Question about push-bikes...

[Spiderman]

Hey Vixis....surley you were just having a bit of a stretch as you pulled up to the lights and the fact that your outstretched arm happened to clothesline a total a-hole is neither here or there right?

In fact he should have watched where he was going and you have a claim against him for personal injury since his adams apple caught you squarley on the elbow, right?

Originally Posted by vixis

...now, I'm a placid person (sort of) - I just dont like being surprised.

Question - Would the rider be liable if their pillion (me) punched a guy trying to slide past us to go thru a red light? He got within mm of touching me, scared the hell out of me and caused SK to stop (pee'ing the people off behind him) to wait for the ***** to move before he could.

Just a thought.

You should thump him in the head purely for buying something without an engine.

Seriouly people need to chill, I cycle every day and I use pavements sometimes and jump red pedestian crossings when there is no one on them or going to be on them. But always when its safe, and I do look. It drives me round the bend when I see cyclist doing dangerous things, the ammount of cyclists who dont do a shoulder check is riddiculous. There is also a big diffrence between charging down a pavement at 15 and going carefully at 5.

Just for the records the only incidents that I have ever had when I have been squessed by people trying to overtake, hence why I now cycle on quite bits of roads and use some pedestian bit as well. Its much safer for me.

Funny but the whole motorcyclists getting cross because a cyclist has jumping red light thing sounds a little like car driver getting cross because bikers jump queues. I have noramally find these are the same bikers who take up the whole cycle area (which is legally for push-bikes only) and then force cyclists to start cycling from the right hand side of the road.

Its not that I'm anti bike, I love bikes but seriouly as a group we (motorcyclists) do enough dangerous stuff and smile about it. A bit more of understanding from both sides would go well. And like people say you should have to ride a motorbike before taking a car test everyone should have to ride a push-bike down a busy road before getting any sort of licence.

[yorkie_chris]

How hard did you smack him? Any teeth embedded in knuckles etc. or did you hit him right?

No sympathy, for a start, cyclists wear lycra, and that really shouldn't be seen in public. For another thing if you'd have knocked the silly f##ker off, he'd have a fair chance of a claim on you, you'd have nowt because they don't have insurance.

So, important thing, did he get your number plate? If so, how common is your riding gear? Seems to me to be more common assault than anything else, so unless you've got the only example of a particular jacket in the country then you should be fine.
Chances are he won't have made a complaint anyway, but if he does then CCTV is a worry.

[Jayneflakes]

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

I think that if a cyclist intends to be on the road they should have to do a Theory Test and a CBT equivilent. This will mean that they will at least know what the road signs mean, and they have been trained to deal with junctions and road positioning.

Now what with me being Devils Advocate...

I am a qualified Mountain Bike Instructor and I like this idea, I could earn a fortune.

It often horrifies me when I see cyclists riding at night with no lights or reflectors, often in Dark clothing and even the wrong way along a one way street.

As I have posted before I work in a bike shop and I recently had the urine extracted because I have fitted wheel reflectors to my road bike, I have a fluro Orange cycing jacket and shock upon shock, I have lights on my bike... This Urine Extraction was undertaken by another cycle mechanic who claims that my bike has a Dashboard (?) and there for weighs more than it needs to. Luckily for me, I was not the one hit by a car riding the wrong way down a one way street, while wearing dark clothing and not showing a light recently.

I feel that the training I had to pass my CBT was well thought out and most of it made sense, the thought of having a similar sort of training for cyclists could be rather useful. Then I got into a relationship with a single parent and acquired a step son who wanted to cycle to school.

The school insist that pupils who wish to cycle to school must have suitable training and wear a helmet. The training was provided by a specialist group (maybe Sus-Trans could be involved?) and he had to prove that he knew how to ride on busy roads and not be a danger to himself or other road users.

One other point though, it hardly matters how much training we have as cyclists, we are still quite often the victims of poor planning. Modern cycle ways are often badly surfaced with slippery paint, contain illegally parked vehicles and rubbish and are so blatantly designed by non cyclists. There have been a few where it was safer to ride in busy traffic than use the permitted (and dangerously designed) cycle way. One in Plymouth crosses the slipways to the A38 on four occasions with in 500 metres and cuts up all other road users. How no one has been hurt on it, I will never know!

[northwind]

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

He really did just come from no-where - and I had positioned myself in a way to stop that from happening

Obviously not very well

Some cyclists are knobs. They tend to get driven over eventually. TBH this all seems a bit disproportionate for this guy here, but I'm not sure I followed the description right... Were you stopped when he passed you?

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by northwind

Obviously not very well

Some cyclists are knobs. They tend to get driven over eventually. TBH this all seems a bit disproportionate for this guy here, but I'm not sure I followed the description right... Were you stopped when he passed you?

Was not much more than a fag-paper in it being done well or not........