The Face of Anti-Bike Road Rage
If you ride your bike on the street, chances are you've seen this face, this sentiment. You may have experienced being buzzed by the motorist or worse. Just this week, Brett was buzzed by a truck while legally riding on the road. When he went to calmly discuss it with the driver, the man continued to verbally threaten him. Brett persisted only to finally have the man relent and apologize the next day. This was on a road with no traffic and all the driver had to do was move over to give space to the cyclist but he refused because he was angry to see a cyclist on the road.
This woman in the photo did much more than buzz the cyclists:
On August 24, a group of bicyclists, led by a safe and experienced rider, was out for a ride in Waxhaw, south of Charlotte. As they rode along in a tight double paceline, a woman in a Mercedes sedan, with her daughter in the front seat, buzzed the group, veered in front of them into the bike lane and almost to the curb and then slammed on her brakes. Instead of screaming or pounding on the car, the cyclists tried to talk calmly to the woman, but she was not to be calmed. As the now viral photos show, she flipped them a double backwards bird with a possessed look on her face. Full article.
This summer's tragedy in Kalamazoo has deeply effected our entire cycling community.
As the tragic events of this summer have unfolded, we have all been seeing the insensitive, illogical, and victim-blaming sentiments springing up in the comments sections of articles reporting what happened to Lisa, Francisco, Virginia, and Blaine. All four of these cyclists were hit by commercial vehicles. These were four responsible cyclists that lost their lives. Instead of compassion, commenters have been trotting out those old sentiments - cyclists don't pay for the roads, cyclists cause the accidents, cyclists are dangerous, etc. And as John Greenfield so clearly stated on WBEZ on Monday, there's no comparison between a 3,000 pound vehicle and a bike. I followed up with safety tips not only for cyclists but for motorists, infrastructure, and talked about the impact of construction on our safety.
Additional reading on myths about cyclists:
http://www.bicycling.com/rides/safety-etiquette/pay-to-play-the-myt...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-bicycling/...
I think it all goes back to enforcement - stiffer penalties for rage behavior like the woman in the Mercedes, enforcement of motorists breaking the laws, and accepting cyclists on the road (like the change Michael Keating was instrumental in writing).
What do you think? Do you think the new Active Trans "Clear the Way" campaign is the way for us to start making a difference? What else can we do?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by V W on
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And if the police won't enforce the laws give other regulatory agencies that power- I've suggested that laws to protect cyclists should be passed under environmental laws/regs/ordinance. Dooring should be an environmental infraction. Advocating for cyclists should be part of their mission.
We should also shine a light on wasteful use of taxpayer dollars for unnecessary take home cars for government employees and officials. Every government department should be mandated to be transparent about how much they're spending on vehicles (not just buried in their budget but put into various metrics right on their website) and how much or little they're biking. Maybe we can't force government to lead by example but we can shine a light on what they're doing and not doing through the FOIA laws. On some level it's both fiscally and environmentally irresponsible that government doesn't drive less and bike more. Environmental Ethics should be something ingrained in all levels of government as a mandate and not just a best practice.
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Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on
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On Facebook, Dave Brennan comments, "Often when people say that bikes should follow the rules of the road they usually mean that bikes should follow the rules of the road unless their car is behind those bikes. When there is a pod of 5 bikes in front of you, all stopping individually at the 4-way, you are going to hate waiting behind each of them as they follow the rules and then hate riding behind them as they go down the street because you can much easily go faster. Here's the social contract. Share The Road. It means that bikes will go ahead and use their agility and fuel efficiency. Motor vehicles can go ahead and use their power, range, and speed. Drivers give bikes a run-through a stop sign. Bikes give motor vehicles 90% of the space on the roads. When I'm behind the wheel I treat bikes the same as cabs and cops. Keep an eye on them and expect anything."
Katherine Hodges shares her thoughts, "I had a Chicago driver rage at me recently BECAUSE I stopped at a red and I guess delayed his turn for an oppressive couple of seconds. Wish I'd called into the WBEZ discussion this week and pointed out that in 21 years biking Chicago, at least 95% of the harassment I've gotten (honks, shouts, middle fingers, threats to run me off the road) happened when I was following the law 100%. There's little mainstream acknowledgement how much hatred cyclists get for simply existing."
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Permalink Reply by mike w. on
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A further thought re: WBEZ. i missed the airing of the programme, but the following day their local reporting aired some additional call-in comments. i noticed that two of three of these comments were callers griping about scofflaw riders, specifically stop signs and red lights.
i wonder if they did not get many callers supporting cyclists' point of view, or if there was an editorial decision to weigh the re-aired comments towards drivers' complaints?
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You can still listen to a recording of the program here:
https://www.wbez.org/shows/morning-shift/after-cyclist-deaths-how-t...
I noticed the same - I wondered if they thought it was more "balanced" to do that since the two guests (John and myself) are both cyclists and advocate for cyclists.
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Unless and until there is SERIOUS driver training and testing in this country, and until this nation gets over its fascination with hostile confrontation, i fear nothing is going to change.
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Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on
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mike w., you are 100% correct.
As for the ATA's "Clear the Way" plan, reporting anything to 311 seems to be an effort in futility. It is notoriously ineffective and many residents have to turn to reporting things to aldermen in the area. Many reports to 311 get cleared, closed and forgotten within 48 hours without anything being done to resolve an issue or complaint.
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Permalink Reply by Sydney Barton on
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#cleartheway also suggests that you tweet to @activetrans so they can compile a list of documented incedents
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If they're actually serious about "documenting" obstructions by taking pictures, they surely could take hundreds of pictures per day and submit around 10,000 pictures on 9/30.
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I think you are on to something. We could also choose 1 day to get every cyclist \ on board to document every bike lane obstruction on one specific day. I think it would be very telling. And then multiply that by the number of weekdays in a year and compare it to the number of tickets handed out for bike lane obstruction.
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Permalink Reply by Tim on
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The articles you posted are great, I really like this one about what would happen if cyclists fully obeyed the law. http://www.bicycling.com/rides/traffic-laws/what-happens-when-bicyc...
In relation to these articles, I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago... the next time I can have a civil conversation with a bike hater, I'm going to tell them to count how many times during their next drive they encounter a cyclist breaking the law or doing dumb things. Then I'm going to tell them to count how many cars they see that break the law or do dumb things....cutting them off, speeding, getting caught in an intersection.
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