plate number 16532 PT harassing cyclists on Madison between Clark and Wacker at 445 pm today

Just now I was biking down Madison and I hear honking and a bit of commotion behind me. I look back and see this white bus (one of those party style buses that people rent with the black side windows) driving aggressively in the CTA bus lane and honking at a gaggle of divvy riders in front of him in the same lane.

At the red light at Wacker one of the cyclists gets off his divvy bike about ten feet before the red light and positions the bike between him and the driver and stands there and looks at him. The driver yells that this is a bus lane. All the cyclists yell back no it's a CTA lane. The guy gets back on his bike and the guy in the party bus again aggressively drives right up to the cyclists back tire. The cyclist then gets off again and postures up the same way. At this point the light turns green and I don't wait around. But I did make it a point to yell out the license plate number (16532PT) and memorized it before I biked off. Not sure if the situation escalated any further.

It's really obnoxious of that driver to do that. I've found that CTA bus drivers, who the lane is actually intended for, have been nothing but courteous to cyclists who use that lane. I don't think it's unreasonable for cyclists to use the bus lane since the bike lane got taken away.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan D on June 3, 2016 at 5:32am

Report it on the close call database, makes a good record:

closecalldatabase.com 

Permalink Reply by V W on June 3, 2016 at 6:54am
Thanks, I registered with the site and started to report it and I see these guidelines:

"For this site to succeed, it needs to focus on its core mission at this stage of development: the identification of aggressive motorists that seem to be harrasing cyclists intentionally. Accordingly, intent is an important criteria for filing a report.

So before you file a report, think carefully about whether the incident was the result of carelessness, ignorance (some drivers violate the three foot rule because they simply believe it's illegal to cross a double yellow line for example), or was a simple mistake. While I think collecting that sort of data does have some value, it doesn't have the same value as focusing on incidents that are clearly intentional. At this stage of the game, there is no point in reporting every three foot violation you experience, unless it is the same vehicle, doing it to you repeatedly and on purpose.

If you believe your encounter was intentional and believe the action may be repeated or visited upon other cyclists please proceed."

I'm not sure this case arises to that level since arguably the driver was simply ignorant and thought he was in the right lane (even though he wasn't) but I'm open to differing interpretation if anyone has one.

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