Tag: Road

Disgusting driving

This was recently posted on Twitter, and shows just how idiotic some peoples driving can be. 

This particular cockwomble needs to be charged, at the very least with dangerous driving. 

The company named on the van has apologised on twitter, but then immeadiatly deleted their account. 

Bus Squeeze, The Result

transdev_busSo, in light of a recent incident with a Transdev Bus, I contacted the company, and as I previously stated, Transdev is a professional body, who take road safety seriously. Every single one of their drivers, is polite and professional on the road.

And that goes for their customer service Staff, as the response I got back from them was nothing but stellar.

Dear Michael

Thank you for getting back to me with the time the incident occured.

I have identified our driver and informed our Operations Manager of this incident. Our driver will be spoken to very shortly. It is disappointing to hear about this incident has our driver as only been with us a few months.

On behalf of Transdev Harrogate and Dsitrict Travel please accept my apologies for this incident.

 
Should you have any further problems please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind Regards,
Patrick
Harrogate and District Customer Care

So, as much as I’m sure this was a simple misjudgement by the driver, it is important he realise what effect this has on a fellow road user, so that he can be aware for next time.

Kudos however for the professional way this was handled by Patrick.

Trying out Route Overlays

I’ve tried using Garmin VIRB Edit to produce an overlay on my video, to show the metrics.

Associated Ride: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/3916087

It works quite well, even if it does stretch out the editing process.

The flow is now:

  1. Join files if required (GoPro splits files at 1.8Gb)
  2. Load into VIRB, and place GPX information with the file, aligning it with an arbitrary point.
  3. Export file with overlay and load it into Premier Pro
  4. Heavy edits in Premiere Pro and AfterEffects.

Then export and do what ever needs done with the video 🙂

Simple really, a little longer work flow than I would of liked, but it works until a better solution can be found. Garmin VIRB is great considering it is a free piece of software. And I think I’m already paying enough for the right to use Adobe…

Riding in Traffic

I find myself enjoying riding in traffic. As those cars are sat there, waiting to move, I can be zipping past, on my way just filtering through.

It does however require attention, more attention than if you were driving. You have to anticipate peoples moves, the space they leave, and work out your surroundings, and the road every few seconds. Then you get the occasional idiot driver, who does not leave room, passes you too close or tailgates. It can be quite unnerving to have it happen, but it does happen.

Several hundred videos on YouTube showing it happen. Speaking of which, the riders that post some of these videos, are shall we say, a little militant. The Worst being SonOfTheWindINC, showing drivers a red or yellow card for their driving, while filming them with more GoPro Cameras than humanly needed. One Video shows him chasing down the road, after another cyclist who hit a woman, horn blaring and shouting before attempting, and failing, to perform a citizen’s arrest. Its Cringeworthy.

Other YouTube posters often seem to go out of their way to court aggravation, admittedly after the misdeed of the driver, but still aggravate the situation.

Myself, if I catch something, I let it go and then post it on YouTube if needed as a warning to others, or a lesson to be learnt. Never would I chase down the driver and confront them. I dunno, I’m not into “reasoning” with idiots because reason doesn’t work on the terminally stupid.
I’m not going to waste time trying to educate the mentally under-developed.