Ah yes, bikes on the road. Both the motorised and pedal-powered variety ... I know they've a right to be there, I know they're better for the environment, I know they do less damage to the road, and I know they take up less space so cause less traffic congestion. But for some reason, they do manage to piss me off all too often.
I've been told there are normal people out there riding bicycles. These are people who don't have this huge throbbing vein appear on their forehead, their faces turning crimson, when somebody mentions the word "car". These people don't have a huge chip on their shoulder, aren't delighted when they annoy a motorist or damage a car, and don't delight in dressing up in fluorescent skin-tight lycra clothing. But I don't know where these people are, because most cyclists I've ever encountered are basically aggro bastards.
They seem to be that sort of people who have a strong opinion on everything, so they can go for the throat if someone doesn't agree with them. You know the sort of people I mean, the ones that will say "Fords are the best" without any qualification of the statement, and who happily go into a tirade if you state the obvious....
I'll give a couple of examples of behaviour that gets right up my nostril. I'm sure everyone will recognise these.
You're driving merrily along in fairly heavy traffic; it's flowing, but it's fairly busy. Suddenly, the left lane (right lane for most of the world) slows down, and not long after that the congestion spills across into the middle lane as drivers avoid whatever the obstacle is in the curbside lane. Is it a broken-down car? Is it an accident? No, it's a cyclist ... well that's OK, they have a right to be there, and aren't going to slow us down more than a sluggish car anyway. So now we've passed the obstacle; lo and behold, there's a red light up ahead! So a long queue of traffic stops at the light ... and the cyclist trundles on past in the curbside lane, right up to the front of the queue. All those cars that went around before have to go around again, and again, and again. Yet I can imagine the response of a cyclist standing at the front of a long queue waiting for, say, a bank teller, when someone walks into the bank and pushes in front of them; which is doing precisely the same thing. It's basically rude.
And how about the case when you're driving at night and you're coming up to a green light. Just before you trundle through, a bicycle streaks across the intersection in front of you, blatantly running their red light. You start to swerve and brake, but you realise that the bike has gone; you've only just missed it by a fraction, but you have missed it. So you look around as you're slowing down, and there's the cyclist riding towards you, yelling abuse and holding a bike pump in one hand ... and for the sake of your car, it seems a good idea to get out of there. Apparently it's your fault they ran a red light; as a motorist you apparently have this incredible psychic power that forces cyclists to sacrifice themselves to your car.
And finally, you're walking across the road on the way to the station, the little green man happily guiding your way. A Skyline GT-R turns the corner across the intersection, so you're concentrating on that as you cross the road (hmm, I'll have one of those) ... and this bright green & black ponce on wheels runs over your foot, as he ignores the red light! But hey, this particular prick doesn't care, because he does virtually the same thing a few weeks later!
Yet if you complain about cyclists, they're suddenly all perfect. They suddenly don't ride up your left on roundabouts and go straight ahead while you're turning left. Suddenly it's the motorists' fault for being in the cyclists' way ...
And while I've gone in this direction, why not chuck a few more clichés around that are all too often true? Let's talk about bikers, those aptly-named Temporary Citizens.
These are people, after all, who have a Need; a Need for Speed. While there are other compelling reasons to get a motorcycle (more so in countries with expensive fuel, or that tax more for cars than motorcycles), the main reason someone rides a bike is to go fast. And they'll go damned fast; very, very close to Formula One speed out of a road-bike which costs hardly any more than the cheapest Hyundai Excel (and probably less than a Corolla!). Even pudgy, slow Harley Davidsons can accelerate harder than most cars around.
So it's probably a want to go fast, mixed with impatience, that creates the danger-biker you see on the roads, whipping between lanes without indicators, popping out of nowhere into blind-spots at double the speed limit, and generally attempting to become a statistic. And let's not forget ignoring indicators while you, the humble motorist, are trying to change lanes. I'm sure you've been in the situation where you've looked carefully to check there's a clear space in an adjacent lane, flicked your indicator on, looked again as you've started to move across - and halfway into the new lane, some bike appears at Warp Factor 9 and totally screws you up. For some reason it's illegal to hit them, so you have to move back where you came from, which causes the girl who is now again behind you to slam her brakes on as she's been preparing to fill the gap where you were ... and a near-accident ensues because "Mr Bike can go fast".
Of course, it's again the motorists' fault. The problem is that those people I know who have had major accidents on bikes have usually been the cause themselves, but it is still car drivers that kill motorcycle riders ...
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