Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

Trying to remember--there was a sitcom episode about this. Seinfeld?

Yes, Seinfeld. Raquel Welch was the stiff-arm.

I was a non-arm-swinger as a kid. I had to force myself to learn how to do it so I wouldn't look like a dork.

There was a thread a few years ago where this 'behaviour' was ascribed to 'aspie rubes'

Never did work out what a 'rube' was...

Cyclist in the middle of the lane. Why? This street has a bike lane. He's blocking traffic.

My bus passed him, and he didn't yield an inch, which meant we practically brushed up against him.

Good for the cyclist to be honest. Often/usually safer to be in the motorist's lane than in the cycle lane (which will take them down the inside of motor traffic). Riding at the side of the lane is also dangerous, with traffic passing too close for evasive action to take place.

The cyclist is pretty much riding in the recommended primary position, safer for both cyclist and motorist.

Yeh, no.

Besides being a nuisance, he put himself at risk by making cars squeeze between him and oncoming traffic.

That's the cars' fault, then, Jesse. When a cyclist is "taking the lane," they're supposed to be treated like a motor vehicle. It's not enormously practical for more than short distances because it does hold up traffic, but that is the law.

I feel a bit bad about policing someone on their IA, but I see and get far far too much dangerous aggression from motorists, and see far too much dangerously vulnerable cycling to not want to pass comment!

It's not enormously practical for more than short distances: Exactly! I thought maybe he was going to make a left turn, but no, he was just taking up space and not yielding at all to other traffic.

It's as practical for as long as it is safe.

Fizzles would I be correct in guessing that you would also defend the behavior of cyclists (usu. bike messengers IME) who go the wrong way on one-way streets and play Frogger with auto traffic?

It's practical and safe for bikers to impede car traffic if we woke up and found we were living in The Netherlands, but sadly, that's not the case, hence it's neither.

Not in the slightest, no. That's dangerous, not safe. That said, a lot of poor cycling behaviour can be put down to poor cycling infrastructure!

I dislike like it when cyclists show the same lack of consideration to pedestrians as motorists do to cyclists.

All this said, I'm guessing that as both a cyclist and Londoner there are some considerable cultural differences at work here? Still fed up with drivers who think that perfectly legal cycling is an excuse to drive dangerously and aggressively (not saying this of you btw - but it's an attitude I encounter on a daily basis, pretty much).

xpost

Fizzles would I be correct in guessing that you would also defend the behavior of cyclists (usu. bike messengers IME) who go the wrong way on one-way streets and play Frogger with auto traffic?

C'mon, this is unfair. The cyclist-in-lane thing is a legal thing to do in certain circumstances; whether the guy you saw was following them is debatable, but traffic manuals and cycling guides do recommend it. The other two are acknowledged to be obnoxious and never legal.

ah, echo on that 'dislike' as well. xpost

Trying to remember--there was a sitcom episode about this. Seinfeld?

Yes, Seinfeld. Raquel Welch was the stiff-arm.

― nickn, Thursday, February 23, 2012 1:44 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was actually molly shannon but then i think at the end it was revealed that raquel welch did the same thing?

I don't want to speak for Jesse but I think his main beef is that there was a (safe - I know the road he takes to work and I would ride my bike in this bike lane) bike lane available, but this cyclist chose to take full use of the car lane for an extended period of time, putting himself at risk.

The conflict is probably mostly around what the cars chose to do, which go around the bike, putting the cyclist and all the motorists trying to pass each other in a lane and a half's worth of city street, at risk.

I can only say that it's probably tough to drive a bus at cycling speed without stopping and starting and flinging the passengers around, and I would probably wish that the cyclist would use the bike lane, too. But I get really motion sick.

Also I have terrible balance and if I get stuck having to hang onto a strap instead of a vertical pole, I'll end up in someone's lap.

I had to steady myself by putting my hand sharply on an elderly Indian lady's groin once, due to a sharp bus jolt. She got IA.

Is the bus, by any chance, once that makes stops every few blocks? If it is, they're incredibly difficult to bike alongside when they're pulling over and letting people off/on--a bus route can make a bike lane pretty much useless.

^^^ and from my experience with bike lanes in Cleveland, the drivers do NOT check the curbside mirror before pulling into the bike lane. I've been thisclose to being demolished by an RTA bus at least four times. Now if I see a bus I either ride in the lane, or hang way the hell back if it's approaching a stop.

I don't want to argue and I definitely don't want to seem anti-biker, it just seems like I'm getting some cycle'splaining wrt what I saw, which was a guy in the way of rush hour traffic without any apparent reason except that's where he felt like rising and fuck everyone else.

Xp
Yeh carl that's pretty much it

Laurel - yes. And yes, they are super hard to bike next to. And see my posts on other threads about the spate of bus-and-cyclist fatalities that led me to lock my bike up forever.

I can see both sides of this situation, definitely. I like iatee's "no cars, bikes forever" urban planning strategy, personally. Well, I would also want buses, but then buses could have their own lane over to the side and bikes could take the full traffic lane all the time.

Also, the hundreds of other bikers seem to do fine without biking like this guy, so what makes him special?

I wish I had bookmarked a great article or blog post I read last year about why bike lanes are basically a bunch of bullshit that makes both cyclists and drivers less sage and worse off. Time to go exercise some Google magic.

I read something similar. Did it include something about mayor in TX, I think, removing bike lanes?

