Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => On The Road => Topic started by: Zipperhead on 03 November, 2008, 01:18:38 pm
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The traffic was very heavy on the first part of my journey, very slow moving. so I was filtering down the middle of the road, carefully. Ahead of me was another cyclist who was making heavy work of going up a gentle slope, then when we came to a traffic island he went round it on the right hand side. Foolish thnks I. Another traffic island and round the wrong way he goes again. Just after that he turned off to the right, so I carefully continued on. Slowing down for the next island, as I went past it another cyclist overtook by going the wrong way round it.
As we came up to the next traffic island, he moved over to the right to go round on the wrong side again, then realised that there was something large, mostly metal and quite solid heading towards him. Whoops. Oh dear, he doesn't seem to have a plan B. Lots of panic braking, back wheel sliding. Got to let the brakes off as he's now completely sideways. Skidding again. Finally stopping with the front wheel on the traffic island. No damage done to the bike, only his underwear.
The silly thing was that he had space to go round the correct side of the island, moreso when the car that he was alongside stopped short of the island to give him space.
A few miles further on I was going along the Embankment when it got quite noisy what with all the sirens and the low flying police helicopter. Think Apocalypse Now low. Then think a bit lower still. Good job that he had two engines, because he was in danger of hoovering all the leaves from the trees into one of them. Then along came all the vehicles with flashing lights and sirens, and in the middle of them a van that must have contained losts of bad men. The lead car stopped all the traffic at a junction to allow the others through. Once we got going again, after a short distance the traffic stopped again, so I carefully filtered up the inside of the coach in front of me (it was safe, even if it moved there were parked motorcycles to give me a plan B) and when I got to the front of it, there was one of the Police Range Rovers, stopped sideways with the passenger door opened and the copper inside used his finger to signal me to stop, so I did, 'cause in his other hand he had a machine gun, so I didn't want to piss him off - think of the paperwork!
They must have been very bad men.
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Strewth!!
All I had was a slight start when I awoke from my train-commute induced coma to think that I had missed my stop. ::-)
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They must have been very bad men.
BBC NEWS | England | Long terms for fatal robbery gang (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7705688.stm)
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They must have been very bad men.
BBC NEWS | England | Long terms for fatal robbery gang (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7705688.stm)
I saw that, but I don't think it was them - unless they were sentenced at Kingston and left there at about 8:30.
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On their way to court for sentence?
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Possibly, although I can't think of a prison from which you'd have to travel along the Embankment to get to Kingston.
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They were heading East (well, North actually) along Victoria Embankment, just by the MoD, so they could have been going to either Fleet Street or Newgate Street.
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Surely sentencing of that crowd would have happened in Kingston.
Sounds like a different set of nasty people to me.
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I reckon the only kind of people they'd bring out that weight of scary stuff for would be really bad terrorists.
Mr Mac saw the conflab at Embankment tube and had a minor heart attack that it was because of yours truly being under a truck. Bless. (I pass that way about 20 mins before him. None of it was going on when I passed there, mind.)
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I have a friend who recently and unwittingly managed to insert his car into the middle of what turned out to be a police chase.
Car in front stopped at a zebra crossing, car about two back in the queue screamed past and blocked the car in front, car behind peeled out and plonked itself alongside car in front. Car alongside disgorged two or three mean looking chaps. Car at very front did the same. All were in plain clothes, and all pointed machine guns at the target vehicle. It wasn't obvious that these were police. Friend was a tads concerned at this point (given that at least one gun was pointing straight at him, albeit with the target car in between) and tried burying himself in his footwell. All this in Woking on a mid-week morning.
After a rather lengthy stand-off, the occupants of the target car slowly got out and were bundled into a waiting police van. Not a word in the press.
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Sounds like The Sweeney to me (Flying Squad). They operate in plain clothes and conduct 'Hard Stops' to disrupt armed robbers. They generally put 'Police' marked baseball caps on first though. More to prevent 'blue on blue' engagements and to let the unarmed officers assisting know who to take instructions from.
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I think the Police baseball caps either appeared a bit later, or were not noticed at first. I think when faced with a situation that includes machine guns, an ingenue's primary attention is drawn to the hardware, and not the headgear.
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Wonder whether there's a market for Police baseball caps among villains? It could provide just enough confusion...
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Get yer trousers on - you're nicked!
I wonder if it's showing on any channels at the moment.
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I have a friend who recently and unwittingly managed to insert his car into the middle of what turned out to be a police chase.
