Stuart Ablett
Member
- Messages
- 15,917
- Location
- Tokyo Japan
Today on my ride around the palace I got clipped by the mirror of a van.
Here is where it happened....
... at about 9:15AM this morning.
I was doing maybe 27Km/h this guy went by me very fast, and his mirror clipped my arm, not much of a hit, but it did make contact.
The van, with the company name and phone number I also found their address etc.
Van's license plate
You can see the mirror on the side of the van is not very big, so if that hit my arm, you can imagine how close the guy came to hitting me, scared the pooh out of me I can tell you. I happened just at the apex of the corner, I was maybe 1 meter from the curb, I know this is a bad spot, many drivers clip this corner, so I don't, this usually makes them go around me, but this guy decided not to.
At the next light I pulled up beside him, and I politely asked him to drive more carefully, as he almost knocked me from my bike. He made a rude gesture and then a dismissive one, and started to ignore me. I asked him if his delivery was more important than my life? Again rude gesture and then ignore, so I got out my iPhone and took some pictures, while doing this he was really angry, I thought he was going to get out of the van at one point. When I tried to take a picture of him, he hid his face like a coward....
... Then I told him I'd be contacting his boss. At this point he stopped being so rude and tried to ask for forgiveness, make the praying hands gesture, I told him that if he had started with a "Gomen" or sorry, that would have been fine, but as he was dismissive and rude, I'd not be in contact with his company. When the light turned green he quickly got out of dodge.
Now I don't want to make a phone call, that is not worth much IMHO, I want to print out the four pics above and write down what happened in Japanese, and send it to the company by mail. I want to do this anonymously, because if the guy gets fired or something I don't want him coming back to me, don't need that kind of trouble. I look at it this way, six more inches to the left and I'd most likely be in a hospital or worse, if I had a company with drivers out doing deliveries with the name of my company on the door, I'd sure want to know if they were driving dangerously. If this was a one off thing and the guy was just having a bad day, then the penalty to him at work should be minor, but if this is the most recent of many complaints, then maybe he should be working in the storehouse not doing deliveries.
Am I being unreasonable?
Am I making too much of this?
Thoughts...?
Here is where it happened....
... at about 9:15AM this morning.
I was doing maybe 27Km/h this guy went by me very fast, and his mirror clipped my arm, not much of a hit, but it did make contact.
The van, with the company name and phone number I also found their address etc.
Van's license plate
You can see the mirror on the side of the van is not very big, so if that hit my arm, you can imagine how close the guy came to hitting me, scared the pooh out of me I can tell you. I happened just at the apex of the corner, I was maybe 1 meter from the curb, I know this is a bad spot, many drivers clip this corner, so I don't, this usually makes them go around me, but this guy decided not to.
At the next light I pulled up beside him, and I politely asked him to drive more carefully, as he almost knocked me from my bike. He made a rude gesture and then a dismissive one, and started to ignore me. I asked him if his delivery was more important than my life? Again rude gesture and then ignore, so I got out my iPhone and took some pictures, while doing this he was really angry, I thought he was going to get out of the van at one point. When I tried to take a picture of him, he hid his face like a coward....
... Then I told him I'd be contacting his boss. At this point he stopped being so rude and tried to ask for forgiveness, make the praying hands gesture, I told him that if he had started with a "Gomen" or sorry, that would have been fine, but as he was dismissive and rude, I'd not be in contact with his company. When the light turned green he quickly got out of dodge.
Now I don't want to make a phone call, that is not worth much IMHO, I want to print out the four pics above and write down what happened in Japanese, and send it to the company by mail. I want to do this anonymously, because if the guy gets fired or something I don't want him coming back to me, don't need that kind of trouble. I look at it this way, six more inches to the left and I'd most likely be in a hospital or worse, if I had a company with drivers out doing deliveries with the name of my company on the door, I'd sure want to know if they were driving dangerously. If this was a one off thing and the guy was just having a bad day, then the penalty to him at work should be minor, but if this is the most recent of many complaints, then maybe he should be working in the storehouse not doing deliveries.
Am I being unreasonable?
Am I making too much of this?
Thoughts...?