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6027/5987943412_06fc309f2f.jpg

The first protected bike lane in Chicago. Would this help? That may actually get me back on a bike again, if there was one all the way down Diversey to the lakefront. Or a bike skyway.

Where is that?

Kinzie Street between Milwaukee Avenue and Wells Street.

"less sage" = "less safe" obvs. Although both might be true.

xp It might have . . . it was a really great piece.

I mean the gist is that it reinforces among drivers that bikes don't belong "on the road," so they should always just stay in the bike lane, then they encounter a cyclist making a left and get all IA and do something dangerous. Whereas cyclists grow to believe they can just be protected from traffic and don't learn the skills necessary to ride among cars.

This isn't the place for this maybe! (But sometimes cyclists' stuff is read by cyclists only and motorists' viewpoints not read by cyclists) This for the standard road lane cycle lane:

1. Take cyclists down the inside left of traffic, where drivers aren't necessarily expecting to see cyclists.

2. Often the worst road surfaces, with glass and grit and drains, plus potholes.

3. Make cyclists feel safe when in fact they're not, can cause some drivers to think that the cyclist should only be in the cycle lane, even if it's not safe to be there.

4. Lanes (especially in the UK?) peter out when they're most needed, ie when there's least road space.

5. Curbside riding leaves very little room for maneouvre in the case of a problem.

6. Taxis and buses frequently pull into cycle lanes. Parked cars often obstruct them - encourages weaving in and out of the main lane.

Those just off the top of my head. All this said, good cycling infrastructure can encourage not just the fit and physically courageous to cycle, keep everyone safer, reduce cars on the road (due to encouraging more people to cycle), which is better for both cyclist and motorist.

The arguments that the more cyclists that are on the road and use the road lanes hold true to a certain extent, but as I say, I think they often ignore the fact that a lot of people feel a great lack of confidence when cycling in any sort of traffic, so good infrastructure is to be encouraged. Bad infrastructure actively dangerous tho.

Sorry! Will shut up now.

It's only a little longer than a half mile, but it's the thought that counts. xpost

Oh, and studies show that cars give cyclists LESS room when there are bike lanes painted on, believing that the white stripe is a magic barrier or something.

Vauxhall Bridge. Lethal.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=vauxhall+bridge&hl=en&ll=51.488198,-0.128253&spn=0.010809,0.01929&sll=51.520624,-0.152537&sspn=0.010801,0.01929&hnear=Vauxhall+Bridge,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.488261,-0.128405&panoid=Ra3jZmACHFg1OPj7YXmgIg&cbp=12,110.87,,0,18.73

Only safe place to be is in the lane. Right, will shut up now. Got work to do.

The street I work on is getting protected bike lane. Rahm said he was going to build a number of them.

yeah chicago's getting pretty serious about it

I can see both sides of this situation, definitely. I like iatee's "no cars, bikes forever" urban planning strategy, personally. Well, I would also want buses, but then buses could have their own lane over to the side and bikes could take the full traffic lane all the time.

ftr my priorities list is like "mass transit >>>>> walking >>>>>>> bikes >>>>> (x infinity) cars".

infiniti does make a decent car

That sounds good, iatee. Sign me up.

Finding out when I got home last night that I still don't know the name of the estate that I have had to walk through for the last few years to get to the bus stop. Realised this morning that the only place it has the name up is at the entrance & I normally come in from a different direction since there's a park I can walk across that way.
A person in another nightclass out of the blue offered me a lift to this place I semi recognised the name of but couldn't place. Possibly this was offered because of the weather last night being pretty rough.
Could also be me not being able to think straight cos of lack of sleep cos something was worrying me the night before. I said I live in 'name of larger area' and person who offered left. I'm now kicking myself and hoping I can apologise for my ignorance if I see her next week.

& today standing in a queue at a supermarket till keeping a reasonable distance back from the person in front of me while some idiot keeps hitting me as he sticks things on the conveyor belt behind me. I mean if there is somebody between me and the person currently paying for their stuff, how far forward can I go? & possibly I'm annoyed cos I said nothing.

& later trying to get off a bus at a particular stop while the driver tries to drive past it. The bus stopping sign had lit up and there was somebody else wanting to stop at the stop, but I've had trouble with this driver before just not stopping at hailed bus stops.

& today I had had a night's sleep.

There's one bus driver on the route that I take home from the train station when I don't feel like walking who always ALWAYS misses my stop. I think I've talked about her on this thread before, the "passenger signals" driver.

Always seem to hit Mapco right at shift change.

I shouldn't be playing the lottery anyway.

Attachments not being accessible on webmail work email.

People who leave a work voicemail asking me to call them back without any indication of what they need.

God knows, I may have mentioned this already, but letting other drivers stuck in a bad traffic situation cut in front of you, then them doing something stupid that slows you down.

strangers who leave robocall messages with their name and number but don't say what business they're from or what they're calling about, or even whom they're looking for.

e.g., "this is john smith at 1-800-xxx-xxxx, with a very important message. please call back as soon as possible." (click.)

these are usually creditors, looking for someone who used to have our current landline number. i always let the landline go to voicemail, cuz most of the calls are for this deadbeat guy. but on the off chance that such a message is for me, i wanna know what the deal is.

Creditors are calling at my work phone for the woman who had my job two women ago.

I've been getting call like that about once a week for the last 3-4 months. I feel like I should call the number just to tell them they've got the wrong number but that would probably be more of a hassle than it's worth.