Car in front stopped at a zebra crossing, car about two back in the queue screamed past and blocked the car in front, car behind peeled out and plonked itself alongside car in front. Car alongside disgorged two or three mean looking chaps. Car at very front did the same. All were in plain clothes, and all pointed machine guns at the target vehicle. It wasn't obvious that these were police. Friend was a tads concerned at this point (given that at least one gun was pointing straight at him, albeit with the target car in between) and tried burying himself in his footwell. All this in Woking on a mid-week morning.
After a rather lengthy stand-off, the occupants of the target car slowly got out and were bundled into a waiting police van. Not a word in the press.
Completely understandable, and completely pointless.
Bullets think that cars are made from cheese.
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Get yer trousers on - you're nicked!
I wonder if it's showing on any channels at the moment.
Until recently they were showing episodes on one of the ITV digital-only channels, but I would recommend buying the whole thing on DVD.
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Get yer trousers on - you're nicked!
We're The Sweeny, son - and we ain't had our breakfast!
(http://www.britfilms.tv/images/news/The%20Sweeney.jpg)
Bugger (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/The-Sweeney-Complete-Collection-Genuine-UK-DVD-NEW_W0QQitemZ370100676066QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item370100676066&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318)
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I have a friend who recently and unwittingly managed to insert his car into the middle of what turned out to be a police chase.
Car in front stopped at a zebra crossing, car about two back in the queue screamed past and blocked the car in front, car behind peeled out and plonked itself alongside car in front. Car alongside disgorged two or three mean looking chaps. Car at very front did the same. All were in plain clothes, and all pointed machine guns at the target vehicle. It wasn't obvious that these were police. Friend was a tads concerned at this point (given that at least one gun was pointing straight at him, albeit with the target car in between) and tried burying himself in his footwell. All this in Woking on a mid-week morning.
After a rather lengthy stand-off, the occupants of the target car slowly got out and were bundled into a waiting police van. Not a word in the press.
Completely understandable, and completely pointless.
Bullets think that cars are made from cheese.
Professional advice- If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being in the same vicinity as flying bullets you need to find the following to hide behind- hard packed earth ( behind lumps in the ground or in ditches etc) concrete or at least double skinned brick walls (I have seen and taken part in demonstrations where walls were demolished by sustained fire) or if a vehicle is all that is available, get the engine block preferably, or the transmission between you and the source of the bullets. Car doors, trees (unless they are established big things and the bullets are not high velocity), fences, garage doors, wooden doors, windows etc provide no protection whatsoever (though I have seen 9mm subsonic rounds stopped at about 100 meters by very wet army itchy 'horsehair' blankets).
Without doubt, the best thing to get between you and flying bullets is several thousand meters/ yards :thumbsup:
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Wise words, Fuzzy. If it's a choice between cowering behind a car door and finding a way to GTFOT, I'm beating a hasty one every time.
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It's true, and hatler's friend, having no option to GTFOT, did the next best thing, being partially protected by the engine, however inadequate.
Personally, I'd prefer a very large distance, a safety catch and a locked cabinet door between me and any firearms, though I do recognise there are times when they may be required.
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Personally, I'd prefer a very large distance, a safety catch and a locked cabinet door between me and any firearms, though I do recognise there are times when they may be required.
Discovering you have an unexpectedly pregnant Daughter?
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Discovering I have a daughter may be more shock than my heart could stand :o ;D
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Wise words, Fuzzy. If it's a choice between cowering behind a car door and finding a way to GTFOT, I'm beating a hasty one every time.
I always chuckle when I see American Police on the news, hiding behind their car doors. Are American police cars fully bullet proof, or are they stuck in the Cowboys and Indians shoot out scenes from the movies?
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It's true, and hatler's friend, having no option to GTFOT, did the next best thing, being partially protected by the engine, however inadequate.
Personally, I'd prefer a very large distance, a safety catch and a locked cabinet door between me and any firearms, though I do recognise there are times when they may be required.
To his credit, he did try to slyly open his door to GTFOOT, but managed only to open about a 3" crack before he was told fairly assertively to stay WTFHW.
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Wise words, Fuzzy. If it's a choice between cowering behind a car door and finding a way to GTFOT, I'm beating a hasty one every time.
I always chuckle when I see American Police on the news, hiding behind their car doors. Are American police cars fully bullet proof, or are they stuck in the Cowboys and Indians shoot out scenes from the movies?
Probably about as bullet proof as our doors.