road raged by a 'bike racer' lawyer from her car today

[nova]

You wasted a perfectly good opportunity. I would have said the following...

"Listen. We can both stand here in the middle of the street and argue with one another, taking up our respective time and blocking traffic. Or we can continue this discussion over a drink or lunch or dinner. How about you meet me at the McMenamins on lower Queen Anne around <insert convenient time>?"

:)

Damn if i ever need a pick up line ill be sending your a private message :)

If nothing else its a really good way to defuse the bad situation

[sbhikes]

If I can learn anything from this topic it is that it doesn't help matters much to get all hot-headed about anything anybody wants to yell at you out there when you're just riding your bike.

See, I think the problem is that as soon as the tempers flare like that it doesn't matter that she's a lawyer or you were right or what the law says or whatever because nobody is going to be listening and nobody is going to admit they were wrong about anything. It's just going to get ugly.

So, go have a nice glass of wine, tell your girlfriend you love her, go out to dinner and have a soak in the hot tub. It's time to relax. Life's too short.

[mechBgon]

See Bekologist, there you go forgetting to use your Make-Cars-Invisible button again:p

http://www.mechbgon.com/noob.gif

[Bekologist]

...you mean like the 'no bad drivers' button helmet hed has on HIS handlebars? :)

[sgtsmile]

Hmm bad taste to qoute your own post? heh
Just want to clarify a bit

snip snip snip





+100

One of the most sensible posts that is actually about advocating biking that I have read in a while...

Good stuff

[mechBgon]

...you mean like the 'no bad drivers' button helmet hed has on HIS handlebars? :)Yeah. It's a dual-function button, you know. You push it for the no-bad-drivers function, or hold it two seconds to make the cars themselves disappear.

No, there is no "invisible clothing" function :p

[TRaffic Jammer]

Beko:

Some lawyers have the strangest sense of foreplay.

So if you had to carve around the truck to avoid the swipe I can imagine how she was driving to get in front of the truck as well. (if I read that correctly)You made her take her foot off the gas before the red light you sick *******. How dare you.... *dripping sarcasm*

[genec]

Damn if i ever need a pick up line ill be sending your a private message :)

If nothing else its a really good way to defuse the bad situation

Actually a better pickup line might have included cycling... But perhaps that can be arranged over the lunch.

[rrruuunnn]

bragging that she was a lawyer. i have heard several lawyer stories about betraying their own clients. i wouldn't be impressed if someone said they were a lawyer. i would think previleged and unethical. i met a group of lawyer students and i didn't get the right impression about them for good reasons.
if she didn't notice you were passing the truck, she must have just got a glimpse of you and just assumed you like riding in the middle lane, why? i don't understand.
it is not a good idea to flip people off even when they deserve to be flipped off.

[SingingSabre]

/me starts to hate Portland ...

I sware you guys got it good for the most part in Portland. Ive yet to see a single share the road sign here in ohio. Ive covered about a 50 x 25/30 mile area in north east ohio. Mostly along the tow path and surrounding roads. This should be a hot spot for such signs but not a single one.

Ironically, the biggest problem I have ever had was in a construction zone right next to a sign which said "Share the road/ bike lane ends". A guy pulled up and nearly ran me off the road. I said into his open window "Excuse me, sir, but I just want you to be aware that bikes require three feet of distance when you pass them."
"Shut up."
"Did you see the sign that said 'Share the road'?"
"Did you see the sign that said 'Get the f**k off the f**king road'?" he yelled back at me. At about this time, a vein popped out of his forehead.
"Sir, it is my legal right to be here."
"How about I just smash your face in?" he wittily replied as he turned a shade of crimson I've not seen a human achieve before. I saw him reach across his passenger seat and start fiddling with something shadowy, so I decided to high-tail it through the construction. I'd rather deal with a bulldozer and a water truck filled with reclaimed water than this arsehat who likely needs therapy...or a hug.

Yet I digress. Overall, I think "Share the road" signs are good. This is just some rambling incident I wanted to talk about. :)

[biker7]

Did you ask her if she was on her period?
;)
George
If I have learned anything...human beings of any affiliation are capable of anything. If a plot to blow up 20 airplanes above the US this morning can be thwarted thankfully...comprised of maniacs willing to give their life for their cause...road rage is very possible. I had to laugh when I read your thread as I flip guys off from time to time when I ride as well..lol.

