Road Rage

Last Monday at just after 7am, I was riding along Heidelberg Rd and had just
crossed the Chandler Hwy intersection at about 35km/h or so and then a car
pulled out from the next Rd on the left, cutting me off and forcing me to
swerve to brake fairly hard. I ended up in the bike lane to his left and
took my right hand off the bars and gave a "c'mon mate, give me a break"
gesture and said "have a look mate". The guy was probably early 20s and
dressed in a suit, with a female also dressed in business wear in the
passenger seat. The guy sped up and swerved across in front of me but I
managed to avoid him fairly easily. The car then sped up to the servo that
is another couple hundred metres on the left and pulled into the driveway
fairly quickly. As I rode past, the guy had gotten out of the car and was
heading back towards the road and presumably was going to have a go at me.
He was a bit slow in getting there though but he did manage to impress me
with his inventive use of the english language.....I think it was "fckn cmon
then you fckn cnt". The guy was very agitated and I was quite surprised
given that it was 7am on a Monday and my reaction to him cutting me off was
deliberately very moderate.

Anyway, I kept riding towards the city, expecting him at anytime to scream
past again and either cut me off or try to get out of the car again. He
must have had some trouble getting back in the traffic or got stuck at
lights because I made it all the way to Wellington Rd before I heard a car
coming at speed and, sure enough, he hung off the horn and swerved to within
a foot or so of me. Fortunately for me, I turn off there and that was the
last I saw of him. When I got to work, I immediately wrote a stat dec and
had it signed by a JP so that I have a record of the event. I am not sure
if I should put in a police report or not as I really don't want anything to
do with this guy as I think he may be mentally unstable. He wasn't a real
big guy and usually I would have pulled in at the servo to see what it was
he wanted to talk to me about but I had a commitment on Tuesday for which I
couldn't afford to be sporting any facial injuries.

I am not someone to hold a grudge but this one has gotten under my skin a
bit. He fails to give way to me and then has the nerve to threaten me with
his car, threaten physical violence, and then threaten me with his car
again?!? If someone threatened me with a knife or gun I am reasonably
confident that I could get a result from the police but being threatened
with a car just doesn't seem to be regarded in the same light. I may be
totally wrong and I am not having a go at the police but I have read too
many similar accounts in this forum where cyclists have not been taken
seriously when reporting such incidents.

I am still sticking with my "softly softly" approach to communication with
drivers and I just hope that I don't end up with this guys car pointed at me
at any time in the future.

Gags

Gags Wrote:

I am still sticking with my "softly softly" approach to communication
with
drivers and I just hope that I don't end up with this guys car pointed
at me
at any time in the future.


Crikey! Send him my way... so I can tell him how f'kin huge you are!
Take away his car, my money is on you 100%

On a happy 'car' note - the drivers back home were awesome this weekend
most giving me a whole lane when over taking. I might make more of an
effort to head back there (and through the Grampians) this summer.

Anyone up for 'Camp BR' in Halls Gap one weekend?

cheers,
GPL


--
gplama

gplama wrote:
Gags Wrote:
I am still sticking with my "softly softly" approach to communication
with
drivers and I just hope that I don't end up with this guys car pointed
at me
at any time in the future.


Crikey! Send him my way... so I can tell him how f'kin huge you are!
Take away his car, my money is on you 100%


That was my thinking too. Actually I think it was all just a mistake
caused by the fact the guy was blind. You'd have to be blind to not see
Gags is a fairly large lad to be picking a fight with.

And I'll submit a vote for reporting him. If it was an isolated event
then no harm done, but if he does it all the time it is more likely to
be picked up.

DaveB

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 at 13:18 GMT, gplama (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Anyone up for 'Camp BR' in Halls Gap one weekend?

Yes.

And also, I think you guys should come up here. Took the bus this
morning, and it looks like my commute is going to rock when I get my
biek.

