Yesterday, I was riding down a three-lane one-way street. Light traffic. 25mph speed limit. No bike lane. Cars parked on the side of the street.

Common sense (even to a non-cyclist) would dictate that taking the lane would be the most intelligent thing to do.

I was riding about 15mph in the right most lane and I hear a car honk very close behind me. I ignored it.

I stopped at the next light, and I feel a bump on my back wheel. This lady who had honked at me had used her car to get my attention by hitting my bike with it.

(curiously, she was neither morbidly obese nor in an SUV.)

I turn around to see her motioning me to get out of her way or get of the road. I yell back that I have a right to be on the road. (loud voice, no expletives).

She yells at me "you need to read the sticker I have on my bumper."

The sticker says "Share the road with bicyclists"

So I yell out her license number really loud and say "YOU HIT MY BIKE WITH YOUR CAR."

Later, at Starbucks I talked to a police officer who said there wasn't really anything they could do since I wasn't hurt and my bike wasn't damaged.

I should have chased her down and confronted her. At least, I hope that yelling her license number caused her to spend the evening worrying that the doorbell would ring and it would be cops wanting to ask her a few questions.

Did I do anything wrong? Has anyone else yelled out the license number of aggressive drivers. (I did it once before with a car that passed me when I was riding at the posted speed limit)

Prolly from placer county.
And techinically, I'd say thats assault. Assault does not require bodily injury, but the real possibility of that happening. In fact a vehicle is a deadly weapon. Be a hard case to try though.

"Share the Road" = Get the Hell Outta My Way!

That cop was stupid. Not only is she guilty of assult, as nm+ notes, she is also guilty of fleeing the scene of a collision (hit and run). While vehicular assault is usually not taken very seriously, hit and run usually IS. Anyone involved in a collision, even just a tap, is required to wait at the scene until the police arrive and take statements.

Do you have any identifying information on the cop? I would go to the station and complain.

Share the road .... as long as I get the biggest share.

Hey lady, what was wrong with the other two lanes?

At least she didn't say she was hitting on you. I just had an evil thought. The bumper sticker says "If you can read this... I just ran you over." Sorry man. That's a freaky surreal experience. I had a lady pull up beside me once asking for directions. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it was at a stop sign or a red light. But at about 15 mph it was a little rediculous. Why some drivers think a moving car next a moving cyclist is a conversational setting I'll never know. Now it's been expanded into a literary session too.

Go down to police station and file a report. I doubt anything will be done, but at least there will be a record of her hitting a cyclist and fleeing the scene.
On a side note, she was pretty dumb.

if a driver did that to me, and was willing to talk to me from their car window, they would have gotten a facefull of 'dog-n-driver' pepper spray i have quick taped to all my bikes.....

In honor of the recently concluded world cup you should have crumpled to the pavement upon contact. Once you did that and started screaming out her Licsence plate, she would have been up all night.

As it is, unless someone get's hurt, I don't think cagers worry at all about getting in trouble for the crap they pull.

Congrats on keeping your cool. I would not have been able to go through that without a couple of explectives. Still working on fixing that.

(curiously, she was neither morbidly obese nor in an SUV.)


Then...was she blond?

if a driver did that to me, and was willing to talk to me from their car window, they would have gotten a facefull of 'dog-n-driver' pepper spray i have quick taped to all my bikes.....


Enjoy your assault with a weapon charge. Such an attack on a driver would be unprovoked, even if they hit you. If they hit you and then attacked you, then go ahead and defend yourself. You would not be able to prove just cause for using a weapon on someone just sitting in their vehicle after a crash (regardless of who is at fault for the crash.) Guess what? we are not the arbitrators of "justice" and do not get to be vigilanties. Nor is revenge such as that allowed in a civil society.


To the OP: Not only should you report this collision to the police (give as many details as you can, of course) but you should report the laziness and ineptitude of the police officer you talked to (only dont phrase it that way, just ask if this advice given you by the police officer in question is accurate based on the fact that you were honked at, deliberately hit, yelled at, and the driver drove off. Damage or not, that is at the minimum a hit and run. A question for you: did you in any way indicate that it was ok or that you wanted to call the police? I am reasonably certain that if both involved say all is good, and damage is very low (1000 dollars in Ontario) then nothing needs to be done involving the police.

That rates an antenna snap in my book.

bull, seargant. i could care less about the protected civil rights of a driver that decides to assault me with their car.

if i get assaulted with a vehicle and live to tell about it, and the driver decides to talk to me abou it, i will pepper spray a driver, and let the police sort it out, if i am sticking around to find out the results.....

Some one pulls a bone head move like that on me ill put my self up over their hood on to their wind sheild and down to the pavement.

Just to make sure the cops can do something or at the very least scare the ever living shi..... out of the driver in question.

Y
Later, at Starbucks I talked to a police officer who said there wasn't really anything they could do since I wasn't hurt and my bike wasn't damaged.


