Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

In my experience my following is a description of an outlying poor behaviour. However, it is outliers in poor behaviour that gives rise to serious injury and death. Hence this post.

Today I witnessed a cyclist abusing, in passing, a motorist who was in the midst of a difficult reverse parking move.

It was outside the IGA in East Perth at peak traffic and shopping time. I had just reversed myself in a parking bay, the bay immediately behind being then being vacated by another car.

A car then arrived as I was about to hop out and commenced his reverse parking into the bay behind. He approached the curb a little steeply but even locals typically find some difficulty as the bays are fairly tight and of differing lengths. He was doing alright as I left my car.

Now the nub - as the driver nudged a smidgeon outwards to reduce his angle of attack a little, a cyclist passed at a bit of pace and hurled a short stream of abuse. Presumably making the point that the driver was moving into his line. As I said, it was a slight move by the driver to better position himself.

I was in perfect location and my assessment is as follows:

• The driver was doing a good job of negotiating the maneuver. Lots of competent drivers do worse.
• None of the drivers actions were sudden, extreme or unpredictable.
• The driver had plenty of angles to watch simultaneously and the side mirrors would not have given him a vision of any rider approaching along the edge of the road. It's just the limit of side mirrors.
• The car bay under discussion was only 20M from the corner, an inner city controlled intersection at 5pm, with four other busy bays between the intersection and the bay - a place where any road user should be acting according to the conditions for both own safety and that of pedestrians there. ie Somewhat gingerley.
• There was no car approaching from the front on the other side of the road. Nor from the rear. There was plenty of room for a rider or car to deviate around if choosing not to wait.
• It was the rider's choice to neither slow down, nor to wait nor to deviate. Rather he chose to make a close pass.
• The rider would have seen what was happening well in advance. The choice to be in the position he was in was entirely his own.

POINTS

• We should always be aware that some maneuvers require the cooperation of others to be carried out with minimum risk.
• The place for making a point or pursuing an agenda is best somewhere other than the road.
• Unjustified loud abuse by a cyclist tars other cyclists unfairly

Great post - I agree with you Colin.

Except for the last bullet point, which doesn't do cyclists any favours. We don't see a motorist do something wrong, and then say "unjustified <whatever> by a motorist tars other motorists unfairly". And before someone mentions outgroup bias: by accepting outgroup bias we're condoning it, so we should we pointing out the absurdity of all cyclists being responsible for the actions of one cyclist, to everyone at every opportunity.

I’m patient with other motorists unless they do something dangerous.

This is a problem with people just acting too old and cranky…. Everyone needs to calm down a bit.

Spending 8-10 weeks without walking or riding will do wonders for your levels of patience.

I agree. And one of the benefits of being a cyclist is that you can easily and safely move around a motorist performing a low speed maneouvre.

Having said that I wasn't impressed by the dual cab driving individual last week who pulled out from the verge in front me when I was doing 40km/hr to block the entire width of the street and reverse into his driveway.

But I didn't yell or abuse him. That's just not making us any friends. I hope he felt my extreme disappointment in his driving ability through the sunglasses and helmet, but doubt it.

A few weeks ago I was passed by a motorist. A second motorist went to pass me, over a speed hump. When they got level with me it dawned on them (long after I'd spotted it) that the first motorist had stopped and was about to reverse into a parking spot. So the second vehicle slowed down almost to a stop next to me. I kept going and went around the reverse-parking motorist. I judged it safer to overtake than to get sandwiched between the two cars. I turned left soon afterwards and never saw either again. No shouting, but the whole exercise seemed rather stupid to me.