I am a very strong and bold character. People can tell by my American flag pants. Nobody wants a round-house kick delivered to their face by old red, white, n' blue. But for the longest time - literally days - I'd start out each day attempting to be a pu**y and enjoy the ride. But within a few pedal strokes, this testosterone-supplement induced rage would seep up from the region of my American flag pants.

Some guy would cut me off, and because I was filled with berserker rage, I'd not be ready for it, and have to break hard. So it's back to battle-mode for me.

You cut me off, you don't use your turn signal, you double park - I piss on your car. I piss on the windows, and if they are down, I piss on the upholstery. It's a dog eat dog world out their, and I am an alpha dog who will eat, and not be eaten.

All you pu**ies out their are pansies. You sorry ninnies just cringe and lurk on the side of the road, waiting to be injured. Not me. I drink your milkshake! I drink it up! and then I piss on your car!

LOL that is very very amusing. "I drink your milkshake!"

can i still do the "hang up the cellphone and DRIVE!" hand gesture or is that too confrontational for you milquetoasts? :D

Please don't use exclamation points or type words in all caps. It makes me tremulous.

Please don't use exclamation points or type words in all caps. It makes me tremulous.
:roflmao:
+1 for comedic use of the word tremulous.

I wouldn't recommend passivity in the face of deliberately aggressive driving. I would say however that much of what appears as deliberately aggressive is actually just clueless, distracted driving. Cyclists historically have a difficult time discerning the difference. Someone who rode around assuming that all the bad, dangerous driving they see is deliberate would certainly end up with some kind of epic persecution complex.

I recommend riding in a way that is assertively considerate. There is no compelling safety reason to ride like a $!@#.

Robert

what he said ^^^^^^^^^^^

Please don't use exclamation points or type words in all caps. It makes me tremulous.

BikeForums is not a place for those of a typographically sensitive disposition. I have occasionally had the misfortune to happen upon a few posts by ne'er-do-wells who combine large characters (sometimes 14 or bigger!) with gaudily coloured fonts - this is a sure-fire recipe for nauseating pizza prose.

As a fellow "tim'rous beastie", I advise extreme caution when scanning threads as only yesterday I vomited on my keyboard, mouse and mouse mat after seeing one of ChipSeal's unnecessarily chromatic posts.

BikeForums is not a place for those of a typographically sensitive disposition. (snip)

I advise extreme caution when scanning threads, as only yesterday I vomited on my keyboard, mouse and mouse mat after seeing one of ChipSeal's unnecessarily chromatic posts.

I am glad to meet a fellow trepidatious hanky-twister. Together we can monitor that ChipSeal fellow. ;)

I find myself agreeing with everything Zeytoun says.

Still, I feel safer riding with just a little anger. I think it has saved my life in unmeasurable ways.

Now dobutsuen, when you are the most vulnerable element in the equation (car versus bike) you have to yield. Now the problem is that your aggressive behaviour leads drivers to think all cyclists are like you. So some mum on her charinko gets run down because of your bad behaviour.

Get a grip on it. The road you are riding was not built for bikes; it was built for cars. If a car (hypothetically) goes into the domain of cyclists (like an MUP) they have to behave differently to accommodate the MUP users. You need to change your behaviour for the rest of us!

Now the problem is that your aggressive behaviour leads drivers to think all cyclists are like you. So some mum on her charinko gets run down because of your bad behaviour....

...You need to change your behaviour for the rest of us!

IMO, this reasoning is dead wrong. Drivers don't go around with vendettas against cyclists. Even a driver who has been aggressively or even violently confronted for their dangerous driving will at the very least be somewhat more aware. They will not become homicidal. The contention that they'll be driving around looking to run down cyclists is too ridiculous for words, yet it seems to be a popular sentiment among cyclists.

IMO, this reasoning is dead wrong. Drivers don't go around with vendettas against cyclists. Even a driver who has been aggressively or even violently confronted for their dangerous driving will at the very least be somewhat more aware. They will not become homicidal. The contention that they'll be driving around looking to run down cyclists is too ridiculous for words, yet it seems to be a popular sentiment among cyclists.
I agree with the vendetta thing, but I've caught crap from people that drive cars that are like "you aren't one of those cyclists are you", the ones that run red lights, vandalize like children (LOL OP), etc. So on a less serious level, yes the nice cyclists that wave and smile catch **** because of idiots.

Currently my bike is not in a condition to ride, and riding to work looks like it will be not an option anymore. :(

I don't like the word "assertive", especially when combined with "aggressive" being as well the dictionary definition of assertive has the word aggressive in it, makes me feel like people are using an alternate meaning for it... or really don't know what it really means.

I don't ride aggressively, I know it's a battle I cannot win if it comes down to contact sports. I don't ride passively because I don't just kind of wander around without any real reaction to whats going on. I think the best way to put it is the same way I drive. I ride and drive defensively, I keep notes of what cars are where dependent on where was the last place I saw them and their relative speeds, I keep lookouts for possible hazards and plan things ahead, and to be honest I've only been cut off once at an intersection when someone turned in front of me, but they had plenty of room to do it, but there was no signal or anything.

Really it comes down to this: Sticking it out isn't doing anything, motorists aren't learning, idiots are using it as an excuse to be a dick, and it just puts you at more risk of being a report on the back of some no-named newspaper and another number in a statistic that most of America doesn't give a **** about. I'll keep living and make my peace with the fact that people are generally self-centered twats, and that cycling is not the solution.

