Friday 16 May 2014

My new found shame

"You should be ashamed of yourself;Overtaking on a narrow road like this"

As I was riding up through Islington and into Hackney last night I found myself stopped at the junction behind three other bikes. As the lights changed we set off together over the junction. I noticed as we entered the road opposite that I was gaining on the bikes in front and so after signalling I pulled around them and off in a single manoeuvre.

As I did so, the car (at this point about 10 metres) behind honked. Revved it's engine and pulled alongside. Now blocking the lane for oncoming traffic the lady in the passenger seat wound down her window and tutted:

"You should be ashamed of yourself;Overtaking on a narrow road like this"

Why?

I checked behind me
Signalled the manoeuvre
Made the manoeuvre
remained on my side of the road

Why should I be ashamed?

I wasn't passing judgement on others. I was within  the law and the highway code. we were on a road with traffic calming measures, where the narrow width (2 lanes of traffic between parked cars) and frequent speed bumps make it difficult for cars to get above the 20mph limit.

Why should I be ashamed?

At that point I hadn't a thing to be ashamed of.

I considered my response.

"Fuck you" I muttered

Now I was a little tiny bit ashamed

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