Assault with a deadly weapon is a crime that would apply whether you are hurt or not. If she had pressed the barrel of a gun to the forehead of the police officer, but not hurt him, just to get his attention, then her intentions would be meaningless, and the officer would realize that there was something that he could do. Same thing when she uses her car to hit you intentionally, she assaulted you with a deadly weapon.

Wasn't there a case in Texas of a women cager who knocked a cyclist over and injured him and later told police that "I only meant to tap him". And wasn't this cager a law professor or something?

In Massachusetts, a motorist can face charges if he / she so much as touches someone with his / her vehicle. Not that this makes the roads any safer...

I'd get some more opinions on this MrC.

bull, seargant. i could care less about the protected civil rights of a driver that decides to assault me with their car.

if i get assaulted with a vehicle and live to tell about it, and the driver decides to talk to me abou it, i will pepper spray a driver, and let the police sort it out, if i am sticking around to find out the results.....


*shrug* whatever. If you get tapped by someone, you have a right to get mad, but you dont have a right to assault her. This is called assault, and will be dealt with as a separate incident. In the incident described by the OP, had you peppersprayed her, you would be on very very thin ice legally. She would have been charged with hitting you, but you would have been nailed with assault. Fleeing the scene that you helped escalate by using a weapon just makes you a coward, and part of the problem. Hard to play the injured innocent when you hosed someone with a weapon that was NOT at that time attacking you. (you would likely have a hard time making a vehicle assault charge stick. A self defence plea would likely not stick since you, in this circumstance, would not have been hurt, and were not being actively attacked when you untaped your spray, walked up to her window, and hosed her.)

But I must admit, it is an interesting attitude you have.

Wow fun! I'm in Va and getting ready to start riding to work soon. We have one stretch of road that is for bikes, only about 1/4 to 1/2 mile long stretch at best. I can see the fun coming at me now! LOL I know "Virginia is for lovers" because every time I drive ANYWHERE, someone is always wanting to make out with my @#$ end!! (behind)

Goodness!

Prolly from placer county.


Yuba County more likely, if she had more wheels than teeth.

To the OP... sounds like to me she was hitting on you. Sorry, couldn't resist. :D

*shrug* whatever. If you get tapped by someone, you have a right to get mad, but you dont have a right to assault her. This is called assault, and will be dealt with as a separate incident. In the incident described by the OP, had you peppersprayed her, you would be on very very thin ice legally. She would have been charged with hitting you, but you would have been nailed with assault. Fleeing the scene that you helped escalate by using a weapon just makes you a coward, and part of the problem. Hard to play the injured innocent when you hosed someone with a weapon that was NOT at that time attacking you. (you would likely have a hard time making a vehicle assault charge stick. A self defence plea would likely not stick since you, in this circumstance, would not have been hurt, and were not being actively attacked when you untaped your spray, walked up to her window, and hosed her.)

But I must admit, it is an interesting attitude you have.

I think technically, what she did was battery(intentional unwanted touching), she intentionally hit the guys back wheel. You don't have to actually touch the person to commit battery.

Now, the rider is justified in using reasonable force to repel a battery, but at this point, the assailant had backed off and was no longer engaging in the battery, so the biker would not be justified in using force in self-defense. He would only have an imperfect self-defense argument if he pepper sprayed her.

On the other hand, how many cases do you read about where the cops stop someone in a car, cops walk up, the guy guns the car and tries to flee and the cops fire a barrage of bullets at the car, kill the driver and then claim self defense, the guy was trying to run me over. Cops rarely get charged in these cases, even when no cops were directly in the path of the speeding car.

So would the biker get charged? If the cops look at the incident as similar to a vehicular assault on one of their own, no. If the driver is a fine upstanding lady and the biker looks a little scruffy, get ready to go to jail.

I think technically, what she did was battery(intentional unwanted touching), she intentionally hit the guys back wheel. You don't have to actually touch the person to commit battery.

Now, the rider is justified in using reasonable force to repel a battery, but at this point, the assailant had backed off and was no longer engaging in the battery, so the biker would not be justified in using force in self-defense. He would only have an imperfect self-defense argument if he pepper sprayed her.



Ah, 1L..., those were the days. Arguing over whether a tool shed was within the curtilage and wondering what the hell kind of fireworks those were that they'd explode when dropped on railroad tracks....

if a driver did that to me, and was willing to talk to me from their car window, they would have gotten a facefull of 'dog-n-driver' pepper spray i have quick taped to all my bikes.....


Better: bust the plastic trigger off the top of the aerosol can, and toss the whole frothing mass through the open window, then book it!:D




**DISCLAIMER: NO, I'm not seriously advocating assulting a driver; I just think the mental image of racing away from a jackass driver, as their passenger cabin fills with stinging, yellow-orange mist, coupled with the thought that the car would never again smell like anything but pepper spray gives a certain sense of righteous satisfaction. Enjoy this image at your own risk.

