Until yesterday I was very indifferent towards cyclists but the other day was very much an eye-opener. There were 2 occasions which shocked me. The first was on the A574 heading towards Blackburn where I rounded the corner and found a group of about 25 cyclists riding 3/4 abreast. Now I don't particularly like it when cyclist ride abreast, but normally its no problem, I just treat them like a car and overtake were I can. However, this group positioned themselves, perhaps on purpose but I'll say accidentally to give them the benefit of the doubt, in a way that meant their total length was about 1 and half times the length of a HGV. They were spaced out, but as they were 3/4 abreast there was no way you could pull back in if you tried to overtake individually. Effectively they created a rolling road block, doing 10mph at best up the hills. Now I can appriciate tractors and the like doing this, as they are earning a living and pay tax but to do so as a leisure activity seems to me to be a bit anti-social. I'm not saying people shouldn't enjoy cycling, but the militants give it a bad name who seem to enjoy holding people up.
The second occasion was someone who was riding close to the pavement, then suddenly, without a hand signal, a sholder check, or even positioning himself to the centre, turned right, immidiatly in front of me. I was planning, and could so no reason why I couldn't, to overtake him
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Now I refuse to let these two instances affect the way I think or treat cyclists as they are fairly extreme one-off's that were a coincidence, but I am getting a little bit fed-up with the scant regard some cylists seem to pay to the highway code. We all need to take care on the road, but too many cyclists seem to think that red lights don't apply to them and riding on the pavement is perfectly acceptable.
I am personally in favour of the police taking more of an interest in the some of the dangerous acts that are commited my cyclists, as they quite rightly do with car drivers. That does not have to been draconian restrictions and over-zealous enforcement, but a bit of common-sense and the odd talking too. The militant element(probably quite small to be fair) seem to think they are above the law and that the highway code does not apply to them. That should be addressed.