high speed happy slapping

Well… riding home from work yesterday evening and minding my own business, i suddenly received an almighty slap round the back of the head from a shoe deliberately held out of the passenger side window of a van – needless to say it didn’t make ME in the slightest bit happy! Fortunately didn’t do any significant damage, although could quite easily been a lot worse, but nevertheless was immensely reckless – and just completely unnecessary…

People in cars think they can have a quick joke at the poor little cyclists expense then get away with it just by driving off; imagine this guys surprise though when i came racing up to him whilst he was stuck at the next traffic lights!!  I chased him down the road for half a mile or so (yes – a man on a push bike giving a high speed pursuit to two men in a full sized van!) but was knackered from previous 35 miles of riding + a days work, so he got away. Had no idea what i’d do if i caught him anyway and didn’t even bother getting the reg as i knew Walsall police would do FA about it (although no doubt they’d prosecute me if i chose do to anything vigilante…).

Its all just indicative of the complete lack of respect that cyclists get on the road here, (even despite a summer of bringing home the gold and glory for Britain on the race course) …and of an increasingly worrying attitude, rife amongst many drivers nowadays – from tradesmen in vans to “sub-urb SUV” drivers to impatient merc slickers – that think they are entitled to get away with doing absolutely anything they want, with no regard to the safety of other road users.