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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
There are moments in life where everything slows down, you feel the inevitable coming from miles away, you know it's coming and you have to do everything possible to prevent it. Your conscience, your well being, and your life are at stake. It's do or die, kill or be killed.
Wtf is haji talking about now? The unmistakably cut-throat struggle between man and man - The dissing war between pedestrian and cyclist. A cyclist races by a group of randos down the street, a group of walkers suddenly juts out into the route path of the cyclist... the list is endless, but in the clash of will between these two groups the inevitable arises - who will diss the other first over their supposed "close call"?
Alas, it is the one who strikes first that will be the victor, as the time to strike is short. You have one chance, and you have to make it count. The pedestrians can just throw a laugh your way, and for no good reason the cyclist will be decimated. The cyclist can simply throw out a terse "watch out (bitch!)" and be merry on his way while the bipeds freeze for a few seconds while the roadster escapes. A simple "woahhh" by that threesome of ugly fat 2- year olds can ilicit a "wtf fuck you" feeling in a cyclist.
Do not hesitate.
Throw out that insult asap.
Kill or be killed.
Inspired by the last 5 years of cycling around college campuses + the events 8 hours ago before I became thebedhaji.
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While riding on a path there were lots of presumably drunk students, I yelled passing twice and they just spread out all of the path and I ended up hitting one. I think they don't realize in America you pass on the left. I braked when I realized it was going to be fail so I was only going 5-10 miles an hour at the time of impact.
They didn't even seem to care, and I just rode off into the distance. I'm more afraid of cars than pedestrians insulting me or throwing beer cans, in the U.S. motorists have less respect for cyclists than most places in Europe or Canada I hear. They blatantly violate traffic laws, turning right right in front of me or driving in the bike lane because their SUV is too big to fit in the lane so they take theirs + mine.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
ah ic yea fortunately i've been in situations where I didnt have to leave campus premises at all during undergrad (enclosed campus with only a few busy streets cutting across its premises), and in the UK the drivers at least to me here, seem very aware of cyclists and how crappy some of us can be b/c there are just hundred of kids on crappy crappy bikes around here.
I hope to be able to bike to work next year, might suck but it's something I want to do T_T
And props for running into the drunk kids, fuck I've always had the urge to do that.
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Calgary25955 Posts
My friend got hit by a car on his bike.
This kid is a fucking tank. When he was 13 he got kicked in the chest by a horse and it didn't do anything but knock the wind out of him. When he went to get his wisdom teeth out they couldn't knock him out and thus had to do the surgery while he was awake.
(This story is all third party since I wasn't there). He was riding left of car on a two lane road with a median. At the break of the median the car decided to do a U-Turn and basically cause him to flip over the hood and land on the other side of the car, at which point he jumped up, smashed the mirror off and yelled "you fucking bitch." I don't know how but he was completely fine. He had a tiny scrape on his arm and that was it.
The best part was at least once a year I'd be walking with him around campus and hear someone yell "Yo it's that guy who got hit by a car." Usually they were wasted and went on yelling about the story, and every time it got more and more ridiculous.
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lol wow ;; ^
there was this one time my foot got rolled over and i was wearing flip flops
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Netherlands19125 Posts
On August 06 2008 05:04 Chill wrote: My friend got hit by a car on his bike.
This kid is a fucking tank. When he was 13 he got kicked in the chest by a horse and it didn't do anything but knock the wild out of him. When he went to get his wisdom teeth out they couldn't knock him out and thus had to do the surgery while he was awake.
(This story is all third party since I wasn't there). He was riding left of car on a two lane road with a median. At the break of the median the car decided to do a U-Turn and basically cause him to flip over the hood and land on the other side of the car, at which point he jumped up, smashed the mirror off and yelled "you fucked bitch." I don't know how but he was completely fine. He had a tiny srape on his arm and that was it.
The best part was at least once a year I'd be walking with him around campus and hear someone yell "Yo it's that guy who got kid by a car." Usually they were wasted and went on yelling about the story, and every time it got more and more ridiculous. Haha good stuff
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On August 06 2008 05:04 Chill wrote: My friend got hit by a car on his bike.
This kid is a fucking tank. When he was 13 he got kicked in the chest by a horse and it didn't do anything but knock the wild out of him. When he went to get his wisdom teeth out they couldn't knock him out and thus had to do the surgery while he was awake.
(This story is all third party since I wasn't there). He was riding left of car on a two lane road with a median. At the break of the median the car decided to do a U-Turn and basically cause him to flip over the hood and land on the other side of the car, at which point he jumped up, smashed the mirror off and yelled "you fucked bitch." I don't know how but he was completely fine. He had a tiny srape on his arm and that was it.
The best part was at least once a year I'd be walking with him around campus and hear someone yell "Yo it's that guy who got kid by a car." Usually they were wasted and went on yelling about the story, and every time it got more and more ridiculous.
