Twice in a week

When something unpleasant happens twice in a week, It’s probably time to moan about it. Once, you can write off to bad experience but twice, within a working week at that is probably time to call down the fury of me upon the situation.

This morning as I walked to the office I heard a bit of an expletive filled exchange going on behind me. It was full of “If you ever looked in your f***ing mirrors you f***ing c***.” and such niceties. I ignored it but perhaps I shouldn’t have because as I started crossing the road on a very red set of traffic lights I was almost run over by the potty mouthed cyclist. The lights hadn’t just turned red. They had been red for some considerable time. Nor were they about to turn green as traffic was still happily streaming in the other direction. It appeared for this cyclist at least there were special laws of the road that meant everyone should bog off the roads so he could peddle in his tight clothing unencumbered by anything as mundane as traffic regs.

I would have written it off as a bad one off if I hadn’t almost been mown down, this time in broad daylight, on exactly the same road at a different set of lights, earlier on in the week. Both sets are on hills and it would appear that keeping up speed is a lot more important than actually stopping for some lyrca clad hooligans.

I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this, as I spotted this from another St Albans resident on twitter yesterday:

Also, whilst I’m at it, how about snipers on rooftops, to take out drivers that don’t indicate and cyclists that go through red lights.
— Sam Carr (@alwaysthecritic) January 9, 2014

I never thought I’d be a militant pedestrian. But now it appears that I am.

There are of course two entirely separate issues here- motorists being careful and attentive on the road, specifically in relation to cyclists. This should not be ignored because some cyclists are deeply irresponsible when it comes to lights. That’s where Sam’s sniper scheme is very fair- it targets motorists and cyclists. Of course cyclists need to be educated that the laws of the road are just that, laws of the road, not laws for motor cars.

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