Wood chipper rant

[JRA]

Today I was riding along a faily well-traveled two lane road with a good shoulder, plenty of room for me to ride on the shoulder and cars to pass.

Up ahead, a wood chipper was in use, blocking one lane. A guy was holding up his hand, signalling for me to stop so cars coming the other way could use the only open lane. I stopped, and pulled out into the lane to make it clear I was not sharing the lane but was first in line. Several cars lined up behind me. So far so good.

Then the guy who had signalled for me to stop pointed to the car behind me and waved him around me. His 'waving around' signal was pretty clear. There was no mistaking that he thought I should wait.

Now, I'm as willing to share the road as the next guy but this was total BS. I took off, noting, as I did, that the car behind me didn't budge. I whizzed by the stupid traffic-directing SOB who shook his head and said something like "well, OK".

What a frickin' idiot! Even the guy in the car behind me knew going around me would be wrong.

I didn't look back but I assume from the fact that I went about a half a mile before any of the cars caught up with me, that the car behind me refused to move until there were no cars coming the other way.

With jerks like that "directing" traffic, I don't blame him.

(end of rant)

[Chris L]

I've long had issues with amateur traffic "controllers", and have, in the past, changed my commute temporarily just to avoid them. However I've never encountered anything like that before. Did you get the name of the company responsible? I'd be filing a report on that one if I were you, and quoting sections of the local traffic law to strengthen your case.

[forum*rider]

Theres been alot of road construction here lately and a few amateur traffic directors, some of these kids look younger than 25 and definately don't know what their doing

[AdrianB]

There's a broad range of people directing the traffic. It sounds like you stumbled across a real galah (idiot). You made the right decision to proceed assertively. It was good to see that the car behind you was also sensible.

The last traffic controller I encountered was very courteous if not a tad admused. Descending a hill at a great rate of knots I was overtaking traffic (safely). At the bottom of the hill there was road works going on. I slowed down to 25 km/hr or just under and came to a stop as directed. No traffic had managed to catch up. The traffic controller radioed his companion at the other end of the works, stopped the oncoming traffic and let me go through with a wave and a big grin.

It takes all types I guess...

[LittleBigMan]

...the guy who had signalled for me to stop pointed to the car behind me and waved him around me. His 'waving around' signal was pretty clear. There was no mistaking that he thought I should wait.
This is the whole thing in a nutshell. (I typed, "butshell," but that was a typo. :p )

Some people think motor vehicles have the right-of-way over bikes all the time.

[Chris L]

The last traffic controller I encountered was very courteous if not a tad admused.

The rude ones don't bother me as much as the plain clueless ones. I remember one guy near Canungra a few years back, there is a stretch of road that has a 14% gradient out there, which was down to one lane on this occasion. This guy then tried to wave me through (on the way down) while there was traffic coming up in the opposite direction. Now riding against the flow of traffic is stupid and dangerous at the best of times, it's completely suicidal on a descent where I normally clock 72km/h. Needless to say, I politely declined his offer.

[AdrianB]

Good call there Chris. Gorilla Pancakes as tasty as they sound, doesn't seem like a good way to go.

[yak]

We have the other end of the spectrum here in Massachusetts - only cops can direct traffic - at about 50 bucks an hour!