# Who are the most dangerous users of the road?



## User (20 Aug 2017)




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## srw (20 Aug 2017)

Young drivers, especially men, up to the age of about 25.


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## srw (20 Aug 2017)

(Although you might _just_ manage an argument that middle-aged drivers between, say, 40 and 60, dominate because of their sheer numbers and because they are driving the mid-life-crisis machines, but I wouldn't bank on it.)


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## Tin Pot (20 Aug 2017)

[QUOTE 4925109, member: 1314"]Don't want to derail the other thread and for personal and legal probs. Also because nobody else wants to start a thread about it.

Who are the biggest danger on the roads to others? I say it it is middle aged males.[/QUOTE]

Anyone below 30 years of age or above 60.


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## Levo-Lon (20 Aug 2017)

All mobile phone users


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## growingvegetables (20 Aug 2017)

December 5th.

About as near as I can come to a sane/sensible answer, if you really do insist on making unevidenced assertions?

It's the second time today? Whatever happened to listening to, respecting, welcoming, and being thankful for (hmm - me pushing it a bit? Damn it, why not!) the myriad different expertises individuals bring to the forum?

And that's NOT saying "Shut up, the expert has spoken!" If you have evidence that is contrary to the point made by somebody sharing their expertise, in good will - for God's sake offer it. That way leads to debate. To deepening understanding. A shared journey in increasing knowledge.

But ...
[QUOTE 4925109, member: 1314"]Who are the biggest danger on the roads to others? I say it it is middle aged males.[/QUOTE]
... isn't particularly constructive? Revealing? Or informative (apart from we now know you are prejudiced against middle-aged males ).


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## CanucksTraveller (20 Aug 2017)

meta lon said:


> All mobile phone users


Yes that, usually 24 year old women in Fiat 500s or minis updating social media, tattoed transit van drivers talking to their spares supplier. But also those middle aged blokes on racing motorbikes hitting 9000 revs per gear in 30mph areas at night. Twats.


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## Levo-Lon (20 Aug 2017)

Where would we be without google...
I can remember when people just talked..


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## srw (20 Aug 2017)

Don't just believe me - here are some statistics.

1. Association of British Insurers (my bold):
"Young drivers usually pay much more for motor insurance than older, more experienced motorists. This is because drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 are much more likely to be involved in an accident and make a claim, so their premiums are higher as a result.

*Young drivers account for just 12% of licence holders, but they are involved in 25% of all road deaths and serious accidents*. One in five young drivers will be involved in a crash within six months of passing their driving test. Carrying passengers increases young drivers’ changes of being involved in a collision, with just three passengers almost tripling the chances of a crash."

https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/products/motor-insurance/young-drivers/

2. Be Wiser.





https://www.bewiser.co.uk/knowledge...ow-rating-factors-affect-your-motor-insurance

Young drivers pay the most for their insurance because they have the largest claims and because they have the most claims ("frequency"). Both statistics are despite the fact that a typical young driver will be driving a car that is very cheap to run and repair, and despite the fact that they typically drive much, much lower mileages than the middle-aged, and despite the fact that young drivers are increasingly having black boxes fitted that monitor their driving.

3. National Statistics




Again, despite the fact that young drivers tend to drive less than the rest of the population they are involved in significantly more road accidents. And they tend to get killed or seriously injured far more than the rest of us:




https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/556406/rrcgb2015-02.pdf

Back at the start of the 20th century, when actuaries started analysing mortality, everything was pretty predictable. Neonatal mortality was extremely high, child mortality high and young adult mortality extremely low - young adults are extremely robust. As the diseases of middle- and old-age (cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases) started hitting, mortality gradually climbed with age. Then, sometime in the 1920s and 1930s, the statistics started showing something surprising - lots of young adults, and especially young men, were dying unexpectedly. It took a while before they realised that it was accidents, usually road accidents, that were causing this spike.

