the UK, for one) are fuelling this hatred.
I don’t drive much so only astonished by some cyclists, no stress.
Sometimes, I’m surprised by the choice of riding in high traffic 80 kmh roads and not in farm roads or dedicated bike paths. When there’s no other road I get it, be patient and that’s it. But, when there’s other roads where road traffic is prohibited and bikes allowed…why use the car road? I shake my head in disbelief.
But, I don’t drive daily and do not drive as job. But, there’s people who’s under permanent stress and lash out at the minor inconvenience. Sometimes, I wait before overtaking a cyclist until it’s safe and there’s already someone 1m from my car rear bumper or flashing lights. It should be a hard life when people hate driving instead of enjoying it.
I’m only stressed about scooters. I’ve seen people fall from them in front of me and brake hard to not hurt them. But, we rarely go with the car to a city center where this happens. So, just be a bit more attentive when going there and enjoy the rest of the year. I think I adjusted by being attentive to small children and 1.8m tall children in scooters.
Me too. Gorgeous, smooth, wide brand-spanking bike path lovingly constructed on the top road near us, which is next to an 80km route to the motorway, but most cyclists eschew the gorgeous and safe path to take their chances on the fast road. As if tempting the Grim Reaper himself, they are usually hands-free cycling while checking their mobile phone. Madness.
I’ve used the cycle path loads of times and often wondered what they find so wrong with it. Maybe they like the adrenalin rush of the traffic?
I did a 100km ride the other day without going on a single 80kmh road. Almost all was on dedicated cycle paths or farm roads marked as cycle ways.
Very enjoyable.
However, to get to many interesting places to ride in the mountains and many interesting roads in the mountains require going on 80km roads for at least a portion of the way.
Incidentally, there’s a lovely new cycleway along the road from Sihlbrugg to Affoltern-am-albiss.
Really wide, really smooth.
You have to be careful on one bit though as their is a stepped kerb which rises 10cm and is around 20cm deep before it meets the path’s retaining wall.
The problem is that when the sun is from a certain direction, the kerb looks like a shadow from the retaining wall.
I am a crazy pedestrian. Probably I want to die young (too late) but the other day I cross the road walking, a red sign on, and a fucking Mercedes starts to honk like a crazy. I turn around and just say “si tienes cojones te sales del coche!”.
A fucking Madrid tourist in a Mercedes, he turned down the window and said he would call the police. I said he should call the undertaker if he had the balls to leave his car and he could not drive away because of the red light.
Me walking, in the morning, and I really liked Madrid when I was young, even had a guitar made there for me. Now I think Madrid is nice and they don’t let me enter with my car of 23 years of age. But why would they just don’t let leave those idiots and we are OK here?
Wouldn’t this be better in your dedicated cycling thread?
Or maybe just copy to the other thread as well so the info is in both?
Possibly. Don’t think it really matters in this case.
I was pointing out the bad design which nearly caused me to crash.
Sorry, was walking. On bikes in Spain it is strange but they really respect the 1.5 meters of distance.
As I said, I did wait some time until the red light did turn red. The only thing in sight was that Mercedes, very fast, but had to stop for the red light again. So I crossed with the fucking car far away.
OK, in Zurich in the 80s I would probably just shut up because you could face a criminal or worse a police. But this was in front of my home in Spain and at midday! I should learn to shut up…
I fail to understand why you think that cyclists should not be on the road. There may, or may not, be alternatives, even dedicated cycle paths, but quite often these are less convenient and slower than the pre-existing road network.
It’s one reason I’ve always been against cycle-specific infrastructure; the fewer cyclists using the roads, the less drivers are used to seeing them and all the more likely they are to get annoyed by them.
It’s not a new phenomenon though, I recall when I lived in Milton Keynes in the 1990s, and was cycling a lot, like >40 miles a day to work in Bedford and back for a while, would normally be going around 25mph or more. No way would I use the redways - a shared-use city-wide network for cyclists and pedestrians, which would often go a long way round, with a lot of bridges or tunnels to avoid the main road roundabouts. My normal road speed would have been quite dangerous on those paths, plus I’d have had to do about 25% extra distance and quite a lot of climbing and descending, so my journey would be significantly slower.
