Thursday 8 October 2009

little van man

the library door

My doctor was right when he reckoned I'd have a week of pain from the rib. By yesterday it was more bearable and I was aching (as it were) to get back on the bike. So I went down to the library.

Coming home, I was riding along Durdham Park, which is a useful route home for me, being relatively quiet and more direct than the main road.


View Larger Map

As you can see, it's quite windy and usually parked-up on both sides for a lot of the way. So when cars come too fast around the corners, as they often do, and meet other cars, they end up having to reverse again, or, equally likely, sit there and face down the other driver.

A van came up behind me. It came quite close behind me, in fact, and started gunning the engine to express the driver's impatience to get past me.

So I stopped and got off. I motioned for him to wind his window down. He wouldn't. I said, "There isn't room for you to overtake safely, so will you please stop revving your engine at me".

He looked all sulky, and forced his way past me.... to be held up immediately by a taxi going head-to-head with another car. When they moved, he pulled into the kerb, because he had arrived at his destination, about a hundred feet ahead of the place that he'd been so keen to get past me.

He got out. He looked very small, unprotected by his little van.

"What's your problem?" he shouted.

"Arseholes in cars," I replied. " I got knocked off only last week".

"I wouldn't knock you off", he said in a peculiarly nasty way.

"Meaning...?"

"I wouldn't knock you off," he repeated in a dubious way, presumably because his remark had fallen on stony ground. And then he returned to the mobile phone conversation he'd been conducting throughout this encounter.

I think it was some sort of sexual innuendo, thinking back. Wasted on me. Just as, apparently, my suggestion that he should not drive dangerously was wasted on him.





8 comments:

  1. The roads here are now such hell I hardly dare use them but in France drivers seem to have a much better attitude to cyclists and it is a joy.

    Such a shame, cycling was my life before.

    Caroline X

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  2. Glad to read you're back on your bike! :-)

    I hope the ride wasn't too painful?

    Carolyn Ann

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  3. Little man indeed.
    You know I looked at that map trying to work out how it indicated it was windy - doh!

    It's good to see you are back in the saddle

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  4. 'Tailored Flooring' eh? That guy must floor selected cyclists to order :-)

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  5. I think the french have a much better attitude, full stop, Caroline! -excepting Paris, of course. I've seen Youtube vids of cycling in Paris which are really quite scary.

    It was OK, thank you, Carolyn Ann; I took it easy on the hills...

    I was trying to think of alternative words for 'windy'. Anji, and gave up. 'Twisty' is a bit more windy than windy, I suspect.

    There are plenty of women drivers just as bad in these parts. sadly, Lucy. Stick a child seat in a people carrier, and suddenly they're morally superior to anything on the road and entitled to go and park wherever they like because The Children Must Get Through....

    An interesting take, Suzzy. Could be a business opportunity there...

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  6. Paris is not really France, just ask anyone who does not live there!

    Windy, windy, too much air or too many curves? don't you just love English?

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  7. Like Dublin and Ireland, perhaps? -I'm sure I remember someone saying that Ireland is unusual in that it is the provincials who look down upon those who live in the capital. I wonder if that's still true?

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  8. Paris is definately another country.

    'The Children Must Get Through' I love that. I suppose that mere nannies do not have access to the people carrier.

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