Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

jules21 wrote:

kirky92au wrote:My ride this morning, however otherwise uneventful.

i might have had a bit to say to him!

Haha normally I would yell something, I guess I was a bit taken aback really.

warthog1 wrote: I hope that is going to the local police stn. There was absolutely no excuse for that

I took it down there (Along with the template letter) however the local station isn't manned 24/7, and they were out so I'll try again tomorrow.

Good, hopefully he gets some penalty, or threat of a penalty, in order to stop the belligerent soul from doing that to the next cyclist.

Where to start. Heading along my favourite stretch of CBD road Mr NeverBeenOffRoadLandRoverDiscovery decides to pull out of a driveway behind a taxi and drive down the middle of two lanes. Was lucky not to rear end him as the rear wheel kept locking up on the wet road and not knowing what lane he wanted to be in. And then on my way home Mr BMW decides not to look to his right while I'm in the middle of a roundabout just missing me by centimeters after finally seeing me after they had entered the roundabout. A tenth later and I would have been under their front wheels for sure. After I shouded abuse I flicked it around and went in chase. Unfortunatly I lost sight of them when I got the second red light about 1.5-2km away.

Nearly got taken out this morning, 40kph in an on-road green painted cycle lane at a slip lane, when a tradie van just ahead of me doing about 20kph swerved into the lane and back out again. I was already on the brakes, because I was going to stop before the corner and cross the road at the intersection and head back up the road (hill). I got his rego, straight round to the police station and made a statement.

what did the cops say twiz?

jules21 wrote:what did the cops say twiz?

+1 on this..yes what did the cops say? just wondering if it's useful to make a statement on i said-he said situation..

They are going to send out a "who was the driver" letter, I said I would pursue the matter if he was a repeat offender... otherwise it's just intel. No point going to court for a he-says-she-says matter.

Monday night I had a bus pull out on me twice. First he turned right onto the road I had right of way on, the road I was on had a cycle lane but I wasn't in it due to it being full of slushy snow. When he pulled out I was forced I to the snow I clipped out just in case but was ok. Then he stopped at a bus stop and I passed him, while passing he pulled out forcing me onto the wrong side of the road.

Unfortunately for him I'm a mechanic at the bus depot he was running out so I spoke to control and got a hold of him that night when his shift finished. He apologised and claimed not to have realised heoushed me into the snow and he missed me passing me in his mirror. If im being honest though the only thing he is sorry about is that I work with him and I caught up with him.

Had my first incidents yesterday on the ride home.

Almost doored twice in 25 metres but fortunately had given myself plenty of room and was riding slow enough to get out of the way.

The one that really struck me though was the young p plate bearing lady with friend in the passenger side that pulled out from her parallel park right in front of me just as I was getting up some speed. No indication and no hesitation, just spun the wheel and accelerated. On the picks and was about 3mm from rubbing my tyre on her rear bumper. Dropped back a few metres and stuck on her tail waving an arm to get her attention. I could see her eyes in her rear vision mirror and there was not one indication of recognition. Could only laugh and shake my head at her 500m up the road when she got stuck in a couple of hundred metres of traffic. She finally got past me about 6km up the road!!!

twizzle wrote:They are going to send out a "who was the driver" letter, I said I would pursue the matter if he was a repeat offender... otherwise it's just intel. No point going to court for a he-says-she-says matter.

I really have no real idea how the police work their systems. However, my story begins before around a decade ago when they moved their radios to digital. For many years before that I used to listen in to the police frequencies on my (very legal) scanner "just for fun" ( perfectly legal , you just can't transmit on their frequency or boy you are in trouble)

I'd be working in my garage with the scanner on instead of the am/fm radio ( usually on my bikes but whatever needed fixing ) and you would hear eg this about a traffic stop after the patrol car radioed in the number plate ( usually , they do this whilst they are following you ) . The base station would then reply with : " warnings- driver may speed at pedestrian crossings. Driver may overtake other vehicles unsafely. Driver may keep a Glock under drivers seat ( seriously !!) and other stuff.... my assumption at the time , is that these "warnings" - particularly as they pedantically used the word "may"- resulted ( perhaps ? ) from some member of the public reporting this driver at various times, and although it might not be followed up or proven it was tagged to the driver/licence plate . My point is , I seriously do not think anyone is wasting their time by reporting things to the police. MY 2 cents worth , I happily stand to be corrected by those who know more than me !

Lukeyboy wrote:Where to start. Heading along my favourite stretch of CBD road Mr NeverBeenOffRoadLandRoverDiscovery decides to pull out of a driveway behind a taxi and drive down the middle of two lanes. Was lucky not to rear end him as the rear wheel kept locking up on the wet road and not knowing what lane he wanted to be in. And then on my way home Mr BMW decides not to look to his right while I'm in the middle of a roundabout just missing me by centimeters after finally seeing me after they had entered the roundabout. A tenth later and I would have been under their front wheels for sure. After I shouded abuse I flicked it around and went in chase. Unfortunatly I lost sight of them when I got the second red light about 1.5-2km away.

Ahhh, the old pull-out-onto-the-road-and-hope-for-the-best manoeuvre. I know it well from screaming down on the bike along Riverside myself. The sensible thing for the driver to do would have been to pull out onto the road into the left lane, because his vision is obscured by the taxi, then move to the RH lane when safe. Nothing but sheer laziness what they did in your vid.

