Yes, sometimes, I confess, I’m in the wrong as a cyclist. I’m human, I’m imperfect, I mess up. I hope that you’ll welcome me with open arms to your society.
But sometimes, I’m just pootling along, and someone comes along and does something crazy.
In fact, there tends to be days when this happens a lot. In my head I’m usually thinking “Is it National ‘Drive like a looney and don’t indicate’ Day??”.
Now, I’m quite placid, so bad driving rarely drives me to anger. There have been about four occasions when I’ve wanted to chase someone down and explain how dangerous what they just did was. Twice with buses – in a place where there’s a bus lane too!
Sadly, I’ve never been quick enough.
And tonight was no exception. Cycling home, on a normal road, doing a reasonable speed, I’m suddenly blown away by a huge orange vehicle overtaking me at speed, and leaving me very little room whatsoever. It’s hard to say because you never remember accurately thing from the heat of the moment, but I reckon that if I’d have swerved in the draft from the vehicle I’d have been off.
My immediate reaction was to slow and curse, to get my bearings. But I quite quickly made my mind up to give chase.
I didn’t make it. But the vehicle was quite distinctive. It was the mobile library!
I went mobile-library hunting, assuming that it had gone to park up at the West Swindon library, but couldn’t find it.
I’ve written a letter. I hope it was polite and educational. I suspect it was a lapse of concentration or just a rush to get home, but it could, with another few inches, have been my life. You should always give lots of room to a cyclist. If you’re driving a BIG vehicle, you should be even more careful!!!
Earlier today I was in a meeting with someone from the council about Travel Plans (that’ll be in another post). I would like to think that the council would be setting the standard for road safety, and I hope that my input will be taken seriously and positively.