This one is timely. With the sun, and the first leaves appearing with the Cherry blossom, prattus spandexius is now out of hibernation.
You’ll see him – typically with a full-face beard and/or the physique of Thunderbird 2 – pretending to be fit on country lanes and other places where he can cause maximum inconvenience. On weekends, he’ll be part of a gang – almost invariably with one of the gang members being a dead ringer for Uncle Albert and riding one of those lie-down bikes – deliberately riding two or three abreast to hold traffic back.
So this story in the Guardian is interesting – maybe not for exactly the reasons I’d like to think, but it should give prattus spandexius something to think about next time he tries to act like a rolling road block if it ever actually happens.
In 2008, a cyclist hit a teenager and killed her. He was found guilty of dangerous cycling – he shouted to a group of teens “move, because I’m not stopping”. He didn’t, and he killed the girl. He was fined £2,200. There isn’t a specific law covering dangerous cycling like there is for driving.
It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.