OneArmedBandit
Active Member
Had one of my most bizarre cycling experiences.
Around me someone has gone round putting up lots of homemade signs saying cyclists must give way to pedestrians. Now whilst of course true, most people are sensible and if you ring your bell they kindly move to one side so you can pass. You don't need to get off your bike and kneel in reverence until they pass.
Anyway, I was cycling to the supermarket with mini-two-arms in the bike trailer. The path is 3m wide with a white line down the centre. As I was a few dozen metres away from a couple I rang my bell. The wife stepped further over into the pedestrian side but the husband stepped right so he was straddling the white line. I moved over right to the edge of the cycle side and passed with plenty of space.
As I am locking up the bike at the supermarket this bloke suddenly runs across the car park absolutely screaming, saying that it was a pedestrian path and I had almost knocked him over. I tried to explain but he wouldn't listen. When he continued going mental, conscious I had a three year old with me, I did admittedly take advantage of being 2m tall and well built to get in his face and tell him to go away because he was embarrassing himself.
At this stage he goes away and - I thought - pretended to call 999 to report that a cyclist had passed him too close.
Happily choosing pizzas with 3yo and the police come in... "we'd like a word". At first they were actually quite aggressive, the story from him was that I had passed so close that he was almost knocked over and feared for welfare of the child.
Luckily one of the police officers was a cyclist and knew the path. When I explained to them what had actually happened, and offered them the camera footage if they wanted to verify it, they visibly became annoyed they had been scrambled to a cyclist cycling along a cycle path. He ended up being escorted out and held by police outside for a good while. I don't know if it was anything more than "stop wasting our time".
It was definitely a very surreal experience. I've had pedestrians try and block me on a cycle path before but never call plod! I'm going to look into the signs and see if they can be taken down - certainly "share" a path but "priorities" will only wind up the anti-cyclist brigade.
Around me someone has gone round putting up lots of homemade signs saying cyclists must give way to pedestrians. Now whilst of course true, most people are sensible and if you ring your bell they kindly move to one side so you can pass. You don't need to get off your bike and kneel in reverence until they pass.
Anyway, I was cycling to the supermarket with mini-two-arms in the bike trailer. The path is 3m wide with a white line down the centre. As I was a few dozen metres away from a couple I rang my bell. The wife stepped further over into the pedestrian side but the husband stepped right so he was straddling the white line. I moved over right to the edge of the cycle side and passed with plenty of space.
As I am locking up the bike at the supermarket this bloke suddenly runs across the car park absolutely screaming, saying that it was a pedestrian path and I had almost knocked him over. I tried to explain but he wouldn't listen. When he continued going mental, conscious I had a three year old with me, I did admittedly take advantage of being 2m tall and well built to get in his face and tell him to go away because he was embarrassing himself.
At this stage he goes away and - I thought - pretended to call 999 to report that a cyclist had passed him too close.
Happily choosing pizzas with 3yo and the police come in... "we'd like a word". At first they were actually quite aggressive, the story from him was that I had passed so close that he was almost knocked over and feared for welfare of the child.
Luckily one of the police officers was a cyclist and knew the path. When I explained to them what had actually happened, and offered them the camera footage if they wanted to verify it, they visibly became annoyed they had been scrambled to a cyclist cycling along a cycle path. He ended up being escorted out and held by police outside for a good while. I don't know if it was anything more than "stop wasting our time".
It was definitely a very surreal experience. I've had pedestrians try and block me on a cycle path before but never call plod! I'm going to look into the signs and see if they can be taken down - certainly "share" a path but "priorities" will only wind up the anti-cyclist brigade.
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