Haha, the adreniline rush you get when being hit by a car makes you not notice anything. I got right up and pushed myself off the groud and didnt even notice my arm was dislocated and a few inches out of place for a good 15 minutes.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
haha chill I remember you telling me about the wisdom teeth part in paris.
I actually know a guy who got hit by a car in the one lone busy street in princeton (washington road) and went rolling up on the windshield, seemed liek he was fine, also the same guy who fell into an open manhole on a night out lol.
Another good friend of mine got hit by one of those campus maintenance golf carts (w/ uber gas-engines) TWICE lol it fucked up his bike so hard but he was okay.
And oh god I dont want to relive my own bike crashes at cambridge lol too many.
Although the night of our Course dinner for my masters course, somehow this 38 year old finnish guy with a wife and 2 kids got extrememly fucking wasted I have no clue how we only had champagne and wine, and when we were out drinking at pubs later in the night and I had my bike around, he was like "Haj that is a nice bike! let me ride it" and oh GOD he was swerving around like I had NEVER seen before in my life, literaaly in an S shape across both lanes of hte road thank god this was at midnight. Then my other friend has the brilliant idea (also rathe rwasted) and says "man you gotta stop man!", then fucking GRABS the front brakes on the bike and what do you know, they both go down like a rock.
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On August 06 2008 05:04 Chill wrote: My friend got hit by a car on his bike.
This kid is a fucking tank. When he was 13 he got kicked in the chest by a horse and it didn't do anything but knock the wild out of him. When he went to get his wisdom teeth out they couldn't knock him out and thus had to do the surgery while he was awake.
(This story is all third party since I wasn't there). He was riding left of car on a two lane road with a median. At the break of the median the car decided to do a U-Turn and basically cause him to flip over the hood and land on the other side of the car, at which point he jumped up, smashed the mirror off and yelled "you fucked bitch." I don't know how but he was completely fine. He had a tiny srape on his arm and that was it.
The best part was at least once a year I'd be walking with him around campus and hear someone yell "Yo it's that guy who got kid by a car." Usually they were wasted and went on yelling about the story, and every time it got more and more ridiculous. almost happened to one of my friends except it was a school bus lmao
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
rofl there isnt much room to "roll on top of" on a school bus ^^
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i got killed the other day. i was longboarding and about to cross a street to my left was this big ass truck and while looking at it through the windows of the truck i saw some bitch crusin really fast. so naturally i didn't want to get hit and stopped.
just about the time i stopped the bitch drove by and from her perspective it must of looked like i was trying to cross the street. so she yelled in her bitchy tone "watch it!!!!!". obviously i was. anyways there was a liquor store kind of in front of where she "nearly hit me" and the owner was sitting outside, probably keeping minors away, and yelled "should of hit him next time". and to top it off then he made his hands into guns and shot my way.
this pissed me off so much i wanted to punch each of them in the face repeatedly. i was stopped the bitch could of never hit me even if she tried. so fuck u liquor store owner.
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United States24501 Posts
To be fair, I've noticed a lot of cyclists who ride like they own the road. When the road provides for cars and bikes to coexist I'm fine with it... but when I have to follow behind a bicycle going 15 miles per hour for a quarter mile because I can't pass him without hitting him I start getting annoyed.
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that dude in chill's story sounds amazing
hes no Voyteck but hes still amazing
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Lol we recently had an epidemiology lecture where the lecturer used bike crashes in cambridge as an example on how to conduct an analytical study.
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On August 06 2008 09:04 micronesia wrote: To be fair, I've noticed a lot of cyclists who ride like they own the road. When the road provides for cars and bikes to coexist I'm fine with it... but when I have to follow behind a bicycle going 15 miles per hour for a quarter mile because I can't pass him without hitting him I start getting annoyed. I'll agree with you on this one. Cyclists should definitely ride on the right side of the right lane (USA obv) if it's a busier street. But the problem is, even when this is done, people in SUVs or big F350's with crew cabs can't get around because they're so wide.
People with Japanese or even modest American sedans can do this easily, but those with huge vehicles are relegated to riding 15-20 miles an hour until the other lane is free for passing. Yeah I feel bad you can't pass me with your pointlessly huge inefficient vehicle, but it was your choice and you probably didn't need it.
If you actually need your huge industrial truck for some reason, sorry :/. At least our mayor has been expanding bike lanes recently (which people in huge vehicles still see as their own).
And by "you" I mean rich teenage kids or soccer moms, not micronesia.
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If the road ain't large enough to accomodate both bikes and cars, that's the problem, not the fault of either the driver or the cyclist. Blaming each other will understandably sound like retarded arguments to the other side.
Dunno about your jurisdiction, but where I grew up, it was illegal to enter car lanes with bikes. You had to go on the marked bicycle lanes.
