Dealing with verbal harrassment on the road

[PG]

This is a fairly comment problem, I know.

Lately I've had three different incidents where drivers slowed as they passed me and yelled something. One was, "get off the road" while I was riding in a marked bike lane, another was a dressing down after I rolled (at a walking pace) a stop sign in an empty rural intersection, another was something unintelligible.

I'm 66, and not inclined to interact with anyone verbally or physically, so I ignored them. All three motorists drove off after venting, so nothing happened.

But, if things were to escalate verbally, what would be the best course of action?

[Patrick Moore]

I'm sorry to hear that you are suffering these attacks. I don't have any advice, unless it is to say that, in my own case -- and this case is simply that of my own temperament -- I've probably been saved from beatings by having such a hot temper that I immediately go ballistic when something like that happens; this might have to some degree scared such fools off.

I recently turned 64 though, and may have to re-think this reaction and convert to a more "turn the other cheek" strategy; dunno. That would be hard.

Such interactions do make me feel sick to my stomach, and leave an emotional cloud that lasts for several hours. I hate that sort of thing. I do try conscientiously not only to obey traffic laws but to be proactively courteous.

God damned fools, fools for thinking that just because they drive a motor vehicle they have some sort of priority on the roads, and for getting upset because of some infinitely small interference in their drive.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Still 'round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

                                --- J.R.R. Tolkien

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, and letters that get interviews

By-the-hour resume and LinkedIn coaching

Other professional writing services

Expensive! But good.

http://www.resumespecialties.com/

Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique

[richard...@gmail.com]

I'v retired from riding on the road. Just to dangerous and not worth it. People seen to be increasingly aggressive and entitled! My mom who is 62 told me someone pulled up along side her and cursed her for stopping on a yellow light. Who curses a 62 year old woman for choosing to stop on a yellow. She was in a car. But still. I only ride roads to get where I am going fire trails or designated bike paths. I ride to relax and for meditation as much as anything. Jerks in cars or jerks in general can kill that vibe quick. Well good part is if your on a Riv fire roads are only a tire swap away!👍

[Garth]

People gonna say what they're gonna say...... it's not like there's anything to do about it ... just let 'em ramble on and move on.  Yes but .... what if ... ?  You could ask that all day long about everything .... and the answer is the same. What if has nothing to with what is, the living present.

The most hilarious guy was a passenger in a car with the windows rolled up. He was yelling something as the car went around me ..... the window was closed of course, so the only one who heard it was the driver ! Just too funny !   As for all the honkers and grumblers on the road .... they come and they go.   By far most people are very friendly, the other day a gruff looking guy in a ol' pickup slowed down as I had stopped along the side of the road as I was listening to the frogs in the wetlands .... he simply asked my if everything was alright .  I gave a big thumbs up and a smile .... there's lots of good people around ... far more than not.

I find most people quite friendly really .... I'm rather communicative on the road and rather enjoy it. I don't live in a high traffic area, the cars a often few and minutes can pass between cars. There's an older man and his wife who I stop and chat with sometimes at a farm i like ride around. He used to work in the steel mills, like many in the are did. Hands of iron and a heart of gold really .... lots of damm nice people around. I love riding around local small farms/farmers .... I wave to all of them without regard... and yes ... I waive to the cows and horses and wild turkeys and goats and birds and pretty much anyone and anything.  Riding and walking slow and without an agenda to me is way to get around and meet people like I never could otherwise. I don't need names ..... just being here .... is priceless.

[Bicycle Belle Ding Ding!]

I’m with Garth on this one. Most folks are good, and the ones who are cruel are best ignored and avoided.

When I was learning some self-defense, I found time and time again that the best advice is to avoid. Don’t engage. Get away if you can. If you can’t, then become the nastiest, meanest, loudest, foulest version of yourself and fight like your life depends on it - because it does.

