Special Driver

There is quite a lot of poor driving out there. So, it takes something quite special to really take my breath away these days.


Step forward the imbecile piloting the burgandy old Honda through Stratford this evening.


He uses the bus lane illegally on the approach to the gyratory. He close passes me and another cyclist in order to undertake in said bus-lane


He then tries to bully his way back into the queue to pass the bus turning left, but when this doesn't work roars off down the bus lane by the station (which has been open to traffic during the road-works). He makes to close pass another cyclist, but is confronted by a bus pulling out of the station, and decides that fighting with a bus isn't going to end well.


He then forces his way into the other lane to overtake the bus, jumps back into the bus lane (which at this point has reverted to a standard bus lane outside the road-works) and then turns left up Angel Road.


All of this dangerous activity actually got him a few seconds on me whilst I was cycling. In essence it gained him nothing.


Driving like this falls so short of the standard expected, that the only solution is to rip up the driving license, take the car, and fine. And if they drive again, they go to prison. If someone steamed through Stratford Mall waving a baseball bat, they would be treated very seriously. Why is driving a car at cyclists and other cars any different?