The Dumb Cyclists and Pedestrians thread...

[g-boaf]

Okay - a bike rider (on some sort of flat-bar bike) in long shorts and baggy singlet top, precariously balancing with the left arm on the top of the left handle-bar a quite enormous looking esky! I couldn't determine if it had a full load of beer in it.

Unbelievable!

[bychosis]

I saw a bloke stuggling along on his MTB with a child perched on the top bar and also hanging onto a 12" bike somehow while riding. Not sure if dumb or clever? (both wearing helmets)

[malnar]

Riding on a shared path in a designated off-lead area, got bitten by a dog this morning (the dumb party is the owner). After it bit me it continued to chase me for a good 500m. Got footage of the dog on rear-facing video.

One 2mm deep puncture wound on my calf. Got a tetanus shot & antibiotics this morning...

[jasonc]

Riding on a shared path in a designated off-lead area, got bitten by a dog this morning (the dumb party is the owner). After it bit me it continued to chase me for a good 500m. Got footage of the dog on rear-facing video.

One 2mm deep puncture wound on my calf. Got a tetanus shot & antibiotics this morning...

hope you'll be chasing them for costs.

[Mulger bill]

A big +1 to that.

According to Hume Council: My colouring...

dogs must be kept under control by means of a chain, cord or leash, which is no more than three metres in length
dogs should be on a leash at all times in public places, except in certain parks and reserves that are off leash areas (listed above)
dogs are not permitted within ten metres of playgrounds, barbecues or picnic areas
your dog should not harass people or other animals. Even when dogs are in off-leash areas, they must still be under effective voice control and in sight of their owner
dogs must be on a leash within five metres of shared footpaths and bicycle paths.

I'd be very surprised if this wasn't pretty much the norm in most council areas. Pity it's never enforced

[bychosis]

Darwin award nominee.

Lidless cheapo MTB rider, holding a box of some sort in one hand down to the side, riding on the road, against the traffic, with guard rail beside, along the shoulder of a roundabout where vehicles that make a left turn regularly damage the drain pit on the bend.

Alternative for said rider to use the layback in the kerb and ride behind the guardrail section along a formed (but dirt) track and to the layback in the kerb at the other end of the guardrail.

[malnar]

A big +1 to that.

According to Hume Council: My colouring...

dogs must be kept under control by means of a chain, cord or leash, which is no more than three metres in length
dogs should be on a leash at all times in public places, except in certain parks and reserves that are off leash areas (listed above)
dogs are not permitted within ten metres of playgrounds, barbecues or picnic areas
your dog should not harass people or other animals. Even when dogs are in off-leash areas, they must still be under effective voice control and in sight of their owner
dogs must be on a leash within five metres of shared footpaths and bicycle paths.

I'd be very surprised if this wasn't pretty much the norm in most council areas. Pity it's never enforced

Wyndham doesn't have that rule but the rules do include(much edited):
- when another person approaches the handler must recall their dog and effectively restrain it and
- the handler must not have their dog off lead if it's known to be person aggressive or attracted to objects in motion such as bicycle tyres.


If the owner didn't know about his dogs' social issues he surely does now.

I don't like the look of these dogs (there were 3 of them). Some kind of pit bull I think. They seemed young & full of beans. When I decided to ride off I guess I was doing low 30s kph & two of them were with me for 100s of meters.

I carry the rules in my backpack. If I see him again I'll show him. $16.50 out of pocket for the antibiotics.

[g-boaf]

Riding on a shared path in a designated off-lead area, got bitten by a dog this morning (the dumb party is the owner). After it bit me it continued to chase me for a good 500m. Got footage of the dog on rear-facing video.

One 2mm deep puncture wound on my calf. Got a tetanus shot & antibiotics this morning...

Go after them not only for costs, but a dog like that is a menace. As much as I hate the thought of an animal being euthanased, you do wonder what it might have done had you been stationary or went down and were enable to get away. This is also quite a lot of the owner's fault too for not training their dog properly or restraining it. Hope you recover okay from the bite.

[jules21]

that sucks malnar. it's really important to address these problem owners before their dog rips some kid's head off.

[ColinOldnCranky]

On the way howm last night I woundup assisting a young woman who had just bought a second hand bike.

