Friday night I went to a meeting for my sports club at a pub in Smith St, Collingwood. I lugged the two D-locks with me as I was paranoid my pride and joy would be stolen while I was in said meeting. Luckily I found a tree with metal cage around it right outside the pub and the tree leaned over and cuddled my bike, hiding it from thieving eyes.
I came out after the meeting and decided to head back to the office in the CBD to drop off the heavy D-locks as I didn't want to lug them to work on Monday morning (I was borrowing a car for the weekend as my car was out of town on a family trip so I didn't have to ride home first).
On my way back to the CBD I used Victoria Parade (the cars were surprisingly polite) and La Trobe Street. At Melbourne Central a couple of pedestrians decided to step out onto the bike lane without looking, causing emergency braking by me and repeated shouts of "STOP!!" (also by me). The lady heard me first and stopped half over the bike lane, the guy came to within 30 centimetres of me before he stopped. No way to take evasive action with those concrete blocks there when I saw them about to step onto the bike lane, but luckily I had it under control and they did stop. An apology came from the guy and an exasperated "Please look" came from me and we went our separate ways.
Then further up I had just turned left from La Trobe into Queen Street and rolled up to a red traffic light at Little Lonsdale. I was placed in the left lane. I heard the acceleration of a car behind me going faster than they should heading towards the red light I was stopped at, I turned my head and saw a car in the right hand lane that wasn't stopping for the light and seemed like it was going greater than 40kph.
Sure enough, this car blows through the red light I'm stopped at, nearly taking out 6 pedestrians and one car driving through its clearly green light. The only reason there wasn't a crash or skittling of pedestrians was because one of the pedestrians was aware and stopped her partner and I had my hand out saying stop as well. The green light motorist was also aware and slammed on the brakes so as not to be hit by the red light runner. It was a bit of a brown pants moment.
I didn't manage to catch up to the car after the next set of lights, but having a review of my rear camera footage this morning gives a clear picture of the licence plate so not sure whether I should mention it in my response to the police regarding them deciding not to issue an infringement notice to the truck driver who almost squished me into a parked car while I was riding in the dedicated bicycle lane in Elizabeth Street, Richmond back in early August (the police's reasoning for not issuing a fine being I was in his blind spot - ie. he didn't look in his mirrors, and the truck driver was very apologetic - so clearly 'Sorry mate, I didn't look' is a good enough excuse for the police - so this red light runner should get off with nothing as well because he clearly wasn't looking for the traffic lights and no pedestrians or cars were injured in the red light running.
).
This morning I was overdressed. And I was a bit dumb because I saw the garage door closing to the car park I wanted to get into, managed to sprint down the lane to get inside, ducked my head and got through... but completely forgot about my backpack and that it rises up when I duck my head. The backpack glanced off the garage door (which was rising back up by then due to me triggering the sensor) and sheepish me slapped my wrist for not taking into account the backpack. Silly me.
Mr Telstra commuter was wearing a different coloured Telstra jersey/jacket this morning as he rode past me when I was running prior to the ride to work. And he didn't pee in his usual place in the bushes. Progress!
Oh, and I saw from Facebook that apparently Channel 7 is doing another Cyclists vs Motorists beat up and my dooring footage is in the promo clip. Wish I got paid for every time someone used my clip...