We all know riding bikes is risky, but sometimes it just gets silly.
Yesterday I had to ride to the Dr.'s when I didn't really feel up to it, but couldn't face a 2.5 mile round trip on foot & I couldn't fasten my shoe laces anyway.
100yards from home I stopped 2 or 3 yards short of the T junctions as a speeding car was clearly going to cut the corner. The driver was one of those who leans rather than turning the steering wheel a bit more. Then she mouthed a profanity at me!
150 yard further on, turning right around a small and badly designed roundabout, a speeding Transit had to haul to a stop as I was well into the turn. He then sat on my numberplate as I entered the 40mph bypass on a section that is all potholes and chewed up for 50 yards. I held 2nd gear, but instead of overtaking, he sat close and just flashed his lights and sounded his horn.
When I reached the Let Rip sign, I gunned it to 60 mph for the 1/2 mile to the lights where I would filter right for the last 200 yards to the Dr.'s. The van caught me up and went through the lights screaming abuse at me.
Bugger me, I went with the lights and a BMW X5 took up station in the 30mph zone on my back plate, so I eased off ahead of my turn & signalled with my indicator & my left arm (BMW and indicators are not compatible). He followed me into the Surgery car park!
When I came out & was putting my lid & gloves back on, the large BMW oaf walked past and tutted like a little gurlie. I'm very calm & relaxed on the bike, but here I was still on foot.
"What's your problem, pal?" I snarled. "Bloody motorbikes, always too fast or too slow and always in the bloody way," he explained in a voice suggesting he might have been neutered before puberty.
"OK, but you are a bloody BMW driver, tailgating and not signalling, so why don't you learn some manners and safety?"
I heard the old boy sat waiting in his car the other side of me laughing quiety.
"Fuck off!" was the solution offered by the Oaf.
Red rag to me, so pulling my phone out of my top pocket, "Well do you want to listen to some advice and guidance, or do you want we to get Uniform out to explain the Road Traffic Act to you and to check you car?"
"Fuck off!" he repeated.
"OK, see this little box on my fairing? That's one of my 2 cameras that have your offence and abuse recorded for evidence? It's your choice, me or a call to Uniform?"
He then stood quietly while I explained all about thinking and stopping distances & reaction times and the importance of indicators.
He said "Sorry" and drove off, nearly hitting a passing bus as he left the car park.
The old boy was still chuckling and commented that I had been very careful not to actually impersonate a Police Officer. I confirmed I was not a Copper and we both laughed.
"No, but I was for 30 years and did my time on bikes and in cars and then in CID. In my days, on the bikes we were called The Persecutors by the Magistrates for the number of bad car drivers we put before the Bench! Any Car driver disrespecting bikes was nicked. Funnily enough, we actually nicked very few bikes, most listened to a brief safety chat."
I felt a bit better on the uneventful ride back home.