--
TimC
Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
-- Robert Firth

Gags wrote:
Last Monday at just after 7am, I was riding along Heidelberg Rd and had just
crossed the Chandler Hwy intersection at about 35km/h or so and then a car
pulled out from the next Rd on the left, cutting me off and forcing me to
swerve to brake fairly hard. I ended up in the bike lane to his left and
took my right hand off the bars and gave a "c'mon mate, give me a break"
gesture and said "have a look mate". The guy was probably early 20s and
dressed in a suit, with a female also dressed in business wear in the
passenger seat. The guy sped up and swerved across in front of me but I
managed to avoid him fairly easily. The car then sped up to the servo that
is another couple hundred metres on the left and pulled into the driveway
fairly quickly. As I rode past, the guy had gotten out of the car and was
heading back towards the road and presumably was going to have a go at me.
He was a bit slow in getting there though but he did manage to impress me
with his inventive use of the english language.....I think it was "fckn cmon
then you fckn cnt". The guy was very agitated and I was quite surprised
given that it was 7am on a Monday and my reaction to him cutting me off was
deliberately very moderate.

Anyway, I kept riding towards the city, expecting him at anytime to scream
past again and either cut me off or try to get out of the car again. He
must have had some trouble getting back in the traffic or got stuck at
lights because I made it all the way to Wellington Rd before I heard a car
coming at speed and, sure enough, he hung off the horn and swerved to within
a foot or so of me. Fortunately for me, I turn off there and that was the
last I saw of him. When I got to work, I immediately wrote a stat dec and
had it signed by a JP so that I have a record of the event. I am not sure
if I should put in a police report or not as I really don't want anything to
do with this guy as I think he may be mentally unstable. He wasn't a real
big guy and usually I would have pulled in at the servo to see what it was
he wanted to talk to me about but I had a commitment on Tuesday for which I
couldn't afford to be sporting any facial injuries.

I am not someone to hold a grudge but this one has gotten under my skin a
bit. He fails to give way to me and then has the nerve to threaten me with
his car, threaten physical violence, and then threaten me with his car
again?!? If someone threatened me with a knife or gun I am reasonably
confident that I could get a result from the police but being threatened
with a car just doesn't seem to be regarded in the same light. I may be
totally wrong and I am not having a go at the police but I have read too
many similar accounts in this forum where cyclists have not been taken
seriously when reporting such incidents.

I am still sticking with my "softly softly" approach to communication with
drivers and I just hope that I don't end up with this guys car pointed at me
at any time in the future.

Gags



Definitely report it to the police. They won't take kindly to someone
threatening a cyclist with a 1.5+ tonne lump of steel.

Ben

Ben Thomas wrote:

Definitely report it to the police.

Careful Ben or we'll report you to the net police, please learn how to snip.

Parbs - channeling DRS

Parbs wrote:
Ben Thomas wrote:

Definitely report it to the police.
Careful Ben or we'll report you to the net police, please learn how to
snip.

Sorry about that. No doubt the net police won't take kindly to my lack
of snipping. Definitely report me.

Ben

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:30:02 GMT
Ben Thomas wrote:
Parbs wrote:
Ben Thomas wrote:

Definitely report it to the police.
Careful Ben or we'll report you to the net police, please learn how to
snip.

Sorry about that. No doubt the net police won't take kindly to my lack
of snipping. Definitely report me.


The vasectomy thread is thataway --


Zebee

Gags wrote:
snip
his car, threaten physical violence, and then threaten me with his car
again?!? If someone threatened me with a knife or gun I am reasonably
confident that I could get a result from the police but being threatened
with a car just doesn't seem to be regarded in the same light. I may be
totally wrong and I am not having a go at the police but I have read too
many similar accounts in this forum where cyclists have not been taken
seriously when reporting such incidents.
snip

I'm one of those cases. The explanation I received was, "If
someone said they were going to kill you, and they were
weilding a knife or a gun, then we would be able to charge
them, but they weren't weilding a dangerous weapon."

I asked them to explain how that differed from someone
driving a car, saying, "I'm going to run you over, I'm going
to fscking kill you" - given they had indicated their
intent to kill me using their car, and they were driving at
the time.

They saw my point of view, which was nice.

"Tamyka Bell" wrote:

I'm one of those cases. The explanation I received was, "If
someone said they were going to kill you, and they were
weilding a knife or a gun, then we would be able to charge
them, but they weren't weilding a dangerous weapon."

I asked them to explain how that differed from someone
driving a car, saying, "I'm going to run you over, I'm going
to fscking kill you" - given they had indicated their
intent to kill me using their car, and they were driving at
the time.

They saw my point of view, which was nice.

Yes, but did they actually DO anything? Like lay charges, arrest the driver?

I've often had police officers who saw my point of view "but we can't do
anything, the magistrate would laugh it out of court"

--
Cheers
Peter

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