[rando]

Did you ask her if she was on her period?
;)
George

yeah, this always goes over well.

:eek:

[Bekologist]

no, we 'talked' about how i need to be doing 10 miles over the speed limit if i want to be in the lanes, and how 'i was the riders that get bicyclists killed' out there....

she was a total whackjob.....

just a typical car driving road rager....that claimed to be a 'bike racer' and got her frames at a [downtown Seattle custom frame shop)...i think i'll be visiting the frame maker and make him feel guilty enough by association - she did mention him, proudly- that maybe he will pass the word back to his great customer base, that......

bikes have rights to the road in Washington state....maybe he needs to hand out ettiqute cards to his clients..... just having the lucre to get a custom bike certainely hasn't entered this woman into the bicycling fraternity.....

she was an asshat road rager, plain and simple.....

[sgtsmile]

she was an asshat road rager, plain and simple.....

and so is every cyclist that ever flipped off a car that offended them..... shrug.

Dont forget, people in cars and on bikes are just people, there is nothing more or less special about either group, and both groups are capable of irrational rage borne from frustration, fear, or adrenaline.

[Bekologist]

hmm, interesting sgt....., she was the offending party, i was swerving around a commercial truck that made an unsignalled cut from a stop across multiple lanes of traffic, right to a stop light.......and i began to get grief because "I am the riders that get other riders KILLED out there...."

asshat roadrager who claimed to be a 'racer' and a big bike rider, riding custom steel from (downtown seattle frame maker)

[unkchunk]

How come I never get the good road rage incidents? That sounds like a fun one. Throw in a couple of "sustained counselor"s and roll with it. Maybe add in some Robert's Rules of Order too. Bekologist, just make sure she doesn't double bill you for her legal advice. And I agree with Zinn-X's sound legal advice... never get in front of a vehicle you just flipped off.

[donnamb]

Did you ask her if she was on her period?
;)

You really like living dangerously, don't you? :p

[sggoodri]

Funny how so many people that take the time to inform me of how and where I should be riding my bike also like to say that they are cyclists too.

I've found this to be true, too. When I take the lane in traffic on a road with narrow lanes, or merge over to the left lane to turn left, the drivers who stop and take the time to scream and yell at me to stay out of way of traffic have described themselves as cyclists. They rant that my actions give cyclists a bad name, and so forth.

I can only speculate why some cyclists react so badly to other cyclists practicing vehicular cycling. It might be that they perceive cycling in traffic -rather than staying out of the way- as a provocative act that will create motorist backlash upon them when they ride.

I think it's the other way around, i.e. that if any resentment is generated it will be aimed at me at the time I temporarily delay others, and outside of that may accustom motorists to cyclists operating in the roadway, reducing harassment of other cyclists.

Another possibility is they think that I will get killed, and if enough cyclists get killed, maybe their cycling will end up prohibited by law.

The last possibility I'll venture is that some cyclists could be so in love with bike lane striping that they see any cyclist operating outside of a striped bike lane as a threat to popular public support for more bike lane striping.

[Bekologist]

and so is every cyclist that ever flipped off a car that offended them..... shrug.

I disagree..... the bicyclist is a lot less likely to even be able to cause minor damage, versus, 'accidental', unthinking, murderous mishaps by drivers not fully in control of their faculties OR vehicle.....


anyway, i digress. this isn't supossed to be a cager bashing thread.

so, back on topic.

TODAY, I looked her up in the phone book- there she was. I called her up, and left a message asking her out to lunch to talk about riding. Had a message from her when i got home, about buying her lunch somewhere...

I am confident we can meet in the middle on all this....after all, she IS a bike rider too.....

[khuon]

TODAY, I looked her up in the phone book- there she was. I called her up, and left a message asking her out to lunch to talk about riding. Had a message from her when i got home, about buying her lunch somewhere...

I am confident we can meet in the middle on all this....after all, she IS a bike rider too.....

Good on you. Just be careful not to go in with a predisposition. Use the incident as a matter of discussion and go from there. I wouldn't dwell on it if I were you. In the end you may even have to agree to disagree but there's really no need to carry a grudge about what happened. The world needs less hostility. Treat it as a date and not a political debate. Good luck and have fun.

