Tag Archive for road rage

Let’s live to fight another day

July 12, 2008 / / Comments Off on Let’s live to fight another day

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for having the good taste to quote your truly in a recent online article about the ongoing war between L.A. drivers and cyclists. By my calculation, this means I should have roughly 12 minutes and 37 seconds of fame remaining.

Frankly, when I started this blog a few weeks back, I really didn’t know where I was planning to go with it. But I certainly didn’t think expect to be dealing with the sort of topics we have this week.

In nearly 30 years as a serious biker, I’ve ridden all across the country, from backwater bayous and Colorado canyons to high-speed highways and crowded city streets. But I can honestly say this City of Fallen Angels is the only place I’ve ever been afraid to ride.

It didn’t take long to learn that most local roads have no shoulders, forcing you into traffic lanes with drivers who routinely ignore the speed limit, turning 35 mph boulevards in 50+ mph freeways. That what little bike lane system we do enjoy starts and stops at random, in what could only be an attempt to thin the herd. That local drivers have no patience for bicyclists, and won’t share the road if it means a few seconds of inconvenience. And that the local police usually operate from a policy of blame the cyclist first.

The simple fact is, even the most careless or aggressive cyclists represent little more than a minor annoyance to most drivers, easily passed and quickly forgotten.

Yet for us riders, it’s a different matter entirely. For us, cars represent potentially lethal weapons, fully locked and loaded, and, too often, pointed directly at us. Unlike the driver, we have no seat belts or airbags — let alone a few tons of steel — to protect us. So even in a minor collision can be, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Like Stoehr and Peterson, we’ve all been confronted with angry motorists — though in most cases, not so extreme as the good doctor, who it turns out may have done this before. I dealt with mine by signaling for my next turn with just one finger extended, which got my rear wheel intimately acquainted with the chrome bumper behind it, and got me 4 weeks in a sling followed by 6 weeks of rehab.

So I’ve learned my lesson. Now when I’m confronted with an angry driver, I just pull to the right, stop my bike, and let them pass. Because I may have a legal right to the road, but it’s not worth defending my rights if it means my wife is going to get another call saying which Emergency Room she can find me in.

A Cyclists’ Bill of Rights would certainly help. But so does a strong self-preservation instinct, and enough sense to know which battles are winnable.

And car vs. bike isn’t one of them.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , , ,

Call your publicist. Because we have an image problem.

July 11, 2008 / / 2 comments

We all know that bicyclists are nice people. Well, most of us, anyway.

We’ll stop to help a fallen cyclist, or a total stranger. We’ll give directions to lost tourists, and hand our last good tube over to some schmuck who forgot to pack a patch kit. We’ll wave to let a driver know it’s safe to pass, or thank one for giving us the right of way. And the first aid kit I keep in my seat bag has been used more on people I don’t know than on people I do. Or on myself, for that matter.

But we have a real problem. Because that’s not how the world sees us.

On July 9th, Illuminate LA featured an excellent recap of how the local bike community sprang into action following the July 4th Mandeville Canyon incident. But what caught my attention was the comment that followed from the author of SoapBoxLA.

He tallied the number of anti-bike comments expressed on the LA Times Bottleneck Blog article about the road rage incident on the 4th.  And let me tell you, it’s not pretty. Just a few samples:

  • Cyclists break the law (27)
  • Cyclists are arrogant, have feelings of entitlement (27)
  • Cyclists should not be on the road; the road is for vehicles only (23)
  • …If a vehicle/bike altercation happens, the cyclist must be at fault in some way (12)
  • …Cyclists incite harassment from vehicles by not following the law (8)

And my personal favorite:

  • Cars are bigger and therefore have more rights (1)

That, my friends, is how we’re perceived right here in the City of Fallen Angels. Don’t believe it? Just go to the local Rants & Raves section on Craiglist, and post a comment about bicycling. Any comment. Then see how long it takes before the hate posts and death threats start stacking up in response. (Granted, CL isn’t exactly a hotbed of credibility; the RnR section has long gotten my vote as the most racist place in cyberspace.)

The point is, we’ve got a problem. And we’re the only ones who can do something about it.

As my loyal reader (notice I didn’t include the phrase, “one of”) — Pops commented on earlier post, bicyclists need to do a better job of p-r if we’re going to make any headway in the traffic world.

And we need to do it fast. Because as the Mandeville incident illustrates, your life — or mine — could depend on it.

Category: Best of, General / Tags: , , , ,

Road rage against the machine

July 8, 2008 / / One comment

Here’s the problem with biking in L.A. Okay, one of ’em, anyway.

This is a city where the car is God, and any heretic who gets in its path is taking his life in his hands. Sure, the law gives us a right to the road. But that only extends as far as the bumper of the cars around us.

L.A. is a town full of angry drivers, already upset about slogging their way through heavy traffic and steaming about the last driver(s) who cut them off — let alone the high cost of fueling their Hummers. And when they find there route momentarily slowed by people shrink-wrapped in ridiculous spandex outfits, that rage often boils over.

Latest case in point: the recent 4th of July incident in Mandeville Canyon, in which two local riders were intentionally injured by a driver who sped around them, then slammed on the brakes just feet in front of their wheels. As you might expect, both riders were badly injured, one eating the pavement after clipping the car’s fender, while the other did a face plant in the rear windshield, nearly losing his nose in the process. The driver — a doctor, no less — just stood there screaming at the injured riders and refusing to offer any medical care to the people he injured.

At least this time, the local gendarmes made an arrest.

We’ve all been there. Anyone who’s spent a significant amount of time riding the mean streets of the misnamed City of Angels has their own stories to tell of drivers who’ve intentionally doored, dinged or otherwise dusted them in some fashion. But very few of us can tell a story of the L.A.P.D. actually doing something about it.

Like there was the time some gang bangers knocked me off my bike in Venice and circled around me as I lay on the pavement. Lo and behold, I looked up and just a few feet away stood an L.A. cop. I yelled for help and the gangsters took off running — right past the officer, who stood there watching them run. So I yelled again for the cop to stop them because they had just attacked me, and I swear to God, he looked at me and said “So what do you want me to do about it?”

His job would have been nice. But I suppose what was too much to expect.

Then there was the time a driver got pissed off that I was impeding her progress on an otherwise empty street, and couldn’t be bothered to go a few feet out of her way to pass me. Instead, she followed me for about a block, honking and screaming the whole way. When I got to the stop sign at the next corner, I turned around for a moment to look at her, then signaled for my right turn (granted, I only extended one finger, but still…).

Next thing I knew, her bumper was in my back wheel and I was on the pavement. Once I gathered my wits, I blocked her path so she couldn’t leave, whipped out my cell and dialed 911. A crowd gathered. Helicopters circled. The police, finally, arrived.

Yet when the dust cleared, the local constabulary did absolutely…nothing. They accepted her contention that I had simply fallen over — from a dead stop, no less — injuring myself and causing the damage to my bike.

And instead of taking her into custody — or even writing a ticket, for chrissake — I was threatened with arrest for A) making a false 911 call and B) threatening her life; somehow, my comments of “You tried to kill me,” got twisted into “I’m going to kill you.”

Why I would want to kill a total stranger if I had simply fallen over on my own was never explained to me.

So, I may not be a rocket scientist, but I’ve learned my lesson. No more fingers. When confronted with an angry driver, just stop and let him or her pass.

And never, ever count on the L.A.P.D.

Category: General / Tags: , , , , ,
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