E-biker Rage

[chilledoutuk]

Ok so was on way home from work on my ebike on my daily 8.5 mile commute and there was a slow cyclist in front of me so i moved over to overtake them as i was overtaking them some idiot in a suv came right up behind me and honked i gave them the cursory finger they honked again i gave them the finger again. They then proceeded to pull up along side me at 20mph about 2inchs from my handle bars and shout something at which point i lost it.

I screamed at them that "I Have the right to overtake" a few times and then they went on there merry way.

I think most of Colchester, England is now probably aware of my right to overtake. lol

i just had enough of people honking at me because i dare to be in there way.

 

[arkmundi]

To everyone in an SUV - we'll rule the road one day

 

[dogman dan]

Well, how smart is it to flip off the guy who is still behind you, and could have just hit you had he chosen to. Then tell the cops you swerved into his path. Bear in mind, the cops would not hear your side since yer dead.

MO BETTAH. Wear a paint can opener on your left hand like a ring. 2 inches from your bars, and SCREEEEAAAAAATTTCHHH. Then either ride in groups, or carry some bear spray. He might stop to "communicate".

 

[Jeremy Harris]

MO BETTAH. Wear a paint can opener on your left hand like a ring. 2 inches from your bars, and SCREEEEAAAAAATTTCHHH. Then either ride in groups, or carry some bear spray. He might stop to "communicate".

Better make that the right hand........................

 

[dogman dan]

Oh yeah, duh. Hard to get used to that, as thinking in metric. First day in London on a trip in 1976, I looked the wrong way and nearly stepped out into a taxi.

 

[cal3thousand]

MO BETTAH. Wear a paint can opener on your left hand like a ring. 2 inches from your bars, and SCREEEEAAAAAATTTCHHH. Then either ride in groups, or carry some bear spray. He might stop to "communicate".

Better make that the right hand........................

Good point!

This whole time, I was imagining the guy pulling up on the left.... Need to go back over this one and mirror it in my head (and add English accent)

 

[chilledoutuk]

Still manslaughter by negligence considering he is a car and I am on a bike he is going faster therefore the path i swerve into is actually my path just because he/she wants to pass me whilst using my path.

You don't expect other cars to get over whilst you overtake them why do people expect cyclists the ride in the gutter so they can overtake without having to use there brain.

In the uk as a driver you are expected to give amble room when overtaking cyclists or motorcyclists you are the one driving the death trap and thus are responsible for not killing people.

maybe some stickers that say you got too close that you can stick on the side of there care would be fun to put on peoples cars.

I did consider riding with a baseball bat in my backpack sticking out like blade just to give off the don't f with me vibe to motorists but i thought that might be too extreme.

generally thinking about it what i will probably do from now on is as soon as someone honks at me its hog the whole lane time and make them pass like i am a car.

 

[amberwolf]

maybe some stickers that say you got too close that you can stick on the side of there care would be fun to put on peoples cars.

You could use refrigerator magnets, to avoid any chance of "vandalism" charges or whatnot.

Put them on little flexible rods (old whip-antennas, for instance), so taht they easily come off onto the car's exterior, with a saying like: "This magnet is on your car because you were so close you hit my bike with it. You could've killed me. Maybe next time you hit a bike you will."

Probably woudl just piss them off, but it *might* make them think. I doubt it.

 

[all74]

I feel your pain and I'm all for getting angry I mean I'm a red blooded male (like everyone else here!) But I think gestures and shouting are a quick way get (to quote dogman) "yer dead".

People are just to F#@%ed in the head some times. You just don't know who is behind you in that car. Even normal looking suburban cars have seriously messed up individuals with anger management issues behind the wheel.

My standard response to someone honking at me is smile and wave like I know them and have just recognised them, really messes with their mind.

 

[jussumguy]

I think most of Colchester, England is now probably aware of my right to overtake.

Over here you have the right to the lane for as long as you want it. Same rights as a motorist.

Along a long line of parked cars, rather than get doored, I just pull into the middle of the lane. They don't like it? Then put in a bike lane.

-

 

[winkinatcha]

mmm the "best" thing I have done after an e-bike versus car altercation (popped uturn in front of me causing me to take avoiding action, resulting in me doing an "invisible pistol" gesture (making like I shot the perp in the head), at which time perp flipped me the bird, so I popped a u-turn of my own, and chased the SUV down (was on 2kw at the time... illegal...))
at next set of traffic lights Guy jumps out of car and runs towards me screaming n yelling...he was pretty big too at least my size... was in a dilemma cos had no sidestand on bike so would have to drp it on road to go toe-to-toe... slipped past enraged motorist, grabbed his ignition keys, threw them under the wheel of oncoming traffic, yelled "fetch, doggy" and pedalled off... I started taking anger management classes soon after... luckily (most) peeps in AUS don't carry real guns...

joe

 

[amberwolf]

Hmm. Upon pondering, I think a better phrase for the magnets/stickers woudl be "So you’ve hit somebody with your car, now what?" and a link to a website, perhaps the local bicycle-law or bicycle-safety website.