My kids used to attend an elementary school that had no valet car loop. It was pandemonium with cars parking and trying to get their kids to school. We biked and were in the minority for sure; and those cars would block our way any way we tried to go. As the weeks went by I went from annoyed, to ticked, to angry, to furious and finally, to vengeful. I wrote notes and stuck them to car windows when cars blocked the sidewalks. I snapped photos of drivers illegally parked while they looked on, raging at me through their closed windows. I called the non-emergency line for the police when I saw folks endangering pedestrians with their cars. I called the school and complained. I called again and asked to be granted permission to don a yellow vest and move cars along who parked illegally. You guys, when I started imagining screwdrivers duct-taped to my handlebars so I could leave an impression on the cars who got in my way, I knew I was the one who needed to change. I had tried to solve the problem, but it couldn’t be solved. I could only change me.

That’s not unlike your situation. You can’t stop folks from being horrible to you on your bike. But you can choose not to escalate the situation. You can wear a go-pro so you have a camera on drivers. You can try to respectfully chat with them. But in my experience, eye contact and a friendly wave is the best defense I have. I reinvented myself when we switched to a charter school a couple miles down the road. This time I made sure to call out good morning greetings to those we met and to wave when I could and folks know and adore me now. When a drunk driver drove up onto the sidewalk and nearly killed my son and me, a driver pursued him and called 911. I credit that to good repertoire between me and the drivers in my neck of the woods.

Hang in there. Most folks aren’t so bad. And the more they see you, the more they will like you. It’s a psychological fact!

[Deacon Patrick]

I was amazed how fast angry driver yelling vanished when I started smiling and waving at each car. Granted this is on rural routes and in small towns, but it works very well.

With abandon,
Patrick

[Edwin W]

Here in the south I assume most people have guns. So I am really working on not responding!

Not always able to, and always regretful when I respond! Like when a guy raised his handgun off the dash. He didn't point it at me or anything, but scared the living daylights out of me.

Working to improve myself,

Edwin 

[Patrick Moore]

Actually, I too find this to be true here in NM, rural and urban; its a few disgruntled suburbanites in new vehicles that have been the nastiest, not rural rednecks.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 2:01 PM Garth <gart...@gmail.com> wrote:

...

[Patrick Moore]

I don't know how the south is in 2019, but in 1980, in rural NW Georgia, "rednecks" in baseball caps with rifles on the rack would wave friendly to one as one was jogging. I saw more traffic nastiness in Washington DC.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 4:25 PM Edwin W <dween...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Here in the south I assume most people have guns. So I am really working on not responding!

[sameness]

I'm paraphrasing my old therapist, who was allegedly paraphrasing Gandhi, so Jah knows who actually said what, but: 

If you choose to engage, you make it about you. If you choose not to engage, you make it about them.

Jeff Hagedorn

Los Angeles, CA USA

[Leah Peterson]

Jeff, that is actually brilliant. Wow. Filing this away. ❤️

Also, I hope the OP doesn’t feel we are saying “be a victim.” Nothing could be further from the truth. There are some fights worth having and some hills worth dying on. But taking on arrogant, rude people driving 2 ton steel death machines isn’t a fight you can win. 

I sympathize. It’s unnerving and I’m sorry you’ve been treated poorly. 

Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/rbw-owners-bunch/NPdDGshWiGs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.

[Dave Small]

I do one of two things when someone hollers at me as they're driving by:  I either ignore them or I smile and wave.  The latter reaction tends to confuse them, which makes that option a lot more fun.  

The people doing this are a-holes, and they're not worth the emotional capital it would take to get pissed off at them.  

[MCT]

I helped blew up iBob with mentioning I carry a firearm in my front bag. I am passive and have it in case I need it. No one knows I have it and don’t tell anyone I am riding with. It is the last resort. Don’t worry. I am properly trained and know when I am doing.

The police are minutes away and an attack will happen in seconds.

For verbal harassment, just ignore you don’t want to provoke anyone that is looking for a fight.

Matt

[PG]

Thank you all for your varied and well stated thoughts.

