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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
Just when I was starting to wonder whether I lived in some sort of cycling
utopia where none of the tantrums of the tarmac you lot describe seem to happen, along comes possibly the biggest tosser I have ever met. There I was minding my business in a quiet street that could easily accommodate four lanes yet only a single dividing line exists so there is room a plenty for all. I had just passed (yes, passed) a left hand corner when I hear the squealing tyres of a car being driven in anger. I swivel around to see an aged and rusting Tarago screeching into the side street behind me with a shaved headed, blue singlet wearing git leaning out of the driver's window yelling a torrent of abuse at me. I must stress that I was well past the corner so I was not interfering with this person's direction of preference in any way, shape or form. Nor would I have been in the way should he have wanted to proceed in the same direction I was pointing. I was neither breaking the law nor in anyone's way nor engaging in any behaviour that might have been construed as annoying. Well, Mr Tarago pulls into a driveway not two houses down into the street and being mystified as to what I may have done to cause such a commotion I thought I should perform a U-turn and find out. "What's your problem mate?" "You f....ing cyclists shouldn't be on the f....ing road." "So, you're angry because I was riding my bike on the road? But there's plenty of room, I'm allowed to ride on the road and I wasn't in your way at all. What is your problem?" "You should be on the f...ing footpath. I drive a truck and I'm gonna run you *******s over one day I tell ya!" "You f...ing moron!" "Yeah yeah." Mr Tarago is a little taken aback at being confronted it seems and has been steadily retreating to his house the whole while. I guess being confronted by a 125kg ex Bouncer cyclist may have helped somewhat with his retreat as sadly that was the last I got to say to him before the door slammed. I was hoping he'd take a swing at me so I'd at least get the chance to leave an imprint of an SPD cleat on his forehead. :-( On a positive note it gave me a great adrenaline rush for the rest of the ride and also some comfort in knowing that this guy's sole grievance was with cyclists as a whole so I guess I must be looking the part these days. ;-) -- www.ozcableguy.com www.oztechnologies.com |
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#2
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
OzCableguy wrote:
Well, Mr Tarago pulls into a driveway not two houses down into the street and being mystified as to what I may have done to cause such a commotion I thought I should perform a U-turn and find out. "What's your problem mate?" "You f....ing cyclists shouldn't be on the f....ing road." "So, you're angry because I was riding my bike on the road? But there's plenty of room, I'm allowed to ride on the road and I wasn't in your way at all. What is your problem?" "You should be on the f...ing footpath. I drive a truck and I'm gonna run you *******s over one day I tell ya!" "You f...ing moron!" "Yeah yeah." Mr Tarago is a little taken aback at being confronted it seems and has been steadily retreating to his house the whole while. I guess being confronted by a 125kg ex Bouncer cyclist may have helped somewhat with his retreat as sadly that was the last I got to say to him before the door slammed. I was hoping he'd take a swing at me so I'd at least get the chance to leave an imprint of an SPD cleat on his forehead. :-( Sooo, you know where he lives.... MUAHAHaha *cough* Not that I would suggest random ride-bys or other such stuff... -- Cheers | ~~ __@ Euan | ~~ _-\, Melbourne, Australia | ~ (*)/ (*) |
#3
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
OzCableguy wrote: Just when I was starting to wonder whether I lived in some sort of cycling utopia where none of the tantrums of the tarmac you lot describe seem to happen, I haven't been a victim of a road rage incident for some time, and back then I was driving a delivery truck. On one occasion I was actually king hit and then dragged out of the cab and beaten some more, which wouldn't have annoyed me so much except he was found not guilty for lack of multiple independent witnesses who videotaped it from multiple angles. (Starting and stopping, as delivery trucks do in normal operation, tends to annoy the brainless even more than riding along minding your own business on a bicycle). I too am a big bloke and was into a lot of martial arts at the time, but I never did master any self defense techniques to overcome the surprise blow to the head while restrained by a seatbelt.... I considered sueing the guy in a civil case, given the "balance of probabilities" level of proof, which isn't so impossible to satisfy in practice as the "beyond reasonable doubt" level of proof in the criminal case which failed. I decided it wasn't worth my while though, he'll be a lowlife thug his whole life with a hopefully guilty conscience and I figured that people have worse things happen to them without getting justice, so I should get over it. Do teenagers leaning out of the back window of a Commodore shouting something "funny" but incomprehensible as they zoom past count as road rage? I get that a couple of times a week. :-) Travis |
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
On 1 May 2006 02:22:06 -0700, Travis wrote:
angles. (Starting and stopping, as delivery trucks do in normal operation, tends to annoy the brainless even more than riding along minding your own business on a bicycle). Well, it /is/ pretty annoying when they do it in No Standing zones or clearways, bringing entire lanes of traffic to a halt, often including cyclists, just because it's convenient. You never did that, did you? :-) -- Home page: http://members.westnet.com.au/mvw |
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