Details:

• She had bought the bike shortly before, second hand with cobwebs included
• She was on her way to work due in around twenty minutes.
• She had received, apparently, no assistance or advice from the ex-owner. I say apparently as she was in too much of hurry for most of what I was offering, maybe that was the story where she bought it
• the seller had jammed the bike through the boot somehow - flat tyres helped
• She expected to ride it tomorrow to work (I dunno why the imperative)

Anyway I came across her trying to pump it up at a garage pump with the bike still jammed in the boot as she could not get it out. She lost what air she may have had in it in the first place.

I took it out after releasing the front wheel (quick release) and hand-pumped it (my pump, she had nix).

She had no idea of the quick release, nor of how to release the brakes. And again she was really in too much of hurry to want to know about either.

I told her it had a broken spoke. I said she could not ride it until it was fixed. I have the distinct impression that she thinks she will anyway.

The seat post had rotated which alarmed her. I suggested it was easy to attend to and that she needed to know how as she would have to adjust it to her liking anyway. Not much interest there either and still not time.

She really wanted me to put the wheel back on in preference to understanding how to take the wheel off and refit.

She had no idea where to get it repaired. I determined that Churchill Cycles would be convenient and suggested that she have them replace the spoke and to then ask them to go thru the removal and refitting of the wheel, adjusting the seat.

So Dumb? Yep. Didn't know what she had bought, didn't know the first thing about anything, didn't see any requirement to change that, thought she would be able to some how ride it "tomorrow" regardless. Will forever happily somehow jam the bike through the boot opening of a perfectly good car in defiance of immovable physical limitations, ...

I have zero expectation that this woman will be riding it ever. I suppose therefore that if she never rides it then she may not qualifiy as a dumb cyclist. Just DUMB. Period.

[jules21]

nice story Rob (Pirsig)

[twizzle]

I was riding on an on-road a couple of weeks back, and a girl walked to the edge of the road with her large floppy-eared basset-hound looking thing, I went right to the edge of the lane and it still nearly got me when it tried to leap at me, barely restrained by the leash... just as I was being passed by a car. I should have gone back and strangled both her and the dog with the leash.

Today, on-road lane, caught up with "Mr Roadie" just before a set of lights, and just as we came up behind "Mr Commuter" (panniers, flouro vest). I stop at the stop line, but Mr Commuter rolls over the stop line to the end of the traffic island and Mr Roadie rolls up next to him then crosses the intersection through the red using the ped crossing. He was halfway across the road when the light turns green, so I take off, My Commuter stays left and lets me pass. In the meantime, Mr Roadie hasn't seen the green light and is now using the ped zebra crossing on the other side of the intersection, and turns off it to rejoin the on-road lane on the side road which has a dashed "give way" line before joining the on-road lane we all started on.

Can you see where this is going? Yes... Mr Roadie doesn't look and rode straight across the give way line just as I passed him. I'm sure the cars were impressed by the inability of cyclists to follow the road rules, yet again.

[twizzle]

On the way howm last night I woundup assisting a young woman who had just bought a second hand bike. ...

Assisted? Drilled some holes in her skull to allow for additional oxygen, did you?

Reminds me of the housemate (girl) of a guy at work years ago, drove her car for a week with the oil warning light on before it seized, then got upset with him for pointing out it was a dumb thing to do. Common sense sometimes isn't common.

[jules21]

Reminds me of the housemate (girl) of a guy at work years ago, drove her car for a week with the oil warning light on before it seized, then got upset with him for pointing out it was a dumb thing to do. Common sense sometimes isn't common.

to be fair, those lights should be more prominent. you can often tell when an engineer has designed something - a dim red light with an oil can does not scream "stop the car" unless you understand the consequences of low oil pressure. i assume you mean he told her it was dumb after the motor seized.

[twizzle]

Reminds me of the housemate (girl) of a guy at work years ago, drove her car for a week with the oil warning light on before it seized, then got upset with him for pointing out it was a dumb thing to do. Common sense sometimes isn't common.

to be fair, those lights should be more prominent. you can often tell when an engineer has designed something - a dim red light with an oil can does not scream "stop the car" unless you understand the consequences of low oil pressure. i assume you mean he told her it was dumb after the motor seized.

Yes, he asked her if the light had been on, and she said "only for the last week". She had NO IDEA of what it was for. Then got upset and told him, "You can't speak to me like that, I have a degree!"