Since then we have done a lot to improve road safety, and that's benefitted everyone, including the young. But after suicide (which, shockingly, is now the largest single cause of death for adults aged 20-34) it is accidental death - whether road accidents or poisoning (often by alcohol or drugs) that kills the young the most.

If I had teenage children the strongest piece of advice I'd give them to keep them safe would be not to get in a car driven by their friends.


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## GrumpyGregry (20 Aug 2017)

srw said:


> (Although you might _just_ manage an argument that middle-aged drivers between, say, 40 and 60, dominate because of their sheer numbers and because they are driving the mid-life-crisis machines, but I wouldn't bank on it.)


I had a whole conversation about buying an XKR today. If 57 is my mid-life I'll be well pleased.


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## iandg (20 Aug 2017)

Most dangerous time to be on the road here is between 1030 and 11.00 during the Sunday morning church run.


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## srw (20 Aug 2017)

Oh, and for completeness - yes, google helped a lot. But it's an awful lot easier to use Professor Google if you have some clue as to what you're looking for, and can tell the story you find in your own words rather than simply copy-and-paste.

If anyone believes that young drivers are really much safer than middle-aged men, here's an easy way to make loads of money. Find someone who agrees with you with a few spare million (£50m should do it) and invest it in selling motor insurance to the young. Because you think the young are such good drivers you'll easily be able to undercut and the market and so corner it, and you'll be raking in the profits. For the next 18 months or so, until Brexit, you don't even need to deal with the UK regulators and their tiresome prejudices against the young on the roads - find a soft regulator to get your firm licensed, and passport in to the UK. Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria are pretty good bets for less sophisticated regulation.


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## Slick (20 Aug 2017)

I assume I have missed something and this debate started earlier in another thread. For what it's worth, I wondered why it was up for debate as the insurance premiums alone should offer all the clue you should need to answer your question.


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## theclaud (20 Aug 2017)

srw said:


> Oh, and for completeness - yes, google helped a lot. But it's an awful lot easier to use Professor Google if you have some clue as to what you're looking for, and can tell the story you find in your own words rather than simply copy-and-paste.
> 
> If anyone believes that young drivers are really much safer than middle-aged men, here's an easy way to make loads of money. Find someone who agrees with you with a few spare million (£50m should do it) and invest it in selling motor insurance to the young. Because you think the young are such good drivers you'll easily be able to undercut and the market and so corner it, and you'll be raking in the profits. For the next 18 months or so, until Brexit, you don't even need to deal with the UK regulators and their tiresome prejudices against the young on the roads - find a soft regulator to get your firm licensed, and passport in to the UK. Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria are pretty good bets for less sophisticated regulation.


Without wishing to get involved in the statsfest, and knowing when I am outgunned, isn't there possibly something interesting lurking behind CoG's question that is getting lost in the rush to be right? Something about the construction of masculinities that also lurks in the disturbing suicide figures you threw in above? I merely wonder aloud whether insurance risk is the most illuminating angle from which to approach the question; why young men being perpetrators and/or victims of violence on this scale is taken as a given; and why, if it's a property of youth as much as masculinity, middle-aged men can't be expected to grow out of it in a more convincing fashion?


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## GrumpyGregry (20 Aug 2017)

theclaud said:


> Without wishing to get involved in the statsfest, and knowing when I am outgunned, isn't there possibly something interesting lurking behind CoG's question that is getting lost in the rush to be right? Something about the construction of masculinities that also lurks in the disturbing suicide figures you threw in above? I merely wonder aloud whether insurance risk is the most illuminating angle from which to approach the question; why young men being perpetrators and/or victims of violence on this scale is taken as a given; and why, if it's a property of youth as much as masculinity, middle-aged men can't be expected to grow out of it in a more convincing fashion?


The young get culled. Thus many of those who would make really reckless middle-aged men don't live to see that day?

That siad there are some horrid stats about born-again bikers which the insurers have started to get to grips with. "Good way to widow your wife and make an orphan of her children, mate" as one serving traffic plod advised a mutual friend.

And as we boys age testosterone levels drop and with it much of the macho nonsense drops too?