That cop was stupid. Not only is she guilty of assult, as nm+ notes, she is also guilty of fleeing the scene of a collision (hit and run). While vehicular assault is usually not taken very seriously, hit and run usually IS. Anyone involved in a collision, even just a tap, is required to wait at the scene until the police arrive and take statements.

Do you have any identifying information on the cop? I would go to the station and complain.

Not true everywhere. Many states require a minimum dollar amount of damage to occur before an accident report is reqiuired by law. As far as fleeing the scene goes, that too varies and is defined differently by different state laws. There is another problem as well...you cannot claim that it was both an intentional act (assault) and then claim the driver left the scene of an accident. It can't be both.

Ah, 1L..., wondering what the hell kind of fireworks those were that they'd explode when dropped on railroad tracks....
How dare you take the sacred doctrine of Palsgraff in vain. Learned Hand or Blackstone or John Stuart Mill or one of their ilk should smite thee for thy insolence. Ye gods, man, next you'll be casting aspersions on the concepts of assumpsit and replevin.

That cop was stupid. Not only is she guilty of assult, as nm+ notes, she is also guilty of fleeing the scene of a collision (hit and run). While vehicular assault is usually not taken very seriously, hit and run usually IS. Anyone involved in a collision, even just a tap, is required to wait at the scene until the police arrive and take statements.

Do you have any identifying information on the cop? I would go to the station and complain.

No, the requirement is simply to stop and excange information. If the police had to take statements for every fender bender there would notbe any left for anything else.

It was near the Capitol, and she was very likely a State worker or just got done shopping at Downtown Plaza.

I hope that the incident prompted her to call either her lawyer or shrink.

Funny thing. It was a "spare the air" day. I was biking. She was driving.

To the OP: My comments below are not directed to you. I commend you for keeping a cool head! I hate to think what I might do in a situation like that. Hopefully, I would be too shocked to think of doing anything crazy. That cager is definately generating some real bad karma....her time will come, but I've got too much to lose over an idiot like that.

Later, at Starbucks I talked to a police officer who said there wasn't really anything they could do since I wasn't hurt and my bike wasn't damaged.

That cop isn't stupid, he is pragmatic. For all you folks wanting police reports and criminal charges filed, what do you really think is going to happen? If you can find a cop willing to make an arrest or write a ticket that [I]he knows[I] will not stand up in court, the best you can hope for is that the cager has to pay for an attorney to get the charges dropped. "At least that's something!" "Make 'em pay!" you say, but wait - it's not that simple. It will likely drag on for months, which means you will be dragging that 'baggage' around for months. Your friends, family, and coworkers will be sick of hearing about your being "assaulted". You will need to take time off from work for court dates. There will be continuances and more court dates. The cagers attorney may send you an interrogatory containing dozens or even hundreds of question for you to answer in writing under oath. Through it all, the cager will deny everything and claim that you are nuts. You have NO damage, NO injuries, NO witnesses, NO evidence that the car made contact with your bike, and the cop that made the arrest or wrote the ticket was not even at the scene. Read it out loud with me now:
:mad: CASE DISMISSED :mad:
The cop ends up looking stupid in court. You end up looking like a nut case in court. The cager walks. That is why the officer said there wasn't really anything they could do.

On an early spring morning in 1989 in Kansas City, two crack addicts grabbed a 15 year old girl from the end of her driveway while she was waiting for the school bus. They took her to a house and raped and sodomised her for hours, then they stabbed her and left her in the trunk of a stolen car. Her body was found the next day. Both addicts later confessed to the crime. One of them was granted a new trial (at taxpayers expense) when the judge in the first trial was seen drinking martinis at lunch. Both were eventually sentenced to death. Fifteen years later (the same amount of time their victim had on this earth) they are still alive. The other addict is currently appealing his sentence on the grounds that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

....And you think you are going to get "justice" through an assault with deadly weapon conviction from the courts because some idiot cager tried to intimidate you off the road? You think the cop is being lazy? Give me a break!

I think the cop was being lazy. The cop needs to take the report and at a minimum give a verbal warning to the driver. Easy enough to do by looking up the contact info from the license # and then calling on a cell phone. Takes all of about 2 to 5 minutes.

Now what do you think the cops reaction would have been if it was his daughter telling him about the driver that intentially bumped her?

Thats right, he would be in the drivers face as quick as he could drive to her house.

This makes no sense to me. Was she nice or mean?

Ah, 1L..., those were the days. Arguing over whether a tool shed was within the curtilage and wondering what the hell kind of fireworks those were that they'd explode when dropped on railroad tracks....

And what does Palsgraf have to do with assault and battery?:rolleyes:

Those crazy scales, man! They come flying down the platform and knocked poor old Mrs. Palsgraff to the deck. Too bad she was standing in the danger zone, though.

[okay, enough stupid law school thread derailment]

You win the prize. That has to be the single dumbest 'caging' event I've ever heard of.

That woman is not even measurable on the intelligence scale. To call her a moron would be paying her a compliment.

I'd call the police and report her as a hit-and-run, also for driving without a brain.