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United States24501 Posts
On August 06 2008 10:59 Ancestral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2008 09:04 micronesia wrote: To be fair, I've noticed a lot of cyclists who ride like they own the road. When the road provides for cars and bikes to coexist I'm fine with it... but when I have to follow behind a bicycle going 15 miles per hour for a quarter mile because I can't pass him without hitting him I start getting annoyed. I'll agree with you on this one. Cyclists should definitely ride on the right side of the right lane (USA obv) if it's a busier street. But the problem is, even when this is done, people in SUVs or big F350's with crew cabs can't get around because they're so wide. People with Japanese or even modest American sedans can do this easily, but those with huge vehicles are relegated to riding 15-20 miles an hour until the other lane is free for passing. Yeah I feel bad you can't pass me with your pointlessly huge inefficient vehicle, but it was your choice and you probably didn't need it. If you actually need your huge industrial truck for some reason, sorry :/. At least our mayor has been expanding bike lanes recently (which people in huge vehicles still see as their own). And by "you" I mean rich teenage kids or soccer moms, not micronesia. Lol I really am not sure if I was supposed to take any offense to that or not.
Just to clarify, the situations I was referring to were ones where having a normal compact sedan wouldn't have helped (I don't even drive a big vehicle as I find them pointless for most people including me)
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United States24501 Posts
On August 06 2008 11:12 BottleAbuser wrote: If the road ain't large enough to accomodate both bikes and cars, that's the problem, not the fault of either the driver or the cyclist. Blaming each other will understandably sound like retarded arguments to the other side.
Dunno about your jurisdiction, but where I grew up, it was illegal to enter car lanes with bikes. You had to go on the marked bicycle lanes. Ah you posted this while I was posting. The last time where this happened was when I was driving on an on ramp for a service road and there was no bicycle lane. Bicyclists really shouldn't be biking there... that's the problem in that case. I'm sure many roads could be made to better accommodate biking, but I also don't think that we should expect every road to be that way.
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Yes, it's easy to point out what could solve it, but there are many problems that make the solution not so easy to implement, like cost.
I think it's important to realize that it's not the other guy's fault though.
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On August 06 2008 11:13 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2008 10:59 Ancestral wrote:On August 06 2008 09:04 micronesia wrote: To be fair, I've noticed a lot of cyclists who ride like they own the road. When the road provides for cars and bikes to coexist I'm fine with it... but when I have to follow behind a bicycle going 15 miles per hour for a quarter mile because I can't pass him without hitting him I start getting annoyed. I'll agree with you on this one. Cyclists should definitely ride on the right side of the right lane (USA obv) if it's a busier street. But the problem is, even when this is done, people in SUVs or big F350's with crew cabs can't get around because they're so wide. People with Japanese or even modest American sedans can do this easily, but those with huge vehicles are relegated to riding 15-20 miles an hour until the other lane is free for passing. Yeah I feel bad you can't pass me with your pointlessly huge inefficient vehicle, but it was your choice and you probably didn't need it. If you actually need your huge industrial truck for some reason, sorry :/. At least our mayor has been expanding bike lanes recently (which people in huge vehicles still see as their own). And by "you" I mean rich teenage kids or soccer moms, not micronesia. Lol I really am not sure if I was supposed to take any offense to that or not. Just to clarify, the situations I was referring to were ones where having a normal compact sedan wouldn't have helped (I don't even drive a big vehicle as I find them pointless for most people including me) I'm not familiar with service roads, but I do make an effort to ride places where a cyclist would not create problems.
I think the problem with making every road accommodating to a cyclist is that it would cost a lot and most people in USA don't really bicycle places ... although I'd love for that to change it could take a couple hundred years.
Even if it's a two lane road, one lane each way, riding on the far right gives most motorists enough room to pass. But if he was indeed riding in a place that prohibited you, I would be more likely to blame it on him because as a cyclist you're in the minority and need to make a greater effort to be educated about your route and general safety precautions, i.e. not taking places that prohibitively affects traffic.
According to Wikipedia (with citation, but I don't remember what it was) increasing the number of cyclists in a given area will also increase motorist awareness of them and the safety of everyone is positively impacted. But unfortunately I do feel that incompetent cyclists make it harder for reasonable and mindful cyclists, because all cyclists are lumped into a big group. Of course, it's the cyclists own ignorance that causes the problem, not malice, but that doesn't make it any better.
I like their good intentions (saving money, the Earth, getting fit) but when I feel lazy or am pressed for time or need to transport something and take my car, I've had my share of cyclists riding right in the middle of the road in front of me. Although it's "legal," this particular breed must either be 1) Really stupid 2) Elitist assholes who think that just because it's legal vehicle means they can ruin everyone's day and greatly reduce the gas mileage of anyone unfortunate to get caught behind them
I hope it's the first one, because then there's a chance they'll improve.
I don't really know what I was addressing anymore I guess, but those are my thoughts and I didn't intend any part of my preceding post to be offensive :X
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