A Tale Of Two Cyclists
Coming back from the shops this evening, I needed to cross the zebra crossing by my house. There were no cars in view, but I could see two cyclists coming towards the crossing. I couldn’t miss one, as he had a high visibility jacket on and lights flashing away. But the second was not so visible.
The first cyclist stopped and as I expected the second to do the same, I stepped onto the crossing shouting a loud thank you to the first cyclist.
I started to cross, when I realised the second cyclist was intending to overtake the first and ride straight across in my direction. I think the first cyclist could have obscured his view of me on the crossing.
When he saw me, he braked hard and virtually ended up in a heap on the crossing. He said nothing, picked up his bike, whilst the first cyclist who’d stopped, shrugged and made a long face, at the antics of the other cyclist.
Luckily there wasn’t any other vehicles behind him, otherwise a simple mistake might have become a serious one.
We may need more cycling and better routes for cyclists, but we also need better standards from all road users.
Cyclists may come off badly, when hit by buses and trucks, but pedestrians don’t fare well, when hit by a fast moving cyclist.
The Anonymous Widower 
I was driving down the side road by my house about 20 minutes ago, in twilight, and a smallish boy from the local Academy appeared from between two fairly high parked cars. Bottle green uniform merged with the road, nothing bright or reflective on him or his back pack. I was going very slowly and stopped, but some cars drive down the far too fast; the boy had scooted off before I could tell him how hard it was to to see him.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | November 26, 2013 |