[jules21]

"You can't speak to me like that, I have a degree!"

woah! i didn't know that. obviously she's more intelligent than everyone else

[human909]

I say apparently as she was in too much of hurry for most of what I was offering

[uncle arthur]

"You can't speak to me like that, I have a degree!"

Reply - yes - a degree more stupidity than others it seems.....

Reply - yet you're clearly not qualified to own or operate that vehicle.....

Reply - and I have an overcoat, but I'm clearly not a doctor.....

[ColinOldnCranky]

Reminds me of the housemate (girl) of a guy at work years ago, drove her car for a week with the oil warning light on before it seized, then got upset with him for pointing out it was a dumb thing to do. Common sense sometimes isn't common.

to be fair, those lights should be more prominent. you can often tell when an engineer has designed something - a dim red light with an oil can does not scream "stop the car" unless you understand the consequences of low oil pressure. i assume you mean he told her it was dumb after the motor seized.

My boat had an alarm that would go off if anything critical was amiss. A real screamer it was too.

And yes, she does have a degree of ignorance at least. Though I can't preach to much as there are many things that I am ignorant of and I probably fail to take actions that I should as a result. While someone of my generation would likely have realised the significance of the oil light, this sort of basic training is not passed down as it was in "the good old days". My daughter is quite chuffed that she has changed her own tyre as so many of her own friends would be lost.

[Adstar]

Okay - a bike rider (on some sort of flat-bar bike) in long shorts and baggy singlet top, precariously balancing with the left arm on the top of the left handle-bar a quite enormous looking esky! I couldn't determine if it had a full load of beer in it.

Unbelievable!

I saw the same thing in Canberra yesterday except bike was kid-sized mtb, clown was wearing a skateboard helmet and was riding the wrong way down an on road bike lane! I think it was a European beer!

[jules21]

oops. i share some blame in this. we both apologised to each other. close one..

[fatdudeonabike]

This is nowhere near as bad as some of the things I read in this thread - but as a cyclist, I get more angry now at dumb cyclists now than I did as a driver. My experience as a driver tells me that all cyclists are tarred with the same brush - inconsiderate cyclists make us all look bad.
Driving up a busy 2 lane road in Canberra (Gungahlin Drive for locals) this afternoon... the road should be 3 lanes, and the 2 lanes they have arent wide enough. Traffic flow sucks. It's an 80km/hr road, but traffic rarely gets much above 60km/hr at that time of day.
It was worse than usual today. Traffic was being backed up because... a really, really slow cyclist was taking up one of the lanes doing no more than 25 km/h in this 80 km/hr zone.
"He's entitled to a lane" I hear you say - and I know this. He's absolutely entitled to a lane.
But its one of the little things that give us all a bad wrap when someone is so inconsiderate to do this.

Why?

Because there was a bike path about 5 metres to his left.
Technically its a shared bike/pedestrian path - but this path is in the middle of nowhere. I sometimes see a guy walking his dog along it early in the morning - but aside from that, I literally dont remember ever seeing a single other pedestrian on that path in the 18 months that I've lived out here.
I know that legally he's not doing anything wrong, nor is it particularly idiotic - it just made me really angry though that crap traffic flow is made that much worse because of one inconsiderate buffoon who thinks he's Mark Cavendish is too good for the bike lines when people much, much faster than him are happy to use it.

Edit: Is he actually entitled to this lane? After writing this post, I think I remember reading somewhere that you arent allowed to ride on the road where a bike path is provided. Did I make that up?

[skull]

Isn't riding on Gungahlin drive a bit of a deathwish anyway?

[DavidS]

fatdudeonabike, I would say he would be entitled to the lane. He is on a bicycle, which is a road vehicle, and the alternate lane is a shared path by the sound of it. That said, and I tend to ride at about 25-30KMh, I would either go on the shared path, keep well left on the road or find an alternate route. Holding up heaps of cars is not the reason I ride a bike. I had an idiot last year beep me when I was claiming a lane, it was one of 2 short (about 100m each) sections on my ride where I claim the lane because of a narrow section of road (both are tram stops). This is fine for a couple of hundred metres, but for a long stretch of road it is inconsiderate. There comes a time when the fact you have the right to take the lane does not mean you should.

DS

[Mulger bill]

Well said Dave, it's about give and take.

Even tho' sometimes it seems like you give them an inch and they take two yards...