Militant runners on country lanes

Has anyone else been noticing a trend for people to be running on country lanes recently or is this something more confined to my locality in Northamptonshire? The ones around here are quite aggressive in their use of the road and can be quite disruptive and dangerous, both for themselves and other road road users, as well as occasionally being very aggressive to people. I'm fully aware of the Highway Code recommendations including walking in the direction facing the traffic; however, these runners don't take note of anything else. HWC also recommends crossing to the other side on blind corners to increase visibility, but none of them do. Even a slow bicycle is still travelling away from you or a stationary object isn't moving. These maniacs are running AT you on your side of the road on blind bends, and some of them run practically in the middle of your lane rather than the edge of the road, sometimes run 2 abreast, and don't use or get on the grass verge at all even when cars are approaching, which is absolutely bonkers. I can understand that if there are no cars coming in the other direction, but that's not always the case. I see plenty running with headphones on, few have any reflective strips or clothing, and none have any kind of light or torch when it's getting dark or difficult to see.

I've recently had one incident where there was a runner coming towards me on my side of the road, near the middle of my lane, and a cyclist catching up with him on the other side with a line of cars behind the cyclist who had been unable to overtake him. There was no space for me to swerve into the opposite side of the road due to the cyclist and the cars behind him, me going on the verge wouldn't really have helped, and it would've been an absolutely mad thing to do. With the runner still coming towards me, the only thing I could do was to physically stop, which I did, since there literally was nowhere I could go. The runner first stopped in front of my car, then started shouting at me, then slammed my bonnet with his fist and hit the windows as he went past, still screaming and shouting. As I had 2 kids in the car, my 12 year old daughter and her friend, and I'm not a lunatic myself, getting out of the car and remonstrating with the madman was never an option. Luckily, the trusty L322 is solidly built and I hope he hurt himself more than he hurt the car, though he certainly scared the girls.

That was a few weeks ago, and since then, I've noticed this very inflexible and aggressive attitude in runners more and more frequently. The roads they're running on really aren't suitable for running on either; we're talking about narrow country lanes here, mostly NSL, occasionally 40/50mph, narrow, bendy, twisty roads with blind corners, no footpaths, no pavements, frequently double or single solid lines preventing crossing the centre line by the traffic (or making it dangerous even if it is allowed since they're going below 12 mph), sometimes with a grass verge, sometimes not. They're reducing the roads to Victorian times when a man with a red flag was walking in front of a car. WTF is going on? Is it me out of touch with the modern world or am I justified in thinking that this behaviour is unacceptable and this new breed of runners are a bunch of bell ends?

Definitely not in my head, and Mrs QQ has also been complaining about the same thing recently, as have several others in our very rural village, so it's not just me.

Insulting my long dead mother is proof that your intellectual capabilities are below that of my daughter's toenail clippings.

Since when do we have to put which of our relatives are dead or alive on any given post just in case somebody wants to post a childish insult in response? I don't come to PH to insult anyone, nor do I expect to get randomly insulted.

Did you even read the bit you quoted? The bit I bolded for you? I DID stop! What else was I supposed to do, run him over or crash head on into the oncoming traffic? The runner didn't seem to like the fact that I stopped in my lane and didn't move out to the oncoming lane, he seemed to believe that it was his personal lane. I have no idea what he expected me to do. I stopped. I STOPPED!!! Is that clear yet?

I fully agree that bad driving, close passes of cyclists and runners are appalling, and that the driving instructor in the article above didn't go to jail is a travesty of justice, he deserved to be banged up for a hell of a long time. I have no time for bad driving as much as I have no timing aggressive bully boy antics from runners or cyclists.

The only person who could've avoided a confrontation in the incident I had was the runner, who could've simply stepped onto the verge for a few seconds to allow me to pass, and life would've gone on uninterrupted for everyone, but no, he had to be an arse.

I give a very wide berth to runners and cyclists, I slow down before overtaking so as not to unbalance cyclists, I avoid puddles around them, stay well behind if unable to overtake and try to make their life easier in general. In return, it would be good if the runners and cyclists could occasionally see some sense and make life easier for everyone's benefit, too.

And no, the tens of thousands of miles of country lanes linking villages to villages, towns and cities weren't tarmaced with runners and pedestrians in mind. This isn't the Roman or medieval times and the primary mode of transport isn't walking or horses. If anybody in any position of power decided to lower all NSL single carriageways to 20 mph, the millions who don't run on those roads but drive on them would revolt, so it's a stupid, impractical suggestion that would bring the country to a gridlock overnight. It's never going to happen.

We all need to use the roads sensibly and with a bit of thought about other users, including other types of users. Drivers need to think about cyclists, runners and horses, runners and cyclists need to think about those in metal boxes. It won't work if everyone remains tribal.

There's a cyclist and a load of cars going in the other direction on the other side of the road. I cannot move any further offside without having a head on crash. Yes, there's loads of room nearside for the runner but he won't move to run there. Please tell me how I'm supposed to position my car other than how I did (slowed down and stopped without crashing and with plenty of space nearside) so that I'm not being seen to be deliberately obstructing the runner. Please explain to me, how this entire situation was the runner not deliberately obstructing me?

Sometimes I walk on the same roads. In fact, I just needed to walk from my village to the village 2 miles away to collect my car, not far from where this incident happened. We have no public transport, Mrs QQ isn't here, there's nobody who can give me a lift and taxis out here have a rural surcharge plus silly waiting times making it both stupidly expensive and time consuming. Besides, 2 miles isn't that far, and this isn't the first time. I stuck to the side of the road as is suggested by the HWC, kept an eye on oncoming cars, and I could easily hear cars coming up from behind me. Given the cyclist had multiple cars behind it, it would've been nigh on impossible for the runner to not have heard them approaching unless he had earpods in, which is frankly stupid and dangerous. I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention to that bit of detail as I was more concerned about the kids, so I was checking that the doors were locked, hoping the glass wouldn't break, and thinking of what I could use for self-defence if it did.

In any event, even if I had done something wrong, becoming violent and starting to hit my already stationary car, which posed him no danger and gave him plenty of room to run round on either side including a wide grass verge, in itself was 100% wrong. The cyclist and the vehicles behind him started to go past us soon after his first bang on my bonnet, so he became aware of their presence at that moment even if he wasn't before, yet he continued hitting my car, and with his screaming and swearing. There's absolutely nothing which can justify his behaviour.

There are plenty of situations in life where one party is 100% wrong and the other is completely blame free, yet some people try to apportion blame to both. I'm getting a bit of tired of this "you must've done something wrong to annoy the runner because he's a virtuous runner with a halo on his head and you're the devil's spawn as you're in a massive SUV and obviously don't like runners". Do you say the same thing to all people at the receiving end of all violent attacks? "Yes, he smashed the victim's skull in, your honour, but the victim deserved it, so the defendant is only 50% guilty of this horrific attack, and the victim should also be handed the same sentence as the defendant."

This isn't about leisure vs transport but about doing the sensible thing instead of forcing one's entitlement down everyone's throats, because then everyone responds by trying to shove their entitlements down everyone else's throats too. Give a little, don't just take shed loads. What happened to that?