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John B ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

If only your style would also work on car drivers who do the
same...

Oh, it does.

I find a good hard open-palm slap onto a window or door of a car
sailing across the ped x-ing usually gets an entertainingly abrupt
emergency stop and panicked expression...

Or the emergence of a foul-mouthed yob waving a baseball bat :-(

I can be quite foul-mouthed too, and I have a laptop bag which is going to
hurt...

Besides, he has to stop, get out of the car, and find me in the crowd
first.

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John B wrote:

I find a good hard open-palm slap onto a window or door of a car sailing
across the ped x-ing usually gets an entertainingly abrupt emergency stop
and panicked expression...



Or the emergence of a foul-mouthed yob waving a baseball bat :-(

I once arrived (on foot) at a pelican crossing where it seemed that a
pedestrian had been hit by a car. Fortunately they seemed merely
shaken up; they were sitting at the side of the road talking to a
policeman. What was prossibly the car in question was pulled over just
ahead, in front of a police car, and the driver was also being questioned.

After the usual wait the lights went red and the green man lit up, so I
started to cross - only to have to take avoiding action from a twunt who
was driving across against the red, staring with fascination at the
police/pedestrian/car tableau...

R.

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Jack Taylor wrote:
Being 6' 5" and 15 stone none of
my "victims" have had the temerity to challenge me yet and having
jumped red lights and accidentally collided with a legally crossing
pedestrian they would be hard pressed to do very much. It's all in
the observation and the timing. ;-)

All red light jumping is illegal and cannot be defended, but while a cyclist
inching across a junction on red with no traffic & no pedestrians is at the
trivial end of the spectrum, cycling over light-controlled pedestrian
crossings with pedestrians on the crossing is at the opposite end and cannot
be defended in any way.

I applaud your tactic - at 6'2" & 16 stone I might well adopt it myself
rather than the usual muttered "Wan*er" as I stop on the crossing to let
another inconsiderate tw*t cycle across infront of me. A startled "shoulder
charge" might just do the trick!

pk

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Richard wrote:
After the usual wait the lights went red and the green man lit up, so
I started to cross - only to have to take avoiding action from a
twunt who was driving across against the red, staring with
fascination at the police/pedestrian/car tableau...


there is a difference: what you describe is a mix of stupidity and
incompetence by the driver.

A Tw*t on a bike cycling across a pedestrian crossing weaving among
pedestrians or cutting directly across them is a deliberate and conscious
act.

BTW I train my kids to not trust the light but, if there is traffic
approaching, to wait until it stops before stepping out. No point in looking
up form the blooded road saying "But you should have stopped!"

pk

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p.k. wrote:
Richard wrote:
After the usual wait the lights went red and the green man lit up, so
I started to cross - only to have to take avoiding action from a
twunt who was driving across against the red, staring with
fascination at the police/pedestrian/car tableau...


there is a difference: what you describe is a mix of stupidity and
incompetence by the driver.

A Tw*t on a bike cycling across a pedestrian crossing weaving among
pedestrians or cutting directly across them is a deliberate and
conscious act.

BTW I train my kids to not trust the light but, if there is traffic
approaching, to wait until it stops before stepping out. No point in
looking up form the blooded road saying "But you should have stopped!"

Don't forget to train them to pretend to step out without looking if the
light has changed and the traffic hasn't stopped.

I normally find that that gets the kind of reaction that passes for
contrition nowadays* from the person that was about to ignore the lights.

*An angry look.

--
Ambrose

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Mark Thompson wrote:

IME it usually it happens when the bus cuts the cyclist up on the way to
the bus stop. Quite why some cyclists continue to whizz along when they
know people are going to hop off beggars belief.

The solution for this is for the bus to (be able to) pull in all the
way to the kerb. This would require a combination of better-designed
bus stops and proper traffic enforcement at those which already are
properly designed to allow a bus all the way in.

On a similar note, I recall on the recent documentary about a London
bus depot on TV (I forget the name) that bus drivers in this country
are actually trained to pull in 6-8 inches from the kerb, and not right
up to it. Does anyone know why? I always put this down to poor or
lazy driving before now, as in Germany the convention is to touch the
kerb with the wheels, thus taking best advantage of the low-floor
boarding step.

Neil

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"Neil Williams" wrote in message
ps.com...
Mark Thompson wrote:

IME it usually it happens when the bus cuts the cyclist up on the way to
the bus stop. Quite why some cyclists continue to whizz along when they
know people are going to hop off beggars belief.

The solution for this is for the bus to (be able to) pull in all the
way to the kerb. This would require a combination of better-designed
bus stops and proper traffic enforcement at those which already are
properly designed to allow a bus all the way in.

Er - that wouldn't help in the situation where a bus starts overtaking a
cyclist then cuts into their stop. It's happened to me...

cheers,
clive

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Ian Jelf wrote:

This wasn't
some speeding child or youth but an older woman with helmet and yellow
jacket

Hell's Grannies?

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p.k. wrote:
After the usual wait the lights went red and the green man lit up, so
I started to cross - only to have to take avoiding action from a
twunt who was driving across against the red, staring with
fascination at the police/pedestrian/car tableau...


there is a difference: what you describe is a mix of stupidity and
incompetence by the driver.

A Tw*t on a bike cycling across a pedestrian crossing weaving among
pedestrians or cutting directly across them is a deliberate and conscious
act.


Yes, but the cyclist is annoying whereas the car is quite possibly
fatal. It's like the difference between, say, deliberately spraying
graffiti, and ignorantly allowing an untrained worker to use a
dangerous machine without protective measures: the latter is worse.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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Clive George wrote:

Er - that wouldn't help in the situation where a bus starts overtaking a
cyclist then cuts into their stop. It's happened to me...

True. Another "training" issue.

Neil