Along a long line of parked cars, rather than get doored, I just pull into the middle of the lane. They don't like it? Then put in a bike lane.

Normally in Phoenix any bike lane that "goes around" parked cars is so narrow and so close to the curb that a car parked right up against the sidewalk curb will still have it's door most or all the way into the bike lane when open. So here, you still can't safely ride in a bike lane with parked cars there.

Unless there is a lot of traffic, I will just take the lane (at the ebike limit of 20MPH) rather than risk being doored, or worse have a car suddenly gun it and pull out from the line of parked cars, no warning. (some cars have such darkly shaded windows that it can be hard to even see if there is anyone in it unless you're looking in thru the windshield, or happen to get a line-of-sight thru it to a bright light source so you can see moving sillhouettes). If someone gets pissed off at me, they can go around; there is usually PLENTY of space in the car lane (sometimes as wide as two lanes on any major road, on these half-mile bike-lane-equipped streets).

But much more often, bike lanes in the valley are illegally (according to ARS28-815 subsection D) allowed by the city to be used as shared parking/bike lanes, so there's not really an option to use them as a bike lane, as too many cars are illegally left in them all the time.



And not like most motorists (or even police) care, but even here on the AZ government site http://www.azgohs.gov/transportation-safety/default.asp?ID=16
it states
"You may ride far enough from the road edge to stay clear of surface debris, potholes, rough pavement, drain grates, and pavement joints, as well as to avoid pedestrians, dogs, parked vehicles, and other objects.

You may occupy any part of a lane when your safety warrants it. Never compromise your safety for the convenience of a motorist behind you."

Too bad most of the motorists don't consider it "convenience" but rather "imperative".


Mostly, it's just up to the cyclist to stay out of the way of the impatient drivers, and avoid all the hazards. The law is technically on the cyclists' side, but that matters very little after they've been turned into paste by the SUV aimed by MadDogDriver.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Thinking about this, rather than shout, gesticulate, carry a sharp object to scratch the car, wouldn't it be neat if we could just adapt the ink jet technology used to print product information from a distance (date codes and the like) to print a message silently down the side of a car passing too close?

Or, maybe something crude and simple, like an aerosol paint can fixed and pointing sideways with a remote cable to operate it. Someone comes way too close and you paint the the side of their car with a stripe.

The chances are they'd only find out later, too late to retaliate.

 

[Sunder]

Still manslaughter by negligence considering he is a car and I am on a bike he is going faster therefore the path i swerve into is actually my path just because he/she wants to pass me whilst using my path.

Traffic laws are for two things:

1. To order traffic, so that people know who have right of way.

2. To determine who to sue after an accident.

Many laws supersede each other, but traffic laws don't supersede the laws of physics, or the "laws of common bloody sense" in the words of Darryl Kerrigan.

I've had a few near misses, and even one collision when someone failed to give way to me. Fortunately, none of these were fatal or even serious, but it's worth thinking about. Take right of way when it's yours, but don't assume everyone knows the road rules (most don't - just read the anti-cyclists tirades on news forums that complain about lane splitting, 2 riding abreast riders - both legal bicycle maneuvers in Aust) and even if they do know them, don't assume they'll give them to you. (Again, many won't - occasionally you get some ******* on the news forums that say that they actively try to intimidate riders, or force them into an error without being "at fault".)

 

[Lebowski]

maybe some stickers that say you got too close that you can stick on the side of there care would be fun to put on peoples cars.

You could use refrigerator magnets, to avoid any chance of "vandalism" charges or whatnot.

Put them on little flexible rods (old whip-antennas, for instance), so taht they easily come off onto the car's exterior, with a saying like: "This magnet is on your car because you were so close you hit my bike with it. You could've killed me. Maybe next time you hit a bike you will."

Probably woudl just piss them off, but it *might* make them think. I doubt it.

That'll take like half an hour man to spell out that message

 

[dogman dan]

Not brave enough to carry the paint can opener while riding alone, I have very often slapped a car that just crowded me with a flat open palm.

You seldom get the chance to do it, because they are too quickly gone. But if you are being passed too close slow enough and getting crowded, or get croweded by somebody in the process of right crossing you at a stoplight where you are both stopped it works good.

They might get mad, but at first you see the " Oh shit I hit him" face.

 

[knoxie]

Yep

This happens to me all the time too, it seems car drivers dont seem to expect that a cyclist might overtake another cyclist? in the UK they are supposed to give a cars width when they overtake so the driver must be in the wrong here, I generally dont get the hump with drivers that pull out on me as they just dont get that I can go that fast so I tend to ignore them however people passing too close is my main gripe.

