RR3

You are a libelous idiot to suggest that I have committed any crime or will before a grand jury. I am not defending the assailant or his actions. He committed two assaults and one battery. Those are facts. Now go cry to the Moderators. I await your apology.

kickstart

Yes, its hard to do nothing, I failed just a couple of days ago. Those who think the cyclist in the OP was free of culpability are just kidding themselves, or choosing to be willfully ignorant.

genec

Uh, your story is 4 times removed. My story is it was my girlfriend. Not a friend of a friend of... BS.

But that's OK... if you think it never happens, just keep on.

BTW that doesn't mean I condone either the finger the cyclist flew or the motorist.

genec

No, of course not... (hence the reason I specified over and over again "technically." But apparently you don't read well)

But the law does. If there is no specified distance, and the cyclist wasn't harmed... then no jury would EVER find the motorist guilty of unsafe passing.


Since there is a three foot law involved... then the cop only needed that to arrest the driver.

But when there is no such law... then there is no "standard." Sorry, you cannot just make one up because you think it should exist.

spare_wheel

Exercising free speech to inform dangerous people that they are being dangerous invokes culpability?

genec

Interesting... as I read back in this thread, in just the last couple of pages... I see what seems like escalating anger from one poster to another... and yet, no bird flipping was done, no close passes... just escalation of anger.

Imagine how this might happen in real face to face life.

spare_wheel

My story was sarcasm.


I do and have done for decades. In fact, most of the time I flip off motorists because they are endangering other people. For example, if a motorist buzzes a ped in a crosswalk my instinctual reaction is to flip them off (often 2x). Threatening people with harm deserves a scolding and the finger is hardly even that...but it's better than nothing.

spare_wheel

Au contraire. I am not asking anyone to do anything they do not feel comfortable doing but I find the idea that motorized couch potatoes would harm me for flipping the bird to be amusing. 95% of the time they flee the traffic statute violation "finger of shame" as fast as they can.

genec

Oh, PDX... got it... motorists there think cyclists own the road... or that you are going to go all Portlandia on them. Your gesture might get you in trouble elsewhere... unless you happen to be 6'4" and 250+ lbs...

BTW I do tend to agree with you... I just think better of "expressing my opinion" from atop a slow light ride. About all I ever do is the slow head shake as I go by.

genec

BTW I am not just addressing you... but everyone that is getting heated in these last few pages... thus showing a similar loss of personal constraint.

95% eh... heck, all it takes is a 1% response by someone in a "heavy faster vehicle." I've had people stop, and shout at me... but it never went beyond that for me. It is somewhat ironic that they feel the need to even do that.

spare_wheel

As if.

Portland bicyclist photographed throwing bike lock at motorist during road-rage incident | OregonLive.com

kickstart

I know you're smarter than that, you know its possible to provoke someone into a confrontation, and you know Portland isn't representative of all locations.

spare_wheel

I lived in seattle for ten years prior to moving to portland 15 years ago. Just saying...

prooftheory

Is a girl responsible for her own sexual assault because she provoked it by wearing a low neck sweater?

spare_wheel

I disengage when that happens. My whole point in flipping the bird is to let them know that they screwed up, not insult them.

degnaw

Flipping the bird is an "F you" gesture, that's an insult. Do you say "F you" to friends/coworkers/family who make a mistake and don't realize they screwed up?

njkayaker

I understood what you wrote. It's wrong in a basic way.

The whole "technically, it's safe if there happens to be no contact" is just wrong. It's actually kind of crazy.

By your bizarro logic, driving drunk is safe as long as you don't hit anything.

In fact, technically, drunk driving is not safe because it increases the risk/probabilty of an accident occurring.

The purpose of talking about what is "safe" is to prevent bad outcomes. You weirdly keep claiming that one can only determine what is safe after the fact. Which is silly and useless.

And, that does not mean the pass was safe. It's silly to keep claiming that it does.

According to you, in every place that has a "three foot" law, the safe distance is three feet but everywhere else, it's any distance that happens to not be a collision.

The assault is a better reason.



It appears that every discussion of what is a specific safe distance is at least three feet. It's either no standard or that one.

If the standard of safety is to wear a helmet. That doesn't mean that standard doesn't exist if you don't wear a helmet. The safety standard of helmets doesn't need a law requiring them to exist as a standard.

You are saying it's fine for drivers to get as close as they want as long as they don't hit them.

Truly bizarre.

njkayaker

You seem very quick to be angry about stuff.

spare_wheel

Forgetting to take the garbage out is a trivial mistake. Almost hitting and possibly killing a pedestrian is a very serious mistake.


The finger is a mild insult and its one that my family and friends use fairly often. I think the outrage over receiving the finger is often just anti-cyclist butthurt (e.g. how dare that pedestrian/cyclist who is on my road and in my way flip me off for almost hitting them).

njkayaker

This is not "reality based".

Your private definiton of what you mean by doing it doesn't change the near universal understanding of it as an insult.

Do you call cats "dogs" and expect people to understand what you mean?

Weird.

kickstart

Well Seattle ain't exactly a real temperamental city either. Most of the east coast, and old south is another story.

degnaw

I would like to mention, though, that California law specifically allows motorists to pass closer than three feet if the motorist is going a "reasonable" speed.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/de...11/c3/a3/21760

kickstart

You go ahead and try that out at a construction site, or truck stop were nobody knows you........

njkayaker

Interesting!

It's noted as an exception. It doesn't invalidate my point.

Matariki

Grammatically you are somewhat incorrect. "Fighting" could be a gerund. A gerund is a noun made from a verb by adding "-ing." An example is "Pardon me for interrupting all the A&S fighting." where "fighting" is the object of the sentence. "Interrupting" is not a gerund, though it ends in "-ing". It is a present participle, i.e. a verb.

You may now return to your confrontation.