I've never gotten into a fight in my life, including grade school. I've always been good a diffusing a bad situation. (My father was an alcoholic and a bully, so it was a skill I learned early on.) But for some reason, these three incidents in the past week or so really struck me as being somehow different than any of the other times in my cycling life (been riding since I was 4...so 62 years!). They projected a sense of embolden-ment that was really powerful. Like they were somehow deputized to "clean up Dodge City" or something. I couldn't help but feel there was a real conflict just waiting to happen.

On this evening's ride, I flatted a few blocks from home. As I was walking my bike back, since it was late, a guy in a pickup who fit the demographic of my 3 most recent "friends" passed me, then pulled over, and when I came up to him, offered me a ride. So, as several of you have pointed out, more times than not, the good outweighs the bad.

[Joe Bernard]

I very much agree with Leah's approach. But alas, I am a terrible person and want to see those screwdrivers duct-taped to her bars 😬

[Ryan M.]

Best course of action would be to leave the area if a driver got more aggressive than just yelling. You won’t prove anything to them by engaging and it can only really go downhill.

I no longer ride on the roadways as I’ve noticed the last few years an increasing hostility towards bike riders. The last bike ride I did on the road a driver chucked a bottle at my back then swung into me. That was it for me...not worth it. Mountain biking is more fun anyway.

[lconley]

Back in the 70's I used to ride with a friend who had been harassed by someone with a gun once, so he started carrying a 9mm Smith and Wesson in the holster strapped to the center of the handlebars, which was legal at the time. No more harassment. Not my style, but it worked for him. We used to ride the 120 miles between Gainesville and Daytona Beach on quarter breaks. I was on my Paramount and he rode an aluminum Alan (glued lugs?) as I recall.

Laing

Cocoa FL

[Philip Williamson]

This is great. I think we had similar self-defense teachers: "Get away, get away, get away, get a weapon." 

I used to respond to a buzz or a honk-and-buzz or an agro yeall with a full-diaphragm bellowed curse-out. Now I just give 'em a big wave. Seems about as effective at changing their behavior, but it makes me feel calmer and happier.

Philip

Santa Rosa, CA 

[Lynn Haas]

My absolutely favorite form of harassment is when I am yelled at for blowing a stop sign that isn't there, usually at a 2-way stop. It's happened a few times. Once it was a cop. 

The simplest (definitely not the easiest) way to de-escalate is to ignore them. If you are in danger, remember that you are on a bike and can get away via places they can't go - U-turn on the sidewalk, over the grass, behind another vehicle, etc. I sometimes pull out my phone and take photos/video, in which case they can't shut up and zoom away fast enough.

I know more than a few cyclists, and drivers, running cameras, front and rear, full time. I can't bring myself to that level of paranoia on my bike. It kills all of the joy.

[David Bivins]

I used to run a cheap go-pro wannabe on my front handlebars to document my commute to/from work (downtown-ish Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan, NYC). I'd take it home and edit it to the length of a piece of music of mine (45 minutes cut down to 5 or 6). Then I'd put it on a blog I used to have. It was fun. The tripod mount on the camera got worn and it fell off my bike at 39th and Lex in Manhattan. I stopped safely and before I could run toward it, a truck rolled over it, crushing it. REMARKABLY the USB i/o still worked and the SD card was intact, so I was able to extract that fateful ride :)

[John McBurney]

One of the guys who used to work on my bikes was a bike mechanic in Charleston had a customer who was an instructor in the Marine Recon School, a small part of the Corps similar to the Navy Seals. A passionate cyclist, he routinely carried a Glock even on the bike. 

He was riding down a two lane road toward a bridge when a pickup carrying 3 good ol boys sped by and someone threw a beer at him. The marine flipped them off and they pulled over, each coming toward him with a baseball bat. 

It’s not a fair fight even if the marine is unarmed but..,

He backed them down at gunpoint, forced them to throw their bats in the river and told them he didn’t ever want to see them on the road again. 

Semper Fi. 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.

[Craig Montgomery]

I ignore these idiots with a big yawn...BUTT...if I'm actually lucky enough to get a "get off the road" (5 times at most in the last 30 years) I can't help but to retort with a "You first". 

