UKH

Trundling into work this morning in the wind and the rain, traffic is fairly normal.  I get to one of those bits we all know on our commutes where you think "Right, am I going to have someone be a dick to me here?". I  need to transition from a cycle lane on the left of two lanes of traffic into a bus lane in the middle of those two lanes of traffic.  Cars have the opportunity to 'not see' my signal and bully past me if they think I'm going to slow them down by a nano-second or two.

Check behind me, there's traffic coming but it's a way back and I'm safe to move over into the bus lane which I do.   WHOOOSH.  A black Merc doing over the speed limit cuts across the bus lane in front of me.  Dick.  It's not a particularly bad example of driving as things go but provokes some mild chuntering.

SIRENS.  "Eeek, OK stay straight and level and they'll come round you as they see fit".

WHOOOSH.  Police car comes flying past, lights and sirens on.  Black Merc pulls over helpfully to let the Police through.  Oh no not today my luvver!  I ride past as the young man driving the Merc is exiting his car under the watchful eye of a young officer.

Oh, how I laughed!

On checking my footage turns out I don't think he got pulled for the dubious overtake of me.  Looks like he'd been going over the speed limit and switching in and out of lanes to make progress, it was coincidence that the lights and siren went on the second after he'd gone past me.  That also explains how when I checked behind me he was nowhere in sight.

I'm painfully aware that it's probably not healthy to take such pleasure from someone else's misfortune, but hey it's not often the police turn up exactly when you need them to and administer some instant road justice :  ).

I experienced a great bit of motoring schadenfreude a few years ago. I was entering a roundabout at the end of a motorway; early evening, quiet traffic. A tatty old Transit with a loud and smoky exhaust overtook me and crossed several lanes on the roundabout, carving up other traffic and going flat out. Leaving this roundabout involves a slip road where you filter onto a dual carriageway, with dual carriageway traffic having priority. I'd caught up with the van by this stage. A BMW estate was on the carriageway, so the van should have slotted in behind it. But the van didn't slow down, the BMW held its position so the van had to jam on the brakes (at 50mph) and skid all over the shop quite dramatically. I thought they were going to crash. The van got onto the tail of the BMW and flashed and honked continually for a few hundred metres. When the 70mph sign appeared, I thought the BMW would just vanish. Instead, it put its hidden blue lights on. I applauded as I drove past them pulling into a lay-by.

whilst out for a ride with my son we were approaching a roundabout with three lanes (L lane for left turn, middle lane straight on and right lane for right turn). Checked over shoulders and all clear. So we pulled into middle lane abreast of each other. Because traffic conditions were such that a, we could easily keep up with flow and b, it was the safest option for us. A car pulled up behind us with only a couple of mm between their bumper and my rear tyre. As we started cycling with flow of traffic the driver was incandescent with rage giving us the ‘London taxi wave’, sounding their horn and still driving with only mm to spare between us. As we exited the roundabout the driver aggressively overtook us (again with only mm to spare) and then pulled directly in front of us and slammed on their brakes forcing us to stop. 
the male passenger jumps out and made his first mistake.. he aggressively approached my son telling him he was going to punch his lights out etc etc. I sat back to enjoy the show. My son is not only very capable of handling himself but is also a police officer . Driver jumps out effing and blinding. 
never seen two people change their tune so quickly. 

Those two weakened their argument anyway, in that if they were truly in a rush, then they would not have the time to stop and even politely argue, let alone get into a near-fight.

I don’t think it had anything to do with ‘hindering’ their progress. They had what is known in the trade as SFBs (S*#t for brains). I suspect they were just reinforcing their own intolerances until it boiled over. People with SFB syndrome inhabit all Stratas of society and has nothing to do with education or position or wealth accumulation.

