Tag Archive for indignorant drivers

They drive among us: Letter writer threatens all cyclists for the water-squirting actions of one

April 6, 2016 / / 28 comments

I recently received the following letter from an anonymous source.

I’m told the writer, a Hollywood screenwriter, has circulated it among his friends as a joke. Apparently, one of them didn’t think it was funny.

I can’t imagine anyone else would, either. Let’s hope he specializes in horror; if he’s a comedy writer, he’s in the wrong business.

My source also said he may be trying to get the letter published. So I’m going to do him a favor and publish it for him.

Read it for yourself, and we’ll discuss afterwards.

………

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Let’s answer that last question first.

No one who isn’t a psychopath is likely to accept that invitation.

Now let’s get this out of the way.

The cyclist who squirted his girlfriend was a jerk. By the simple act of squirting her with water, he committed misdemeanor assault, punishable with a fine of up to $1,000 and six months in county jail.

So let that be your warning.

But it was water. Unless his pretty 20-something girlfriend is a witch, she probably didn’t suffer any lasting injury.

And let’s not forget she was breaking the law by parking in the bike lane, which, despite the perceptions of some people — apparently including our humble letter writer — wasn’t striped on the street to provide a waiting zone or a secondary parking lane.

Under California law, a bike lane is a legal lane of traffic reserved for bicycles, just as HOV lanes are reserved for vehicles with two or more occupants.

And on a busy street like Main, blocking the bike lane can force riders out into traffic, risking their safety in front of drivers who are more focused on finding a parking space than looking for bikes where they don’t expect them.

If the guy on the bike had been hit by a car, she could have been held liable, at least in part, for any injuries he suffered as a result.

Yes, what the guy did was wrong. But so was what the woman in the car did.

And the writer of this letter clearly doesn’t get that.

Then there’s this notion.

Not a Saturday morning goes by that I don’t witness some menace on wheels screaming “Hey watch where you’re going asshole!” at a peaceful and law abiding driver.

Which, unless he encounters an unusual number of mentally unstable people on two wheels, is highly unlikely; few cyclists feel a need to yell at “peaceful and law abiding” drivers.

Unless maybe they’re yelling at him.

Perhaps he just doesn’t understand traffic law well enough to recognize when drivers put people on bikes in needless danger. Like his girlfriend’s parking issues, for instance.

Which leads us to the real problem with this letter, and the person who wrote it.

Back in my starving writer days, the convenience store where I worked nights was robbed by a couple of kids in their early teens. One of whom had to talk his friend out of shooting me to see what it felt like to kill a white guy.

That marked the beginning of a multi-week crime spree that culminated in their arrest for pistol whipping another clerk so badly that he lost an eye.

I could have concluded, as have some I’ve had the misfortune of knowing, that all members of that particular ethnic group, or maybe minorities in general, were somehow to blame.

Even though that would have included my boss, her boss, and the friend-of-a-friend psychologist who volunteered over two hours of his time to talk me through it. Not to mention the woman I was dating at the time.

Yet this writer somehow blames every spandex-wearing person on two wheels for the action of one.

Never mind that some of those who appear to be riding recreationally may actually be riding to work, as part of the group he immediately absolves of collective guilt.

And never mind that some people at the agency that represents him are undoubtedly cyclists themselves. Not to mention at least a few of the studio execs capable of greenlighting his projects.

Which is I’m withholding his name.

It would easy — and admittedly, tempting — to let his own words destroy his career. But rather than grasping just how foolish he was in writing this letter, it would probably just reinforce his belief that we’re the evil creatures he thinks we are.

That brings us to his self-professed life of crime, which ranges from vandalism and simple assault, to criminal stalking and assault with a deadly weapon. Not to mention inciting violence by encouraging others to do the same.

His plan to repeatedly brake-check groups of cyclists — what he calls the “speed up slow down tactic’ — is exactly what got Dr. Christopher Thompson sentenced to four years hard time for slamming on his brakes in front of three riders in Mandeville Canyon.