Craig in Tucson

[Brian Campbell]

On a Riv related note: 

I live in SE PA outside Philadelphia. Most drivers are pretty nice but I would get the occasional " Get off the road" etc. until... I started riding with the Riv reflective triangle on the saddle bag of my bike. Now in no way is there anything scientific about this but since I have been using it, almost 3 years now, I have not had another incident of yelling etc. Not sure why but it seems to be working. I wondered if it made look so unlike (less serious) than the other road cyclists out there that somehow it differentiated me, so as not cause anger? Weird but true.

[Dave Grossman]

Loving this discussion.  I've had all sorts of these encounters on my commute like y'all and share similar sentiments about just ignoring them.  Sometimes after a long day, it can be hard.  

My worst scenario used to be a guy who would ride on his motorcycle every morning by me and ride really close.  He would come up behind me and basically almost push me off the road.  He would wait for me at stop signs on occasion to lambast me about my riding or how I "rolled" a stop sign.  He was breaking many laws, but that never seemed to occur to him.  I would mostly ignore him but not being one to back down from people I would at times engage him and this was exactly what he wanted.  He would laugh and ride off, always helmet less, and be gone.

After he bothered me a few times I saw him one day.......in uniform as a cop........once he realized this conflict of interest on his behavior on him the harassment instantly stopped.........I see him from time to time now and he never looks at me anymore. 

[John Clifford]

I've had people yell at me to get off the road when I was in a marked bicycle lane, too. I've had people pull up beside me on a narrow two-lane residential corridor and tell me that riding on the road was unsafe... while they were about to push me into the ditch. In both cases, it was a woman, in a nice crossover SUV (Lexus, Mercedes), who I assume were trying to do me a favor and inform me of my bad or unsafe behavior of being on the road. I've only had one problem in a rural area, while I was part of a big ride (Seattle to Portland) where a logging truck deliberately tried to run me off the road into a bramble-filled ditch. Very scary to have those big truck wheels within a foot of me. But, most people are nice, and I agree with the advice of smiling and waving... it seems to wake people up and shame them.

I have to wonder if much of this is due to the stresses of modern life and the culture we live in that makes some people think they are best qualified to tell others what to do and how to live. That's what I get on my bike to escape from.

[Peter White]

There's an easy fix for this problem.

MOVE TO NEW HAMPSHIRE!

Here in New Hampshire, even the guys in the pickup trucks jacked up an extra foot with the AR-15 in the rear window gun rack are extremely polite. When I occasionally go south to MA to ride with old friends I'm always intimidated by the drivers. 

Peter White

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 12:55 PM John Clifford <ObiJoh...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've had people yell at me to get off the road when I was in a marked bicycle lane, too. I've had people pull up beside me on a narrow two-lane residential corridor and tell me that riding on the road was unsafe... while they were about to push me into the ditch. In both cases, it was a woman, in a nice crossover SUV (Lexus, Mercedes), who I assume were trying to do me a favor and inform me of my bad or unsafe behavior of being on the road. I've only had one problem in a rural area, while I was part of a big ride (Seattle to Portland) where a logging truck deliberately tried to run me off the road into a bramble-filled ditch. Very scary to have those big truck wheels within a foot of me. But, most people are nice, and I agree with the advice of smiling and waving... it seems to wake people up and shame them.

I have to wonder if much of this is due to the stresses of modern life and the culture we live in that makes some people think they are best qualified to tell others what to do and how to live. That's what I get on my bike to escape from.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/aca4ccd1-f2ee-4c4e-ac22-f633c6a38fe0%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Peter White

[hugh flynn]

It's weird, but yer right (It's not weird that you're right, that happens often enough. Rather, it's the  situation in New Hampshire that's weird).

I live in northern MA, but ride up into N.H. all the time. I swear just crossing state line improves things. That whole "Masshole" thing is certainly well-earned. 

Hugh Flynn

Newburyport, MA 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CA%2BD%3DXm-teo7r5zGR2QdEqPcS5Ukg9yWFxhhvMzNhGSiuta8Jcg%40mail.gmail.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Hugh Flynn
Newburyport, MA