Thread: Dangerous rider
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Old 07-09-2010, 11:37 AM   #32
utopia
No turn left unstoned
 
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: leicester
Bike: M750
Posts: 4,559
oops, ...er,... Actually I wasn't being serious at all about the tyres. That last bit was kinda satirical, and meant only to caricature the angry demon that we all need to avoid. Maybe I should have made that more obvious, though in my defence I had previously been preaching the "don't react" message (the serious bit) quite loudly,I thought. Your criticisms of someone who would do such a thing are spot on, by the way. My point was that there's a lot of mindless arrogance out there (this type of aggression in a london morning rush hour bus lane would seem to be an example,by anyone's judgement). If I'm honest I've probably behaved a bit like that myself on occaision, but for all those who learn tolerance, humility, awareness and avoidance, there are likely to be more following who havent yet learned, and it is THIS about which it is hard to know what to do. (the letting down of tyres was meant as some sort of comic frustration at this, I certainly didn't mean it personally). Is there more aggression in the culture these days? Or am I just getting old? Anyway I think this all goes way deeper than roadcraft. Its raises all sorts of emotions when it happens to you, at a time when you need to be focussing even more on the road cos others around you are more likely to be distracted too. The bazooka zapping thing is just my strategy for maintaining a smile while I try to react dispassionately, which is about all you can do at the time. While this mr bad might be quite nice generally, the behaviour described has to be judged inconsiderate and dangerous, on the evidence given. Whether or not he was provoked by something Stuart might have done to annoy him, my advice would still be the same..he would have been better to smile, react dispassionately with tolerence, humility etc, then zapped him with his imaginary bazooka and rode on. Its all too easy to get drawn in. Blimey..no-one expects the spanish inquisition..our chief weapons are tolerance, humility, awareness, avoidance, dispassionate reactions, smiles and a bl**y great imaginary bazooka. Hope I'm redeemed now. I'll be more careful.
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