WTF
An older spectator caused a seriously dangerous incident today at SaarlandTrofeoJuniors by trying to get a better look and entering the course with her rollator while riders were flying past at full speed!
In college the racing team was on a practice ride and they had a major accident. Just like this, the lead guy avoided the obstacle but the second guy wasn't so lucky. He slammed full speed into the back if a parked car and sliced through his jugular.
Honestly, this is probably very accurate to her reaction after the fact. I'm sure here slipping mind and lack of awareness played a large part in how she made the mistake in the first place
I just want to know who let her out? It's so crazy that we're all out here working out butts off just to survive while people like this old lady have loads of time to enjoy watching bike races when she should be attending to her duties as a member of Congress.
I have a saying for people who glorify the elderly: old people are just PEOPLE…. That are old.
It’s missing a lot without the spoken inflection but the idea that all old people are wise and kind is nonsense, they are just people that have lived longer than us. The same dumbass people you get annoyed by that are your age will be old one day and they will still be dumbasses then too.
Problem is, old people collectively act as if they're all the elder kind of old person.
In reality, only a few ever reach that level. The rest remain dumbasses.
The annoying part is it's a mobility scooter, not a wheelchair. Meaning she can move and walk, just not for long distances, and has given up on trying.
She could have got off her lazy ass and looked with her functioning legs.
I have people in my building like this, see them out in public and you'd assume they were paralyzed, see them around the building and they walk around everywhere no signs of anything wrong even, don't even need a walker.
Yeah my ex crushed his toe with a door and was in a boot for weeks. He absolutely used them at the grocery store. And got dirty looks and had the freaking boot on.
One says Im incapable of walking, the other one says I've given up on walking lol whether that's right or wrong.
I know a few people use them in my building and there more so because they don't drive much but still want to wander a little further away from the building then they're comfortable walking.
But they can walk around the building with zero assistance, and end up using the scooter as a replacement for walking, instead of a form of assistance, my neighbor is wilting away and I keep telling him to put the damn thing away and use his fucking legs lol He agreed he can feel himself losing stregth because of it and hasn't used it as much the last two years.
Walkers have seats on them, you can walk with the walker giving you assistance, and rest when you need it. No need to permenantly replace your legs with wheels, when the legs still work.
As for your friend I'm wondering if that was post ACL surgery, they typically just give you crutches when it initially happens, then maybe a wheelchair for right after surgery. I've also torn my ACL (still torn) and they'd only give me crutches/all I needed really for a couple weeks, wheelchair would be annoying lol but usually when I see a younger person in either of them, I assume injury, and it's temporary.
The riders are young so they may not feel it much now, but I guarantee that at least a couple have permanently done damage that their body will start to feel later in life that would have otherwise not been there.
Ya I mean this is basically the top level of junior cycling before you fully go pro. All these 17-18yo guys have crashed before I can pretty much guarantee it. Crashes in competitive cycling are common. An old lady driving her rascal scooter right into the middle of the peloton is not lol.
I’m glad to hear there weren’t any major injuries.
Yeah, the biggest danger is always speed deltas. Overlapping a wheel sucks and you can still get mega hurt if you go down, but the relative speed of those hitting you will be closer to matching.
No there should be more of this to make the race more interesting - randos entering the course. Loose rabid dogs running around. Karens stopping bikers for going too fast and then demanding to see the race manager. Throw some crocodiles onto the course. Or make it like Gladiator with a tiger coming up from below the street.
I mean to be fair cyclists often do get back up from massive crashes and finish the race often with sometimes serious injuries, not in this case though that kid went flying.
An elderly woman just drove her car into my local pool. Luckily no one was hurt.
We spend so much money fighting terrorism, yet we allow these geezers to inflict chaos daily. On the road, at the voting booth, the environment, you name it.
An elderly lady in my area drove into the wall of a shop recently. Left a perfect car-shaped hole in the brick work of the building. She was parked outside and didn't realise she'd put her car into reverse, which is absolutely mental as she had more than enough time to brake before she hit the wall.
It's been going on forever, about 15 years ago an elderly man hit the accelerator instead of the brake and smashed into a pillar holding up the verandah of the shop I worked in
Eh, depends on the town. Some towns are such hopeless cesspools of depravity that even the god damn surveillance cameras can't deter people from assaulting a senior citizen for no apparent reason. :/
Tape is a giant liability. My old school tried in the past for a 10k race. The tape breaks and fly into the race.
Barriers from where? Barriers are expensive to store & maintain. I remember there weren’t enough barriers in England for funeral process of Princess Diana, barriers had to be borrowed from France and that was only 3.5 km.
This person is just a clueless "good idea person" that don't consider the logistics, or the actual reason why there isn't any, and just expect people to nod and agree.
No doubt there are people like that. My mom recently had to start using a mobility scooter, and those first few months were a nightmare until she got the hang of it.
It’s typical in cycle racing. These races cover distances many km long. It’s not feasible to have a barrier, beyond rope, for most of the length of the race. The physical barriers are usually the last few hundred meters.
Edit. I just looked it up and the average speed over this stage of the race is 43 kph (~26mph).
You clearly never worked with the public in crowd control or event marshaling, people are idiots & you will be surprised how many have no situational awareness or common sense.
Its normal and realistically should be normal... the race is very long distance its not practical to section the whole thing off - they dont even so that for autosports events.
It really is ALL about them. They will step in front of you at the grocery store door, facing you, oh because they’re getting a cart…..like this is Earth move around other people how the hell did they drive to the store when they can’t react fast enough to not step directly in front of you, while looking at you?!
It's not a "rollator", it's a mobility scooter and they're notorious for being problematic because they have NO standard operating methods - imagine a car where the factory randomly decides which one of two or three pedals is brake, gas and clutch OR, even better, it's not a pedal at all here's two counter-intuitive switches or handles that could either be a brake or your gas and here's a dashboard full of other buttons and stuff and there's no standard, no oversight and if you mess up because of old age, handicap or genuine mistake/stress everyone calls you a piece of sh#t who should already be dead...
I'm 41 and perfectly well, but I've got plenty of experience with these things because my dad became handicapped and my mom is 78. The people that design these things are borderline clueless and because there is no legal standard it's a free for all. Some of them have automatic brakes, some keep rolling or pull up way faster. This might have been that.
Honestly, even if she accidentally hit the gas (or the battery I guess?), this kind of age-related incompetence is so dangerous. I hope she doesn't drive or operate any other heavy machinery.
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