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## srw (20 Aug 2017)

theclaud said:


> isn't there possibly something interesting


Quite possibly - although there's a risk of being diverted down the biological determinism route by someone who isn't thinking very hard. But that's one for another day and probably a different discussion. The question originated in a discussion of a young man currently on trial, so in that context, and in the context of CoG's OP in this thread, I think the statto saddo answer is the appropriate one.



theclaud said:


> young men being perpetrators and/or victims of violence on this scale is taken as a given;


In this context it isn't. A lot of work has been done, and continues to be done, by governments and by the private sector, to reduce the impact of and to young people of incidents on the road. But the best thing that could be done, I suspect (banning driving before the age of 25 or so) is currently politically unacceptable.


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## gavroche (20 Aug 2017)

This thread is boring as the answer is obvious: careless drivers are the most dangerous, no matter their age.


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## Jenkins (20 Aug 2017)

Dangerous to whom? Are young drivers most likely to have single vehicle accidents where the damage/injury is mostly to themselves and their passengers or are middle aged drivers more likely be involved in accidents where damage or injury is caused to other road users?


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## growingvegetables (20 Aug 2017)

meta lon said:


> Where would we be without google...
> I can remember when people just talked..


Yes - we've been here before. Today no less, on another thread.

And once again - please show a bit of respect to the wealth of varied expertise on CC? That is *not a lot to ask*.

Or perhaps you're genuinely happier with a forum where ignorant, white, pot-bellied, acned, males (apologies for the generalisations, but you know where it comes from) exchange pub gossip on their current hobbyhorses, unchallenged. 

If so, toddle off to your local, and enjoy your chosen company. Ignore different opinions. Hey, ffs, ignore simple harsh facts. You'll be locked into that comfortable circle ...... of losers.


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## potsy (20 Aug 2017)

Those with dodgy eyesight and absolutely no conscience?


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## Shut Up Legs (20 Aug 2017)

growingvegetables said:


> Yes - we've been here before. Today no less, on another thread.
> 
> And once again - please show a bit of respect to the wealth of varied expertise on CC? That is *not a lot to ask*.
> 
> ...


If you want respect, can I suggest you don't go calling other forum members losers? Deliberate insults like that don't help keep any thread civil.


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## Shut Up Legs (20 Aug 2017)

I think the most dangerous road users aren't the careless ones, but instead the ones who deliberately endanger other road users. They're not being careless, but are instead taking great care to intimidate others using their cars. Fortunately, they're a small minority.


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## growingvegetables (20 Aug 2017)

Shut Up Legs said:


> If you want respect, can I suggest you don't go calling other forum members losers? Deliberate insults like that don't help keep any thread civil.


Please re-read my carefully worded contribution. There is no deliberate insult in what I wrote.


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## ChrisV (20 Aug 2017)

This is one of the worst threads I've read in a long time.


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## srw (21 Aug 2017)

theclaud said:


> Something about the construction of masculinities that also lurks in the disturbing suicide figures you threw in above?



I might come back to this later, but it's youth that is the common linking factor, not masculinity or maleness.

Young women are also at extremely high risk of suicide - the link I provided gives stats by age and sex. They are also considerably more dangerous when controlling a ton of metal than middle-aged men, it's just that they're a little bit better than young men so don't get the same attention. Speculatively that might be because pro-social behaviours are more encouraged in young women than young men, but even if young men drove like young women they'd still be appallingly bad, risky and dangerous drivers.

None of this is intended to reflect on any particular individual, of course. It might be that Auntie Vi is a menace whose keys should be thrown away, that Elder Padraic should be picked up rather than allowed to drive to church again, or that your little Jeanette who you started teaching to drive when she was 12 is a perfect model driver even behind the wheel of your Testarossa. But that's not the question asked.

It's also not supposed to say that the roads are dangerous. As long as you're alert they're not. I suspect there's something lurking behind the OP which, if revealed, might take the thread in a more interesting direction.