Travis wrote:
.... Do teenagers leaning out of the back window of a Commodore shouting something "funny" but incomprehensible as they zoom past count as road rage? I get that a couple of times a week. :-) No, that's just teenagers beeing teenagers. They yell at other cars too, and anything else of passing interest. I recall an incident where I was in a car with 3 other guys from school. Stopped at some lights. Leaned out the window, asked an old guy standing on the footpath: "Excuse me, do you know the time?". "No, sorry." "Well, it's exactly 10.45pm". Dunno why we thought that was funny. Cracked us up, then. -- beerwolf (remove numbers from email address) |
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
beerwolf Wrote: I recall an incident where I was in a car with 3 other guys from school. Stopped at some lights. Leaned out the window, asked an old guy standing on the footpath: "Excuse me, do you know the time?". "No, sorry." "Well, it's exactly 10.45pm". Dunno why we thought that was funny. Cracked us up, then. -- beerwolf (remove numbers from email address) I actually like that wit will always win over the witless -- flyingdutch |
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
"Travis" wrote in message oups.com... I too am a big bloke and was into a lot of martial arts at the time, but I never did master any self defense techniques to overcome the surprise blow to the head while restrained by a seatbelt.... Damn there's some arseholes in the world. I've got to say though now that I've had this encounter, I'm a little unnerved that there's actually people out there that have a pathological hatred of cyclists and will quite happily go out of their way to threaten and intimidate them with a few tons of moving metal just because they're there. I mean, they don't even need an incident to get their blood boiling. They just see spoked wheels and lycra and they're going to try to "teach you a lesson". Even if they accidently killed someone in the process I don't think they'd feel bad about it for a second. They actually believe that the cyclist shouldn't have been there in the first place so it was suicide and not their fault at all. That's pretty scary stuff... |
#8
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
OzCableguy wrote:
Damn there's some arseholes in the world. I've got to say though now that I've had this encounter, I'm a little unnerved that there's actually people out there that have a pathological hatred of cyclists and will quite happily go out of their way to threaten and intimidate them with a few tons of moving metal just because they're there. I mean, they don't even need an incident to get their blood boiling. They just see spoked wheels and lycra and they're going to try to "teach you a lesson". Even if they accidently killed someone in the process I don't think they'd feel bad about it for a second. They actually believe that the cyclist shouldn't have been there in the first place so it was suicide and not their fault at all. That's pretty scary stuff... Very scary indeed. At least the guy you had a run-in with seemed a little shy about continuing the confrontation. This might make him think before acting on his threat to run over a cyclist with his truck. Mind you, you have the advantage of being a big ex-bouncer. My guess is that you are probably close to twice my size and any attempt at angry taunts from someone like me at a bloke like that are likely to end a little differently. I usually take the other approach... ride like the wind!! -- Bean Remove "yourfinger" before replying |
#9
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
cfsmtb wrote:
SteveA Wrote: Of course, there is the 1% that really will go through with the threat to run over you. Therefore it is best to assume that the ar5eh0le you are dealing with is part of that 1%. As much as I believe in civil society, rule of law, due process blahblahblah, when I'm on the bike, every other road user is possibly blind and/or a dickhead until proven otherwise. Anecdotally most road users are fine, just *some* tend to be a little naive. Simple rule - assume all other road users are idiots. 99.5 per cent of the time you'll be wrong. The other 0.5 per cent of the time, you'll f---ing well want to be wrong. All road users including cyclists make mistakes, sometimes with nasty consequences. But 1.5 tonnes of metal seems to imbue a degree of malice for some reason towards anyone who dares to travel via other means. Exhibit A at my favourite local death-trap yesterday lunch-time. I was crossing within the intersection and therefore had right of way. This in no way impeded the XF Falcon on Pillock Plates who bored straight through anyway and abused me when I screamed at him. If I was in the car he wouldn't have dared, but on two wheels I'm a second class citizen. `Naive' is putting it too mildly for motorised turds. |
#10
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My 1st cycling Road Rage incident
Michael Warner wrote: On 1 May 2006 02:22:06 -0700, Travis wrote: angles. (Starting and stopping, as delivery trucks do in normal operation, tends to annoy the brainless even more than riding along minding your own business on a bicycle). Well, it /is/ pretty annoying when they do it in No Standing zones or clearways, bringing entire lanes of traffic to a halt, often including cyclists, just because it's convenient. You never did that, did you? :-) Actually no. I was doing door to door deliveries to houses (milkman), mostly in quiet suburban backstreets. I didn't have any customers on busy roads and always tried to be as considerate as possible to other drivers. Its just like cycling, we cause at most minor inconvenience to someone for a few seconds at most. Usually they are quite able to go around, but some idiots decide to sit behind yelling abuse instead of overtaking. The root cause is idiots in cars, not anything we're doing. Travis |
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