I generally have my commute spoiled but some turn out to be entertaining, i'm not particularly proud of this one but I was happily on my cycle commute home many years ago taking the primary position in the road as its fairly narrow laned one way street when somebody came past me on zebra crossing then turned immediately left, basically taking me round the corner with them, I gave the car a swift defensive hoof with my foot in blind panic as I though I was going to end up under it, at which point the driver looked behind and rear ended the car that was stopped in front of them, a pedestrian then shouted to me that I had caused an accident, I just rode away as I didn't really see that I could add anything to the situation apart from anger at very nearly being run over.

The irony of being blamed for a 1 tonne piece of machinery crashing when not being the one in control of it! I remember a friend telling me a story how a sheep was responsible for making him crash his car on an unlit country road, had nothing to do with him driving his BMW 1 series like a maniac at all times. 

A colleague & I were cycling sociably side by side after work with no traffic and an empty lane to our right. A car came up behind and blew horn until so I waved him into the other empty lane. Still no other traffic around.

It took longer and more effort for driver to move hand from wheel to blow horn and apply brakes behind us than to turn wheel by an extra few degrees to move into other lane. I supposed because we were side by side he had to move right by 3.5m fully into the other (still empty) lane rather than by 2.5m mostly into the other (still empty) lane.

Some people are just idiots.

Yup, I was a bit confused too, I think I just looked at him in bewilderment, shook my head and rode off.

On my 'before time' commute home there is a short stretch of urban dual carriageway.  30mph, downhill, with speed camera.  I think it's set quite conservatively as I have never yet managed to set it off, despite trying very hard.   However, the MGIFs fall for it every now and then, which is a delight at the end of a day of London traffic.  Schadenfreude is a terrible thing.

Even cyclists occasional get their comeuppance - cycling home a couple of summers ago, three MAMILs riding in echelon formation forced me into the gutter. A hundred meters down the road they took the first turn off a roundabout at full speed and with no regard for other traffic. Unfortunately there was a car stopped at a pedestrian crossing just round the corner. Two of them managed to go left and right of the car, but the middle cyclist ploughed straight into the back bumper. 

I had a similar thing as a student in Great Western Road in Glasgow. 

A car overtook me and then immediately turned left at the traffic lights, and I tried to turn the corner with him. I somehow ended up on the floor in front of his car. I was furious, but naive. I went round to the driver's side, and he wound down his window, and asked if I was alright. I gave him a few expletives, but otherwise let him off. I think that he realised that I probably would have hit him, if he had got out.

Another thing that happened, again as a student, was that I was overtaken in the siling down rain, by a bus (on the switch back outside the vet school), which stopped at the next bus stop. I put my brakes on, but they had no effect with the surface water, and I hit the back of the bus with front wheel and head. The worst thing was my sudden loss of sense of self, and pride, as the bus driver just drove off, as I don't think that he realised that I had hit the bus!

Years ago a mate wrote off a milk float when he crashed into the back of it with his push bike! He wasn't in a great state but we laughed.

Had a racy car driver blast past me through the speed camera on my commute home, flash flash and 10m later joins the queue at the next red light.  Felt a bit sorry for him but..

Cheers

Toby

Not traffic related but this has been making my commute everyday...

The man playing the saxophone near the tram stops in Manchester city centre. His playing skills are fairly mediocre, he's not busking, but he's just there, every day at the moment, playing the sax for no apparent reason. There have been no discernable tunes I recognise so far but it cheers me up on my way home! 

Was it the Milk Race? I watched this a few times as a kid and never saw any milk being drank.

I once had some bloke hooting behind me, coming up to a traffic island, so I was taking the primary position. He then overtook, stopped in front of me, got out of his car and started having a go.

As if by magic, a police car approached from the other direction, stopped, and intervened. I calmly explained, and they went over and 'had words of advice' with the bloke, pointing out the error of his ways.

Cheered me up...

ps.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/biking/cyclist_prejudice-732106

I don't think you understand the mentality of MGIF/SMIDSY Man... On the one hand, they can't see cyclists, but on the other hand, they can't see anything in front of the cyclists...