It’s hard to pass judgement on a situation when we don’t know what preceded this interaction, but one thing is obvious from the short video – the bus is mightier than the bike.
Doesn’t matter what preceded it. The rider’s behavior is problematic in that:
a. it merely escalates the situation, whatever it was, and
b. his behavior can only be taken in the context of the video, which makes him look like the bad guy (and has a halo effect on cyclists everywhere)
I understand being pissed off with drivers — I deal with that every time my wheels hit pavement. But doing dumbass confrontational shit like this makes him the bad guy and puts everyone who watches the video firmly on the side of the bus driver.
I don’t side with the driver, but I also think that the rider got exactly what he deserved.
The people here saying the cyclist deserved this are jaw droppingly stupid – you see a cyclist impeding the bus for only a few seconds, without knowing why (perhaps the bus cut him off or was honking in his ear right before this), and he *deseved* to be hit? The bus driver is wielding a lethal weapon and if he doesn’t have the patience and self control to let it go if he’s impeded for a moment rather than hitting someone on purpose, he needs to lose his job and his driver’s license.
I saw a guy do this to a cyclist in Keswick in the UK. The car driver was almost blind, and his son had the job of pointing out things to avoid ! Only the car was damaged. The front bumper on the car cracked and had to be ripped off. The racing bike back wheel didn’t even have a buckle.
The cyclist should not be hit for any reason here. However, he was acting like an ass and escalating whatever situation preceded this video. Passive aggressive bullshit like this gets people killed, sometimes not even on purpose. The last thing you want to do in traffic is prove a point with your driving – whether you’re driving a bus, a car, riding a scooter, or riding a bike. It’s just plain stupid.
so imagine now a slow car in traffic and the bus bumps into it destroying the rear end of the car
everyone would hate and blame the bus driver
but on a bike its ok because the guy is super slow in traffic? excuse me what?
sure both the slow car and the slow bike are annoying but thats no reason to crash their car/bike. whats next, run over people because theyre slow? yeah sounds like great ethic
Bus driver, off to jail. No question based on that evidence. The bike rider might be a complete tool, but the bus driver’s responsibility is don’t hit people. Is it OK to rear end a female cyclist like that? What about a teenager? What about a kid under 10? The act has no justification based on the context. The bus driver needed a camera to prove to his employer that he wasn’t just wasting time, but met a disagreable road user. A broken down car or truck causes the same inconvenience.
Expect more from motorists. You stuff up on a bike, you suffer. Stuff up by a driver, you suffer. You can’t control the driver.
We get all hot and bothered when someone like that Doctor out in CA brake-checks a couple roadies at speed.
But here, a cyclist brake checks a bus, and that’s OK, the bus driver is the bad guy?
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I’m assuming the bus driver did something to p!ss off the cyclist in order to get that guy purposely antagonizing the bus driver. Does not excuse the driver hitting the bike. But notice the traffic streaming around the bus on both sides. Cyclist is causing an unsafe traffic situation because his nose got bent out of shape about something. And now he has to walk, too. How to be in the right and still lose.
Nobody I’ve ever known would impede a bus for fun. Period. Would you?
So, as others have said we don’t know why the cyclist is acting like this. The bottom line is, as a bus driver you get paid to drive and there may be traffic, there also maybe other road users acting like idiots. What do you do? Hit them with your bus? Would you do that if you were a driver?
A bus is huge compared to a bike, so it’s all too easy to kill someone by accident – so to me, the driver is totally wrong.
The bus driver is a jerk acting out, if I had heard the bus horn, i would have gotten out of its way, I do not want to get hit. Living on an island that is the surf mecca of the world is full of aggressive drivers but my job is to set an example. Yes, I swear at fools now and then but I move out of their way first, I want all to see I know I must share the road with them, I am trying to set an example for all of us and I have seen the hostility but its rare. I won’t engage in hostile ways with the traffic other than at times screaming “fuc* you” but I get out of the way first. It could cost me my cycle or my life if I focus on fools, I learned this a long time ago. There was room in front to move up for the cyclist, I feel that would have signaled to the driver “cooperation” it looks like this could have been avoided by easily just cycling a little faster.
OK, so the bus driver may have done something stupid to piss off the cyclist. Most likely it was accidental (but it could have been the driver being a d*bag). What the cyclist was doing was not accidental. He was purposely holding up the bus and, it appears, TRYING to get hit (if this was in the U.S. I would say he’s fishing for a lawsuit). There’s no excuse for that, and I don’t have any sympathy for him and his ruined wheel. Even is the bus driver is a jerk, what about all the passengers that are just trying to get to work or home? What did they do to have to endure the cyclist’s d*baggery? I’m not saying the bus driver is right, just saying the cyclist is being a jerk.
There are valid reasons for taking a lane and making traffic wait for you. Revenge is not one of them.
