I'm a Longboarder
You know the things. Like skateboards, but long, and with big soft wheels so they can go faster among other things.

Basically they're designed for roads, think snowboards for asphalt.

So I'm outside, on a beautiful sunny Southern England evening, carving about, and this tosser in a Jag comes round the top of the hill, which I am at the bottom of. He honks me, all the way from up there.

Fair enough, I think, he's alerting me to his presence, that's cool. So I skate off, and stick to the left of the road, taking up less space than a cyclist would do.

I get as far left as I can, but he comes delibarately close, honking me again, and almost hitting me, going ludicrously fast.

Well, there's no way I'm letting him get away with that. Probably a year ago, I would have let it slide, but the new cutting-edge version of me wasn't standing for it. So I tear off after him, chasing him back to his house (He lives down my road).

He pulls into his drive and shouts out the window "Are you bloody stupid riding that thing in the road?!?" so I shout back "Are you bloody stupid almost running me over like that?!?". He winds up his window real slowly, probably thinking "Bugger he's not going away like all the other 'kids' I intimidate", and gets out real slowly too. "I beg your pardon" he says. "I said, are YOU bloody stupid almost hitting me like that?!?" So he walks over to me all aggressive and starts poking me in the chest shouting "Well you've got no right to be on the bloody road" etc. etc.

So I'm standing there trying my best not to grab his wrist, which is frikkin difficult as I'm sure anyone who's been in a similar situation will agree. With him being a like a 50 year old man, and me a fairly tall 18 year old, I thought it would be best to just stand there.

"Where do you live?!?"
"Number 16! Come and complain if you like!"
"...No! You've no right to be on the road, that's not a vehicle"
"I've got just as much right as anyone, and this is a vehicle"
"Ho ho ho a vehicle my arse"
"There's no law against using a skateboard in the road"

It was hilarious but it made me so furious that he thinks he can get away with that and saying things like "He needs a damn good hiding". Bearing in mind I'm standing there, a fit and healthy 18-year old, wearing a helmet holding a big piece of wood with massive metal bits attatched, fully padded up from head to toe, I actually admire the stupid old twunt's balls.

Then his wife came out probably seeing he was about to get himself smacked over the head with a 46" plank of wood, and came out with all this crap like they were just "Worried for my safety" and that "I'm a teacher so I know it's more safe and more fun to be in a skatepark".

"You have to be careful on roads you know"
"I know, I certainly do with idiots like your husbands driving on them"
"You have no right to be on the road"
"He has no right to start pokin me in the damn chest!"

So I eventually went home, told my parents, and my dad, being a senior policeman, told me that I was in the right, and that there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with riding a skateboard in the street at all.

So the moral of the story is, in a quiet residential area such a the one I was in, you have as much right to be on a board in the street as a kid on a tricycle or a ten ton truck. Don't be put off or intimidated by these people. Stand up to them, it's the only way to combat this problem. Don't let them get away with stunts like this just because they're older than you, or they're in a car.

Needless to say one of my favourite skate spots is now right outside this bollock-muncher's house.

It strikes me as ironic that these are probably the kind of people who would also shout at you for zooming past them on the pavement.

(Post-Modernist joke about jokes about length etc. etc.)
(captain_pirate, Thu 12 Oct 2006, 23:45, Reply)