Hard Acceleration away from cyclists - increase in how many times this happens

levermonkey wrote:

It's not just car drivers who appear to be 'having a laugh'.

How often are you cycling along and you see up ahead a bus at a bus stop? There are no passengers getting on or off.
Scenario 1. The bus is indicating right to pull away from the stop. I doesn't move. Do you a) overtake the bus only to have it set off at high speed making you look like an inconsiderate tosser who believes that you are more important than other road users, or b) you slow down and stop because the bus doesn't move and then the driver accelerates hard leaving you in a sooty cloud of exhaust fumes.
Scenario 2. Is exactly the same as scenario 1 but the bus is either signalling left or is not signalling at all.

I'm sure they're looking in their mirrors smirking.

Or am I ascribing to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity?

I think its neither, just normal human imperfection!

Does seem that buses always suddenly decide to change to signalling pulling-out at the exact moment I go to overtake them. And if I don't overtake they just sit there for an eternity with me stuck behind them breathing in particulates. But I don't believe the drivers do this deliberately, its just some sort of Murphy's-law type thing.

(From previous life as a bus-passenger I always feel a bit sorry for bus-drivers. They have to deal with both the great British Motorist when driving AND the great British public when taking fares and dealing with passengers, and sometimes both at the same time. That seems to me to be a potential double-whammy of stress - given which I think they deal with the extra complication of cyclists relatively well, at least I'll say that till I run into a bad one!).

mrmo wrote:

when driving, and sorry if this offends I tend to accelerate fairly hard past cyclists.

reason, I tend to slow down, hang back wait for a safe gap then swing very wide to get past, that I am very much on the "wrong" side of the road I don't want to be there for any longer than necessary means I will accelerate fair quickly.

I can live with that. And have no issue with any other drivers doing so. What I do have issue with is those who drop down a gear and accelerate harshly whilst passing you and giving you a gnat's ass of a space in doing so to simply make a point. I question why HGVs, emergency vehicles can pass me whilst accelerating smoothly and giving plenty of room to do so and the hot hatch Beemer/Audi brigade find it impossible to do so.

giff77 wrote:

I question why HGVs, emergency vehicles can pass me whilst accelerating smoothly and giving plenty of room to do so and the hot hatch Beemer/Audi brigade find it impossible to do so.

Well, some people were born without brains. Doesn't stop them from being given a driving licence.

numbercruncher wrote:

To be honest, I think this is more about trying to make a point - 'you've slowed me down, and now I am going to rev my engine so that you notice me and see how quick I can go if you are not in the way', rather than consciously trying to fill our faces with exhaust fumes. It's all part of the 'I'm more important than you' mentality of some drivers, and isn't exclusively used on cyclists either.

This sums up my thoughts very precisely and elegantly.

So I'll rephrase my thoughts as it being a mentality of "Vroom! Vroom! I'm Mr. Fast! Look at all this power I have under my foot, stupid weakling!". And if it's the kind of cars you say, then I would think the owner might be annoyed that they'd paid so much money to 'have a better car than everyone else' (and therefore be superior), only to have to obey the needs of someone who not even IN a car.

If you think about the amount of extra money it costs to buy a recognisably expensive car (and the amount of effort/stress they may have had to go through to obtain it), it must be quite annoying to realise that it offers you practically no real world benefits at all. On UK roads at least.

Perhaps the weight of all the wasted money/life/effort hurts all the more when you're stuck behind someone with visibly better legs.

This is all unscientific thought experiment, but I imagine that I would be pretty pissed off if I'd spend half my savings on the content of a highly-photoshopped, aspirational, idealistic advert about speed, freedom, and luxury - only to find out I was still trapped on the same roads with the same people and the same laws as before. The adverts always seem to suggest when you buy a car, you get a savannah, a mountain, and several members of the opposite sex free with it. Reality generally doesn't match up.

Quince wrote:

So I'll rephrase my thoughts as it being a mentality of "Vroom! Vroom! I'm Mr. Fast! Look at all this power I have under my foot, stupid weakling!". And if it's the kind of cars you say, then I would think the owner might be annoyed that they'd paid so much money to 'have a better car than everyone else' (and therefore be superior), only to have to obey the needs of someone who not even IN a car.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the rich-kids in performance cars who do the 'vroom vroom' thing at every set of traffic lights, only to have to screech to a halt again 100 yards up the road at the next set of lights. You can almost smell the frustration!