Anyway, yes, it was not uncommon for car drivers to shout “Oi, use the redways” especially when I used to navigate the dual-carriageway roundabouts in the correct lane, using what I think is often called the primary position, i.e. in the middle of the lane around the roundabout itself to make sure I didn’t get pushed to one side. Did I slow down the car drivers? Nope, I did not. Did they get angry with me anyway? Yes, some of them certainly did.
Because as I cyclist I don’t enjoy riding in an 80 kmh road section between villages.
In the specific case of the village I live, I’m surrounded by Migros distribution center, a large trucking company, and another sorting center from Pflanzer. It’s my right to use that strecht of road as cyclist but there’s zero joy in doing it. It’s pure stress with the big trucks. The guys don’t need to hate cyclist to hurt them, they just need to be tired.
So, the choice is between nice farm road next to lovely small river or stress and engine fumes. I have nothing to prove, I can play the game of life in easy mode, why choose the hardest setting?
That’s your choice, of course, but don’t be surprised to learn that not all cyclists will agree with you.
I will say that with very few exceptions I’ve never felt endangered riding on busy roads, including the aforementioned dual-carriageways in Milton Keynes which are actually a 70mph (~110kph) limit . Road position, and the confidence to hold it, are key here, but of course work both ways, as in I would routinely expect to be riding close to the gutter and be overtaken with much less that the previously mentioned 1.5m gap, assuming the road is wide enough, and only use the primary position when it’s not, such that I don’t normally slow down the traffic at all.
I accept that I would not be able these days to maintain (without e-assistance) the sorts of speeds where I could be sure of not impeding cars, and that many people never could, so I respect their right to make a different choice, but not the knock-on effect that tries to force me to do so as well.
I think you are missing a couple of key points with regard to close-passes, and why they are so dangerous, and why they haven’t been so much of a problem for you.
Firstly, there’s the shock/unpleasantness of them - it can be scary for some people.
(As part of their bus driver training in one enlightened country, drivers had to sit on a chair with their back to a bus which then drove past them quite closely. They all jumped or flinched).
I can appreciate that people can get used to this so I can see where you are coming from.
Then there’s the physics - a bicycle at speed is so much more stable than one going slowly- there’s the gyroscopic effect of the wheels, resisting forces, the self-correction of the front wheel and the momentum which resists forces acting on it.
Cycling on the flat, at high speed, in a flat place like Milton Keynes means that high-speed close-passes aren’t nearly as frightening, or indeed dangerous as those when the cyclist is going slowly, or very - like on a 10% mountain road here (or an old person cycling slowly).
Thirdly, there’s the air pressure changes when a vehicle passes fast, first drawing you towards the vehicle and then forcing you away.
Referring to my second set of points, the momentum etc at speed makes these less of a problem.
This can easily cause you to lose control in many ways.
Going slowly, especially up a hill is terrible.
You can either hit their wing mirror, or if you are close to the edge, get forced of the road by this pressure.
When there’s a steep drop, it’s obviously worse.
I’ve been forced off the road a few times and now I refuse to stay close to the edge on these sorts of roads.
There are reports in the Police news of self-accidents where cyclists have, according to the Police report, “been frightened by passing cars” and crashed.
No doubt the cyclists get a fine too.
Finally, I used to live in a flat area of the UK so I understand the points you are making but cycling here, to me at least, is very different due to the terrain.
Tell me about it. They all drive on the wrong side of the road.
Sounds like a cover up for a quickie on the back seats.
Front seats are more comfortable
A lot of well-explained, perfectly valid points, yes; but none of them was I missing,
Which is why I was at pains to say that what works for one person doesn’t work for another, and at no point suggesting that others should do the same as me. Was merely explaining why I, and presumably the other cyclists that Axa was surprised to see on the roads, prefer to use them rather than cycle paths.
Nice long weekend coming up with lots of dry sunny weather so probably a good time to share a top tip for cycling: wear some damn bright clothes!
Yesterday evening (half-light of dusk) I drove back home via a main-ish road which covers a few kms through a forest and happened upon a lone cyclist dressed in a very fetching lycra get-up in a forest green colour. No lights.
Not 500m further down the road, another cyclist but this time rather seductively dressed head to toe in black (very flattering for the figure apparently), on a black bike. Also no lights. And he was a bit wibbly-wobbly.
Don’t be shy - wear lumo not camo!