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## mjr (21 Aug 2017)

[QUOTE 4925109, member: 1314"]
Who are the biggest danger on the roads to others? I say it it is middle aged males.[/QUOTE]
How do you define "biggest danger" to get that bizarre answer?


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## growingvegetables (21 Aug 2017)

mjr said:


> How do you define "biggest danger" to get that bizarre answer?


Waist size?


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## spen666 (21 Aug 2017)

Dogtrousers said:


> Based on my comprehensive survey (my ride on Saturday) it's older males who are marshalling traffic in and out of a tractor fair, who tend to walk backwards out into the middle of the road without looking, and then leap in the air with shock when you announce your presence.
> 
> Fortunately I wasn't going very fast and just steered around him. But we could both have been *killed to death* were it not for my lightning reactions and superior skills.




As opposed to what other sort of killed?


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## Tin Pot (21 Aug 2017)

spen666 said:


> As opposed to what other sort of killed?



Comedian-on-stage killed.


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## anothersam (21 Aug 2017)

[QUOTE 4925109, member: 1314"]Who are the biggest danger on the roads to others?[/QUOTE]

The undead.


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## NorthernDave (21 Aug 2017)

Most dangerous users?

That's simple - it's other people.


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## davidphilips (21 Aug 2017)

Sorry guys it has to be James Bond/Pierce Brosnan.Look how many cyclists he had fun with.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WTCFCxh5rQ


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## classic33 (21 Aug 2017)

growingvegetables said:


> Waist size?


There's more than a few heavyweight females as well.


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## DaveReading (22 Aug 2017)

spen666 said:


> As opposed to what other sort of killed?



It's the worst way to go.


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## ChrisV (25 Aug 2017)

spen666 said:


> As opposed to what other sort of killed?



You ruined that. Hang thy head.


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## jefmcg (1 Sep 2017)

[QUOTE 4939097, member: 1314"]Is it really still that 16-24 male cohort, or an older one? Simply from an anecadata pov it's not the younger age group I'm most careful around but high sided and long sided vehicles mainly driven by middle-aged men.[/QUOTE]
Lorries and HGVs are the most dangerous (statistically) to cyclists in London.


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## jefmcg (1 Sep 2017)

[QUOTE 4939121, member: 1314"], for a nuanced perception of the groups I should be most wary of.[/QUOTE]
So you want to look a driver in the face, decide what demographic they belong to, and adjust your cycling accordingly? That's insane.


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## oldwheels (1 Sep 2017)

Selfish drivers cause immense frustration on main roads by blocking the road at relatively slow speeds and forcing the reckless into dangerous overtaking. Slow " careful" drivers are a menace and don't get me started on tour buses and their drivers.


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## Tim Hall (1 Sep 2017)

oldwheels said:


> Selfish drivers cause immense frustration on main roads by blocking the road at relatively slow speeds and forcing the reckless into dangerous overtaking. Slow " careful" drivers are a menace and don't get me started on tour buses and their drivers.


Crap.


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## slowmotion (1 Sep 2017)

People driving to weddings. I was nearly killed by a driver who pulled into the road space my car was occupying because his rear passenger windows were given over to hanging fancy frocks and morning suits rather than as useful observation devices.


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## Ming the Merciless (1 Sep 2017)

Ducks with machine guns?


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## growingvegetables (1 Sep 2017)

oldwheels said:


> Selfish drivers cause immense frustration on main roads by blocking the road at relatively slow speeds and forcing the reckless into dangerous overtaking. Slow " careful" drivers are a menace and don't get me started on tour buses and their drivers.


I read that as you warning us that you are one of the most dangerous users of the road?


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## jefmcg (2 Sep 2017)




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## jefmcg (2 Sep 2017)

User said:


> Oh look - Paul Smith has been reincarnated...


I didn't know he was dead






I did try to work out how you mean, but there are rather a lot of Paul Smiths. Hell, there are 8 English footballers (and one Scot) of that name.