And we’ll ignore his final chloroform fantasy, which he should take a good whiff of the next time he’s tempted to dash off another letter like this.

So on behalf of recreational bike riders everywhere, I’d like to apologize to his girlfriend, while politely suggesting that she watch where she parks in the future. And maybe reconsider her taste in men.

As for the letter writer, maybe he’d like to join us for a bike ride some time. And see that there’s another way to see the world in which bike riders aren’t the bad guys he thinks we are.

Once he calms down, that is.

……..

Check back this afternoon for today’s Morning Links.

Category: Anti-bike bias, Car vs Bike, Road Rage, Violence & Crime / Tags: , , , , , , ,

Bicyclists are ***holes. I am a bicyclist. Therefore…

April 6, 2009 / / 7 comments

I stumbled on this the other day.

Just another rant from an indignorant bike-riding driver who can’t understand why cyclists are such assholes. Not him, of course, or others like him who only ride on side streets or sidewalks.

But those other jerks. The ones who ride in street, acting like they actually had a right to be there, or have the audacity to move up to the front of the intersection at a red light. Or, God forbid, flip him off when he expresses his righteous indignation.

Riders like me, in other words. And possibly, like you — though I hope you have better control over your middle finger than I do sometimes.

Normally, I’d just click on another link, and move on to something else. But this one stuck with me, because he was complaining about exactly the same things I do every time I ride — the same things most bike safety experts tell us to do, precisely because they help us stay alive.

For instance, he can’t understand why cyclists insist on moving to the front of the intersection at a red light. Let alone why they get so upset when he tries to block their path with his car so they can’t.

Since he doesn’t ride his bike in traffic, maybe he doesn’t know that stopping behind a line of cars is one of the most dangerous things a rider can do.

That’s because the single most important thing any cyclist can do is make sure he or she is seen. And when you stop behind a line of cars — or often, even a single car — you’re completely hidden from oncoming traffic.

Which means that a driver waiting patiently to make a left turn may not know you’re there, and could turn directly into your bike once the car ahead of you clears his path.

It’s also likely that drivers on the cross street may not see you, either. And anyone coming up from behind probably won’t be looking a cyclist behind a line of cars, resulting a high likelihood of a crush crash that could smash your bike against the car in front.

Of course, you can easily avoid that simply by working your way to the front of the intersection where you can be seen by everyone. So by blocking cyclists from moving up, driver’s like him are willing to put the lives of their fellow human beings at risk.

Just because they don’t understand.

Then there’s his complaint about cyclists who ride in “the center of the lane…just because (they) can.” Except what he’s really complaining about is someone riding just three feet from the edge of the lane.

In other words, exactly where many experts would tell you to ride. Not in the gutter, with all the cracked pavement and broken glass. Not next to the parked cars, where you run the risk of being doored by a careless driver. But slightly into the lane, where cars can safely go around you when there’s a break in traffic.

Of course, I wasn’t there. Maybe the rider really was just an asshole. But I find it very hard to believe that traffic — through a park, no less — was so heavy that this driver did not have a single opportunity to pass for “a good three or four minutes.”

Obviously, this is just one guy, posting in another city over 6 months ago. Yet a simple Google search for the phrase “bicyclists are assholes” returns over 58,000 hits.

So the question becomes, how can we communicate to all these people that we’re not going out of our way to be rude just because we can, and there’s actually a good reason why we do the things we do.

Because they don’t read cycling blogs like this.

And they’re clearly not getting the message.


The new Flying Pigeon lands downtown; Bicycle Fixation drops in for a visit. Stephen Box reports Metro drivers think bikes must yield to big ass buses. The Anonymous Cyclist suggests that building your own wheels can be as relaxing as preparing for a tattoo. The old Freeloading Cyclists canard rears its ugly head once again. El Monte wants you to experience their Emerald Necklace — and discover riverbeds that aren’t lined with cement. Baton Rouge peddles pedaling paramedics. A lawyer discusses dangerous driving habits cyclists hate. Finally, it seems there’s real science behind rolling through stop signs.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , ,
 
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