Near Miss of the Day 368: Mr Angry of Berkshire (+ video)

Lukas, you simply must take your humour to the Edinburgh Festival; with wit like this you are a shoo-in for the Perrier award.

Probably do well with that line of humour in Scotland.

I don't like them either, I understand shared lanes are not intended for speeds greater the 12mph. I've not found an official confirmation of this figure, but the figure is bandied around a lot, and it makes sense with the poorly maintained surfaces, obstacles and pedestrians (who knew?!) that are usually to be found

In any case cycle lanes are not compulsory, as per rule 61 HWC

"Cycle Routes and Other Facilities. Use cycle routes, advanced stop lines, cycle boxes and toucan crossings unless at the time it is unsafe to do so. Use of these facilities is not compulsory and will depend on your experience and skills, but they can make your journey safer."

I thought it was 18, but as you say it's hard to track down the blurb.

I am not convinced that there is an official maximum. Certainly, around here, they are pretty keen on keeping it slow ... twice I have been asked by Humberside Police officers to leave the (deserted) shared use path and ride on the road because I was going too fast to be on it, and both times I was doing around 14-15 mph. 

Interestingly, this particular path is in an industrial area which sees very little pedestrian traffic and with no houses or driveways from which pedestrians could enter the path without warning ... almost as if it is just a way of Hull City Council boosting the amount of cycle provision it claims it has provided for the city. </cynical>

I'm certain there is a correlation between idiot drivers and the use of dashcams.

I think you are correct, there is, but perhaps not in the way you mean. The more idiot drivers there are, the more sensible people do what they can to protect themselves from them, by using a dashcam in their car, or a head cam when on a bike.

My experience is, the more idiotic the driver, the more likely they are to have a dashcam.  Anecdotal, I know, and opinions/experiences will vary.

Ex-Burnham resident here. Commuted there daily and never used that shared use path. Thankfully I never met Mr Angry.
Often would pop into the local Evans Cycles on the way home. Is it still there?

Yep, it's still there for now! It's always pretty quiet in there though, so I feel it might not be long until it's on Mike Ashley's cull list.

I've got some decent bargains in there over the years though.

Good afternoon Toffee.

This is my video.  Thanks for the comments.  Fortunately, it's not that common to have this type of encounter and I wish I could have said to him that he needed a hug.

I was bored with him as I couldn't get a reply without a f or c word, but he did have the last word!  He repeated use the cycle lane but as I rode off I said 'Nahhh!' but bless him he followed up with a yes 

I've had a similar angry confrontation with a driver on the A370 in Weston-super-Mare and again, that's alongside a reasonable cycle lane (it doesn't go where I want to go though). It happened when there was some traffic disruption and so I was filtering between two lanes of stationary traffic. I heard a shouted comment as I went past him, so I decided to stop and have a shout back. Funnily enough, it was a very similar circumstance - an old bloke and his wife. No progress was made and I ended up shouting "your ignorance is showing" and cycled off.

The police can definitely act on abusive language use on the roads. In the past they've warned cyclists for bad language with close-passes etc.

Of course, it'll depend on how your local police choose to deal with it.

Yes almost hilarious when drivers try and out manouvre cyclists. What amuses me is the compromise they fight with - not damaging their preciuous box whilst attempting to obstruct filtering.

crazy-legs wrote:

 I'd have had his wing mirror off, through the windscreen and disappeared on the cycle lane he's so keen for you to use.

I'm sure your joking (aren't you?), but the trouble is when any cyclist, however severely provoked, responds to an agressive idiot like this, all the idiot, in his state of self-righteous indignation, sees is one of the loathed tribe behaving badly, and it is other members of the tribe who are likely to suffer. 

I'm not convinced that not retaliating is the answer. Angry old men just need to be taken down a peg or two and maybe they'll think twice next time they feel like road raging. 

crazy-legs wrote:

Overtake, ram the cyclist into the kerb and he's in stationary traffic. I'd have had his wing mirror off, through the windscreen and disappeared on the cycle lane he's so keen for you to use.

Would have been a shame if that driver's manueovre forced a cyclist into scraping their handlebar down the side of his car, wouldn't it.

Another example of someone not sane enough to be worthy of the privilege of driving on our roads.