I have considered adapting an electric soft air gun one of those battery powered ones, ripping the guts out of it and making a bike gun! ha ha, it could be cleverly desinged to fit in to one of those old school horns! few hard plastic pellets hitting the car would do no harm to the car and would bother the heck out of the driver and also make you feel so much better, of course legally you might get in to a bit of bother but heck thats the case anyway on a fast ebike in the UK, those guns are so cheap it would be worth doing.

I know the famous motorcycle rider Barry Sheene had the same problem when he was a young biker, he used to keep a tennis ball in a pair of old tights off the handle bars and would swing it at cars that bothered him, the thing is it makes a deadly sounding noise when it hits the car but does no damage you also keep your distance from the car, you just have to explain the ladies tights thing to the missus when you get home. LOL.

Have fun..ride agressive and stay safe, also stay out of the door zone when passing parked cars, I ride on the white line when passing parked cars on my ebike and my motorbike.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

It annoys me in the same way, usually because car drivers don't realise that I'm usually going to out accelerate them away from lights, especially if I'm ahead of them on the cyclists ASL at the lights, so they then need to overtake me properly when they catch me up, not just drive me into the gutter. It happens all the time at one junction in my local city, made worse because a couple of hundred yards up the road it narrows for a raised, speed bump, pedestrian crossing, with a chicane that makes overtaking unsafe. The number of morons who think it's OK to overtake a bike right at that spot is just staggeringly high.

EDITED TO ADD:

For the benefit of those in countries that don't have these, this is what an ASL looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line

 

[martx007]

Or use a decent video camera and http://www.policewitness.com.

Not called it into action yet though. Anyone tried reporting an incident?

Martin

 

[knoxie]

It annoys me in the same way, usually because car drivers don't realise that I'm usually going to out accelerate them away from lights, especially if I'm ahead of them on the cyclists ASL at the lights, so they then need to overtake me properly when they catch me up, not just drive me into the gutter. It happens all the time at one junction in my local city, made worse because a couple of hundred yards up the road it narrows for a raised, speed bump, pedestrian crossing, with a chicane that makes overtaking unsafe. The number of morons who think it's OK to overtake a bike right at that spot is just staggeringly high.

EDITED TO ADD:

For the benefit of those in countries that don't have these, this is what an ASL looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_stop_line

Yes I am always getting passed at pinch points in the road or those islands, I am going to get a rear view mirror and start cycling wide when I approach them to avoid this happening, will of course need to check the mirror first before I go wide, its only going to get worse as more cars congest on to our busy roads and their speed goes down and gas prices go up=angry car drivers being passed by cyclists all the time

 

[MattyCiii]

I've found that drivers give me much more clearance - and a lot less lip - with the light system shown on this thread.

It can just as easily be a "righty" light, for drivers in the UK.

 

[MadRhino]

One car was keeping driving too close to me at every traffic light. I opened wide his passenger door just before the green light and left him behind.

 

[cal3thousand]

One car was keeping driving too close to me at every traffic light. I opened wide his passenger door just before the green light and left him behind.

Nice one!!!

I have to remember that one. Or keep a banana in my bag for the tail pipe. Axel Foley would be proud of that one.

 

[veloman]

When I was a teenager, in my serious road cycling days in Connecticut, I'd have shitty encounters fairly often, and flipped the bird a lot. 10 years later, I still can get pissed off to confront someone, though I know it's best to just forget it. The older guys I rode with in CT would just pretend nothing happened, they were so chill. They knew that is the best reaction.

But once in a while I boil if someone does something REALLY stupid/intentional. The other day I chased a guy down, was right on his ass and he was screeching his tires through parking lots trying to get away from me. Once I knew he was running from me, I was satisfied and turned away. I like to let people know they did wrong, but I don't like confrontation.


The problem with people who make bad decisions is that they don't learn from it. They get away with driving like an asshole and nothing changes. Being in a car isolates you from any consequences unless you wreck. People need to know they screwed up, even the ones who aren't assholes. Same goes for anyone, cyclist, pedestrian, bully in school....

 

[cal3thousand]

When I was a teenager, in my serious road cycling days in Connecticut, I'd have shitty encounters fairly often, and flipped the bird a lot. 10 years later, I still can get pissed off to confront someone, though I know it's best to just forget it. The older guys I rode with in CT would just pretend nothing happened, they were so chill. They knew that is the best reaction.

But once in a while I boil if someone does something REALLY stupid/intentional. The other day I chased a guy down, was right on his ass and he was screeching his tires through parking lots trying to get away from me. Once I knew he was running from me, I was satisfied and turned away. I like to let people know they did wrong, but I don't like confrontation.


The problem with people who make bad decisions is that they don't learn from it. They get away with driving like an asshole and nothing changes. Being in a car isolates you from any consequences unless you wreck. People need to know they screwed up, even the ones who aren't assholes. Same goes for anyone, cyclist, pedestrian, bully in school....

penis shaped magnets that say "I drive like dick". Throw them at the cars when in range.