Spotted this one on youtube:

if this is not a MM I don't know what is!

http://m.media.smh.com.au/national/sele ... 86242.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

nearly runs down two police in the process!

yeah I saw that.

Absolute moron with no regard to their safety or anyone elses, it is clowns like that you get stuck need help and tie up resources (and potentially the lose of the rescuers lives) trying to rescue them.

queequeg wrote:if this is not a MM I don't know what is!

http://m.media.smh.com.au/national/sele ... 86242.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

nearly runs down two police in the process!

Link no work for me on desktop or mobile
Found THIS.
Scorn drips from every pore. Twerp

Mulger bill wrote:

queequeg wrote:if this is not a MM I don't know what is!

http://m.media.smh.com.au/national/sele ... 86242.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

nearly runs down two police in the process!

Link no work for me on desktop or mobile
Found THIS.
Scorn drips from every pore. Twerp

I didn't see if the cops nabbed the git. surely it can't be good if you drive blind on the wrong side of the road and nearly run over two police!

Youtube link to it here

Gotta be a rental car...

I wasn't involved but a moron today destroyed my daughter's car.

She is 18 and learning to drive, getting up the hours. Goes out with my partner and they are driving along Maroondah Hwy beyond Lilydale towards Healesville. This idiot parked at 90 degrees on the side of the road just pulled out into the car. Massive damage to the front left of the car my daughter was driving. It was an early 90s Falcon but low KMs, very good condition and a great first car for her. The car is a write off. The idiot in question clearly did not look and has actually rammed into the front of my daughter's car. My daughter actually did a really good job, she braked and swerved and had checked if there was traffic coming the other way before swerving. Bloody good presence of mind and reactions for a learner. Her actions probably saved my partner from injuries. The other car accelerated very hard into my daughter's car and there would have been no avoiding the twit.

Anyway they are both fine. My daughter has a bruised knee from where it hit the steering column while she was braking and my partner is a bit sore. Both in shock, I had to go and get them from the yard where the car is. The guy in the other car is also fine.

Not quite sure how that accident could have been avoided by my daughter. You can't drive around assuming people are about to accelerate into you. But, if the other driver doesn't look I suppose they won't see you.

DS

Bum, from all angles. I hope your ladies come good soon Dave.

Not a good couple of days for L platers it seems. My lad had a couple of lessons over the last few days and I coulda made a fortune for the govt if I had a badge

Kenzo wrote:Gotta be a rental car...

Looks like an old Mazda 626/Ford Telstar (when they were badge engineered twins). Crazy stuff.

Dave: that sounds like a nasty accident, and very fortunate all involved are okay. Sometimes you just can't avoid those kinds of accidents - some other drivers just take their eye off things for a moment and then it happens.

DavidS wrote:I wasn't involved but a moron today destroyed my daughter's car.

She is 18 and learning to drive, getting up the hours. Goes out with my partner and they are driving along Maroondah Hwy beyond Lilydale towards Healesville. This idiot parked at 90 degrees on the side of the road just pulled out into the car. Massive damage to the front left of the car my daughter was driving. It was an early 90s Falcon but low KMs, very good condition and a great first car for her. The car is a write off. The idiot in question clearly did not look and has actually rammed into the front of my daughter's car. My daughter actually did a really good job, she braked and swerved and had checked if there was traffic coming the other way before swerving. Bloody good presence of mind and reactions for a learner. Her actions probably saved my partner from injuries. The other car accelerated very hard into my daughter's car and there would have been no avoiding the twit.

Anyway they are both fine. My daughter has a bruised knee from where it hit the steering column while she was braking and my partner is a bit sore. Both in shock, I had to go and get them from the yard where the car is. The guy in the other car is also fine.

Not quite sure how that accident could have been avoided by my daughter. You can't drive around assuming people are about to accelerate into you. But, if the other driver doesn't look I suppose they won't see you.

DS

Sometimes there is just nothing you can do to prevent an accident with idiots driving cars around you. Sounds like she did a great job in the circumstances.

I had a near miss in my car this morning too - white crappy car pulls out of a blind apartment car park (there was a car parked on the road obscuring their view too) at around 7:05AM, pauses and then turns right into the small side street I was driving up without looking to their right. The only reason they didn't scrape/t-bone me was because I DIDN'T brake (yes, how does that make sense?) and drove past with cms to spare. There was no second lane to go around or avoid the situation -with cars parked on both sides it is one car through at a time type street. I shudder to think what would have happened to a poor cyclist riding down there with that SMIDSY person. This was off Church Street near the Church/Chapel St Yarra bridge crossing.

Moron musicians thread ?

Thanks for the kind words. Both my partner and daughter went to the doctor today and have mild whiplash but otherwise fine.

I've thought about what I would have done in her situation and can't think of a thing she could have done to avoid the accident, nowhere to go. What would have been worse is that I probably would have been going faster.

Anyway my daughter is off to enrol at Uni tomorrow so likely to drive there and my partner will then go off to work. That would be good, get her back in the car driving.

One thing I will say is that her reactions are a testament to the 120 hours before you can get a licence rules these days. She has 50 hours and it shows, she can anticipate and take intelligent action. I reckon I had less than 20 hours in a car before I had my licence, too little experience. Mind you, I have no idea how I could have got 120 hours as I knew no-one with a full licence as my mother does not drive.

Anyway, keep safe out there, there are idiots around (as if we didn't know that already)!

DS