I was cycling home from one of our stores this week and an Amazon van just reversed into the road off a driveway in front of me without even looking. I had to brake suddenly and stopped about 6ft from it.
At no time did I see the driver look. To stay safe, when I ride I scan the road ahead like a Terminator to find potential danger. I always try and eyeball drivers when they’re pulling out across my path, as I don’t trust them (i’ve been knocked off before) and use it as a kind of personal probablility guide to work out how likely they are to just go without seeing me which directly relates to how fast or slow I approach them. While stationary I did notice his passenger window was down. It was a dangerous manoeuvre so I shouted ‘…mate, you need to look where you are going’ to which I heard a voice in the cab shout back ‘…I’m in a van you fucking twat’
Hmmm…..let’s say this got my back up. A simple apology would have sufficed as I could see his vision was restricted but he didn’t inch out, just straight out into the road with a ‘fuck everyone, coming through’ tone about it. The damage on the back of the van may have been an indication of how good (low) his driving standards were.
He sped off in front of me and tbh a bit of red mist had descended. Then after a short distance he got stuck in a bit of traffic so I thought I’d wind him up. Out came the phone and I took a pic of his sad little mug as I rode past. All he could do was shout something and sarchastically laugh loudly.
Driver annoyed and wound up (mission accomplished) I just carried on waiting for the pass and right on form I got the go slow pass shouting some drivel at me as he drove by. No idea what he said. Not a close pass though so fair play. I’m not sure whether he stopped at the top of the hill for me or a delivery but I got a second dose of verbal as I rode past him again just smiling (ironically like the Amazon logo). He was triggered lol. Job done.
Was he having a bad day? Probably. It must be shit driving a big van everywhere stopping every few metres under pressure to deliver a shit load of parcels. Did I deserve the abuse? I don’t think so. He was in the wrong making a dangerous manoeuvre and got upset when I called it out. Imagine if I was a few metres further on when he reversed?
The moral of this story is just be nice. Humans make mistakes and just because you do doesn’t make it ok to abuse someone for pointing it out. Just accept it, apologise, carry on. That’s all he had to do. He didn’t so I made his day a little worse. Amen.