Pedestrian

Of course, when cycling to work, it’s not just cars you’ve got to watch out for. Sometimes it’s the bloody pedestrians too.

One section of my journey is on a dual-purpose path. One half is for cycles, one half is for pedestrians. The parts are clearly delineated by a thick white line, and the classic “cycle” icon on every junction, and at regular intervals. It’s pretty hard (I’d have thought) to not notice that it’s a cycle-path.

Today all of these clues had obviously bypassed one moron person. He saw that the pelican crossing fifty yards ahead had changed to allow pedestrians across, and obviously assumed that this meant he could simply dash across the road, because everyone would be stopped. Twat.

He didn’t look behind him, just turned and walked. Straight onto the cycle-lane. With guess who coming towards him at – admittedly – a fair rate of knots. Luckily my reactions aren’t bad, so I could move out to get round the fuckhead. But he still then tried calling me a twat. For riding on the cycle-path, completely safely. Hey, if I’d collided with the knob, I’d have allowed that I was perhaps not riding safely. But I was – and I avoided the cocksucker.

So I stopped and pointed out that perhaps he should pay a bit more attention – I wasn’t the first cyclist to have gone past him, I’d seen two others doing so, so it’s not like he “didn’t know” it was a cycle-path. Conveniently this also meant he missed his opportunity to cross the road, and had to wait at the pelican crossing.

Be still, my bleeding heart.