[mechBgon]

I've found this to be true, too. When I take the lane in traffic on a road with narrow lanes, or merge over to the left lane to turn left, the drivers who stop and take the time to scream and yell at me to stay out of way of traffic have described themselves as cyclists. They rant that my actions give cyclists a bad name, and so forth. Send some of those people to where Helmet Head lives. I think they have a shortage of them there :D

[sgtsmile]

hmm, interesting sgt....., she was the offending party, i was swerving around a commercial truck that made an unsignalled cut from a stop across multiple lanes of traffic, right to a stop light.......and i began to get grief because "I am the riders that get other riders KILLED out there...."

asshat roadrager who claimed to be a 'racer' and a big bike rider, riding custom steel from (downtown seattle frame maker)

Btw, I was not directing my comment about enraged cyclists specifically at you, but wanted to point out a general observation. Road rage, if we want to try and define it, is anger directed from one person to another over some perceived slight in traffic - cutting them off, holding them up, etc. I think we agree on this one. The thing is that the anger is out of proportion to the thing that set it off. Cyclists are not immune to this. Cyclists are people too, with complicated emotions, drives, and feelings who will at times overreact and blow their stack at another road user. Part of road rage is how a person responds to another who freaks out at them. Returning fire and escalating the situation is also road rage!

My rotten bike ride yesterday was a perfect example of a ride filled with rage. I was passed very very closely by a pickup truck on a rural road that slowed and made a left turn. He just missed me (by just, I mean just...) I yelled more room! (his window was closed) and he gave me a blank look, and gave me the finger. This is road rage. My response was not something I was proud of, I blew my stack and returned fire and called him everyname in the book for endangering me and my friend and being a bleep bleep bleep. We had several incidents like this on the ride. Significantly more than normal. By the end of the ride, I was emotionally a wreck, and miserable. Upon reflection, I can see that a lot of the frustration that the motorists I was encountering yesterday was likely caused by most of the major roads heading in the dirction I was going being underconstruction with a lot of multi km detours. This does not excuse their behaviour, but it might explain it at least in part. My overreaction (measured not by did they deserve it, but by what it did to my own inner peace) qualifies in my mind as "road rage". I hope that today's ride is more peaceful.

I guess all I am saying is that the perfectly natural (over) reaction to something like what I listed above is in fact a part of the problem and is something that we as cyclists need to focus on (at times). If we are going to throw stones at people, we should perhaps move out of our glass houses...

[slagjumper]

...
At the stop, a woman rolls down her window and starts screaming at me.....

" I'm a bicyclist and you are the bicyclists that get us killed out here! I'm a bike racer, I buy bikes at a (downtown seattle custom bike builder) and you give us a bad name! You should be going 35 miles an hour if you are in the lanes (inflating downtown speed limits by 10 MPH)....I'm a lawyer!!"

Since when does money buy cred? She probably yells everyday in court and was speaking in her normal, irritating voice. Sounds like she has trouble fending off her collegues comments about bicyclists driving behavior. One thing that seems american, but is probably just a human trait is the lumping of everything into neat catigories, (like all lawyers are greedy, or all cyclists are sociopaths).

Yesterday a women yelled at me when I legally proceeded through a 4 way stop, "hey idiot, you didn't stop." Yeah right. The woman did not look to the right and see that I had stopped.

[Daily Commute]

* * * At the stop, a woman rolls down her window and starts screaming at me.....

" I'm a bicyclist and you are the bicyclists that get us killed out here! I'm a bike racer, I buy bikes at a (downtown seattle custom bike builder) and you give us a bad name! You should be going 35 miles an hour if you are in the lanes (inflating downtown speed limits by 10 MPH)....I'm a lawyer!!" * * *

I feel sorry for that custom frame builder. He or she puts all that love and sweat into a beautiful bike, only to have the shop's name associated with a lout like this woman.

As to her job as a lawyer, I work with a lot of lawyers. My guess is that she's the type who impresses her clients by acting "tough," but who can't get decent results because none of her opposing counsel will deal with her. Remember this if you ever have to pick a lawyer.