Cycling is good for you

[kneeshooter]

Another entry? I must be home-early-from-work-for-governors-meeting.

After going for a run the other week my knees were giving me trouble so I took a week off from exercise. Last night, after I promised to return berrega's spare key, I went out for a short cycle. A slight wrong turn on the way home turned it from about 10 miles to about 13, but this was good fun - until the point I had a RTA.

It wasn't much of an RTA - but some dumb woman decided to push her bicycle across a pedestrian crossing as I was shooting down it at about 25mph (with lights and paying attention having just successfully overtaken a skip). I screamed, she pulled back, I clipped her bike with my pedals. Much swearing later I have a bruise on my inner thigh from my saddle but am otherwise unharmed; and the other party skulked off after assuring me she was ok.

I'm just glad I managed to escape the pedals rather than fall over in the middle of the street with the bicycle attached.

Bloody cyclists.

Comments

[sixtine.livejournal.com]

Well done for overtaking the skip successfully. That's progress at least!

[ikkleblacktruck.livejournal.com]

Tut tut, don't you know pedestrians come first and everyone else is expected to be able to miraculously stop whether they are aware of you or not?

It's a radical idea, I know, but perhaps if more emphasis was placed on educating pedestrians on proper road use rather than blaming motorists, even less accidents might occur? I haven't even seen the hedgehogs on tv for ages.

absolutely correct

[okstoplaughing.livejournal.com]

pedestrians = best assumed stupid / drunk / mad / asleep and squishy

motorists = in control of potentially lethal device and armoured

therefore the onus is on the motorist to take additional care over and above what is reasonable.

you can educate people on safe machine-tool use, but you still need to put guards on lathes for the one day a usually competent operator forgets their brain. Because that's the day the accident will happen. So educating peds won't make much difference (speaking as one who's caused an RTA and is reasonably educated in road use)

If I as a motorist / cyclist hit a ped, it's the same as me as a motorist / cyclist running into the back end of a car - I'm at fault for not realising how stupid people can be. Maybe not 'fair', but my fault.