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## theclaud (2 Sep 2017)

jefmcg said:


> I didn't know he was dead
> 
> View attachment 371202
> 
> ...


This one.


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## Shut Up Legs (2 Sep 2017)

oldwheels said:


> Selfish drivers cause immense frustration on main roads by blocking the road at relatively slow speeds and forcing the reckless into dangerous overtaking. Slow " careful" drivers are a menace and don't get me started on tour buses and their drivers.


"Forcing" them?  No, reckless drivers overtake recklessly because they choose to. Staying behind until it's safe to overtake is always a valid option.


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## NorthernDave (2 Sep 2017)

jefmcg said:


> View attachment 371202



Never has anyone been so successful colouring in bar codes...


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## Ming the Merciless (5 Sep 2017)

These guys need to be avoided as well.


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

YukonBoy said:


> These guys need to be avoided as well.
> 
> View attachment 371939


Keep away from rabbits, armed or not.


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## boydj (5 Sep 2017)

School-run mums seldom have more than 10% of their mind on driving. Young women in a hurry are often impatient and inconsiderate. Beware the driver who fits in both groups.


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## Flying Dodo (5 Sep 2017)

srw said:


> Young drivers, especially men, up to the age of about 25.



Whilst that is accurate, the data doesn't give us the full picture. The OP is clearly concerned about drivers at the time he is cycling. Do you have any data linking under 25 drivers with times of accidents? I imagine there could be a bulge of accidents in that group, late at night for example. 

So could the FNRttC be more at risk?


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## srw (5 Sep 2017)

Flying Dodo said:


> Whilst that is accurate, the data doesn't give us the full picture. The OP is clearly concerned about drivers at the time he is cycling. Do you have any data linking under 25 drivers with times of accidents? I imagine there could be a bulge of accidents in that group, late at night for example.
> 
> So could the FNRttC be more at risk?


If the data existed it would be somewhere in here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/568484/rrcgb-2015.pdf

Skimming through the table headings I can't find a cross-tab of time-of-day and age.

And the answer to a cyclist asking "should I be particularly concerned about a set of drivers or a time of day?" is "No". Cycling is considerably less risky than most people believe.


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

Flying Dodo said:


> So could the FNRttC be more at risk?


I've only done a few FNRttC, and the greatest danger I have experienced was from the drunk but charming denizens of Sutton on the car free High Street, who were - drunkenly and charmingly - playing frogger with the cyclists or competing to get the most high fives from the cyclists.

None of them put us at risk. Annoying, sure, but no more annoying than any drunk when you are sober.

Just sayin'


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

User said:


> Frogger?


What, you've never played Frogger????

The player controls the yellow-green frog as it moves from the bottom to the top of the screen, avoiding cars, jumping on logs in the river and being cautious of turtles which may submerge.






(in context, the lovely drunks tried to run between the FNRttC cyclists without getting killed. Luckily they all succeeded)


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

User said:


> No, I don't think I have.


Where were you in the 80s? (waits for "I wasn't born")

Either way, http://froggerclassic.appspot.com/


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

User said:


> Drunk



I literally laughed out loud - well, giggled.
Frogger is easily played in a pub ...


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## Ming the Merciless (5 Sep 2017)

Flying Dodo said:


> So could the FNRttC be more at risk?



There tends to be a period up to about 00:30am when you get drivers coming home from the pub driving in the lanes. After that it gets pretty quiet pretty quickly.


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## jefmcg (5 Sep 2017)

Dogtrousers said:


> I have twice been barged by un-charming drunks on FNRttC, both of which I managed to avoid, but have seen one rider brought down.


OK, to be clear the only reason my drunks were charming is they didn't cause any collisions. That kind of proved to me 

they weren't trying to cause any collisions
and they were trying not to, and succeeding very well, considering how drunk they were.
so that makes them charming - but only in retrospect. One prang, and I would have set up a gibbet. And held Stuart Cook and @vickster responsible, as the only two residents of Sutton I know.


