bikes

jjdrer

Thanks CAT17.
I had another experience with a car/van(Govt. owned). The driver in the van went past me, pulled over to the kerb, switched off the motor next to the Dept. equipment on the footpath, obviously didn't check his mirrors at all and opened his door as I was riding past him. I almost "collected" the outer edge of the door. There was no vehicle passing me so I was able to swerve a bit to miss it. The guy had to cheek to yell out at me to watch where I was going next time. I wasn't about to go back and tell him to check his mirrors before opening his door onto the road.
I witnessed another incident too. A Mum was driving an old VW Beetle. Her child who would have been about 8 y.o. wasn't wearing his/her seat belt on. was in the back but obviously wanted something off the dashboard or in the glovebox. His waist (or near as I could tell) was across the top of the front seat(early ones didn't have headrests), his/her feet in the air in the back and his/her head near the dashboard. She was going around a blind corner in the middle of the road.
I still shudder to think what would have happened to her child if had to brake. it was ver irresponsible dangerous driving. I got off the road to the footpath, off my bike and stopped as soon as she passed me. I didn't want to get caught up in her foolishness if anything happened. I don't think I ever got off the road so quickly in my life other than then. What concerned me the most was the child being where he/she was and could also have gone head first through the windscreen.

I hope the weather is good over Christmas / New Year. So many don't drive to the conditions. Seem seem to delight in making big "splashes" by driving a lot faster - especially through puddles risking aquaplaning on the road. It is so easy to lose control of a vehicle that way. I have been a passenger in a car going very slowly having only just left a side street and giving away to other vheicles where it had been raining heavily and the water was deeper than it appeared to be. We could feel the car moving about. The next morning we found out that the Police closed the road 10 minutes later.