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## KneesUp (6 Sep 2017)

This pair:


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## vickster (6 Sep 2017)

[QUOTE 4946040, member: 1314"]Ok. Anecdata again.

Yesterday, I cycled Covent Garden and back from Kingston via Motspur Park, Raynes Park Wimbledon South and CS7. I returned via CS8, Chelsea Bridge Road, Wandsworth and Wimbledon.

I left at 10 and returned by 4.

My conclusion is that white van man drivers ( and they were 99% male) were pretty good and patient; middle-aged posh women in surburban wankpanzers were very courteous; bus drivers were professional; and a Black Black Cab driver actually asked me how I was doing at Waterloo! The Addison Lee lot just looked stressed.

The problem was with the tipper truck type vehicles, and really long-sided vehicles where, yes, you can't see who's driving and make eye contact. When in in front and having to turn across them I stay way in front and give a mahoosive signal to make sure they've seen me to compensate. It is very interesting turning right into Battersea Park from Chelsea Bridge Road with a couple of tipper trucks up my jacks. I know cycling is safe but hearing and having those monster wheels pass you is, well, just not a good mix for a cyclist.

As with the tourist coaches as mentioned by another poster here. Apart from the amphibian Duck Buses who are more a danger to their passengers by instantaneously combusting.

Almost had a 4x4 left hook me at Seven Dials before heading towards Aldwych and I gave the look to another 4x4 driver on the phone at Vauxhall. Both were very well dressed middle-aged males.

Anecdata I know but I reckon I've done enough mileage in London over the years to make this analysis work for me.

I have to say, though, that the behaviour of bus drivers has improved immeasurably, especially in the SW 'burbs.

However I still had three cyclists undertake me on moving off on reds, or as I stayed in Secondary on the wide empty CS 7 at Kennington. Maybe they just wanted to be near my aura. I note these as the last two times I've been offed has been my commuter cyclists.[/QUOTE]
131 drivers are still numpties who don't seem to know where their stops are, overtaking cyclists just before they pull in to stop.

WVM are not angels painted, especially those in old beat up vans or red ones displaying Smith & Byford

More anecdata


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## jefmcg (6 Sep 2017)

KneesUp said:


> This pair:
> 
> View attachment 372036
> 
> ...


You've left out a couple 










and for good measure


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## Wobblers (6 Sep 2017)

User said:


> I have been offered cheesy chips in Leatherhead.



Hah. I was given a cup of tea by one in Darkest Wales [1].


[1] Literally: it was 3 am.


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## theclaud (7 Sep 2017)

User said:


> Was that when you had been abandoned?


Go ahead, dredge up the pain...


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## subaqua (7 Sep 2017)

The bad ones Can't pin it down to a set group as there's awful road use by all, as well as excellent by all groups


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## Venod (7 Sep 2017)

[QUOTE 4925109, member: 1314"]Who are the biggest danger on the roads to others?[/QUOTE]
i
The pickup driver who nearly killed me yesterday, I was going round this roundabout I joined from the yellow road from the South and was exiting on the yellow road to the northeast, I passed the first exit on the left the next exit was to the motorway as I was passing this exit I heard a vehicle to my right approaching quickly, I assumed he was going round on the inside lane, he cut straight across at about 50 mph and onto the motorway slip road missing me by inches, I had to stop to recover from the shock, when I joined the roundabout it was clear, he must have joined behind me at high speed.
I didn't get his number but if I had I would have reported him to his employer.


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## RoubaixCube (7 Sep 2017)

Yoofs between the ages of 17-25 on any 'racebike' above 500cc. We seem to have a lot of them in north London. Easily hitting twice the speed limit or more


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## Tim Hall (7 Sep 2017)

[QUOTE 4946040, member: 1314"]Ok. Anecdata again.

As with the tourist coaches as mentioned by another poster here. Apart from the amphibian Duck Buses who are more a danger to their passengers by instantaneously combusting.
[/QUOTE]
I read they're closing down, as Thames Water need their launch slipway as part of the Thames Tideway project.


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