Typically, much like driving, a lot of the issues are going to stem from your outlook while out there, if you ride with almost an insane urge to have trouble thrown at you, you're going to get it often. Really I think 95% of attitudes between cyclists and drivers alike are almost practically the same, as much as cyclists and motorists would hate to hear it. I'll see cyclists and motorists alike throw their hands up and roll their eyes throwing a fit over the same damn things they could have avoided had they been observing their environment a little more in depth.


Summed up:
Karma is a *****.

i started this thread, quite a while ago it seems; thanks everyone for reading and posting. Saturday, in downtown DC, i had another incident which taught me a few things. A cab blatently cut me off, to where I had to lock up the brakes, he was looking at me the entire time. I don't think he recognized me from this site, he is an as*hole, and commercially using our infrastructure. I followed him pretty casually for about three blocks where I overtook him. He hit on a fare on the oncoming side of the street, where he K turned around almost hitting two bikers screaming at him. No exaggeration. The hack said " it's not my problem, fuc* you!!! " Then I crossed the road swept by him, forcing my palm against the left mirror, and just hurt my hand!! No mirror detachment. Lesson learned: Priceless! 'get hank of rebar.' At least next time I'll smash out the mirror, proper. I am even more resigned to teach these as*holes some etiquette. If you don't think he'll reflect on that, and the fact that, especially in urban settings, we can easily catch up with these cretins, you deserve all the inequity you get.

In my mind you're just as bad as them, actually you'd probably be worse than 99% of the drivers complained about here behind the wheel, you have self control and violent tendency problems, along with a complete lack of respect for other people's property.

People like you are the problem.

i started this thread, quite a while ago it seems; thanks everyone for reading and posting. Saturday, in downtown DC, i had another incident which taught me a few things. A cab blatently cut me off, to where I had to lock up the brakes, he was looking at me the entire time. I don't think he recognized me from this site, he is an as*hole, and commercially using our infrastructure. I followed him pretty casually for about three blocks where I overtook him. He hit on a fare on the oncoming side of the street, where he K turned around almost hitting two bikers screaming at him. No exaggeration. The hack said " it's not my problem, fuc* you!!! " Then I crossed the road swept by him, forcing my palm against the left mirror, and just hurt my hand!! No mirror detachment. Lesson learned: Priceless! 'get hank of rebar.' At least next time I'll smash out the mirror, proper. I am even more resigned to teach these as*holes some etiquette. If you don't think he'll reflect on that, and the fact that, especially in urban settings, we can easily catch up with these cretins, you deserve all the inequity you get.

I'm with you daibutsu. I understand "mistakes", I make them also. I DON'T accept blatant attempts on my life as mistakes and I do follow your philosophy. As for as giving biking a bad name, as far as I can tell around here, bikes had it long before I started riding.

That's the spirit OP!!!

Don't let these spineless A&S fred handwringers tell you different!
Your one post was worth more than 5 years of A&S blather and whining.

i started this thread, quite a while ago it seems; thanks everyone for reading and posting. Saturday, in downtown DC, i had another incident which taught me a few things. A cab blatently cut me off, to where I had to lock up the brakes, he was looking at me the entire time. I don't think he recognized me from this site, he is an as*hole, and commercially using our infrastructure. I followed him pretty casually for about three blocks where I overtook him. He hit on a fare on the oncoming side of the street, where he K turned around almost hitting two bikers screaming at him. No exaggeration. The hack said " it's not my problem, fuc* you!!! " Then I crossed the road swept by him, forcing my palm against the left mirror, and just hurt my hand!! No mirror detachment. Lesson learned: Priceless! 'get hank of rebar.' At least next time I'll smash out the mirror, proper. I am even more resigned to teach these as*holes some etiquette. If you don't think he'll reflect on that, and the fact that, especially in urban settings, we can easily catch up with these cretins, you deserve all the inequity you get.

Did you do this on your Birdy?

I'm with you daibutsu. I understand "mistakes", I make them also. I DON'T accept blatant attempts on my life as mistakes and I do follow your philosophy. As for as giving biking a bad name, as far as I can tell around here, bikes had it long before I started riding.

If you really feel they're attempts on your life, you do the world no justice by slapping mirrors, you just look like a **** and get absolutely nothing done. It's like TPing someone's house that murdered someone, then running around puffing out your chest saying "ha-ha! I made the world a better place!". Nevermind the fact that breaking mirrors makes it so you'll have no ground to stand on if the police do get involved. Not to mention I'd trust a tweaker to give me more straight a story than the OP's one-sided BS.

Either:
A) "Attempts on your life" is nothing of the sort, and you're using it for dramatic effect (we're out of high school, stop that).
B) You're life is apparently worth $40.


Sometimes I wish more insane people drove cars and carried guns.

Dude quit being a *****. If someone cuts you off, blatantly, you're going to just shrug it off and keep riding? You pansie, justice must be served. You don't just turn the other cheek like zombie jesus tells you, you give it back to them. It's a dog eat dog world out there, especially in the urban setting of DC. And why do you care about a mirror anyway? Break that ****.

Dude quit being a *****. If someone cuts you off, blatantly, you're going to just shrug it off and keep riding? You pansie, justice must be served. You don't just turn the other cheek like zombie jesus tells you, you give it back to them. It's a dog eat dog world out there, especially in the urban setting of DC. And why do you care about a mirror anyway? Break that ****.

said the pup to the big dawgs from his lair under the porch.

Fred's... :rolleyes:

I'd trust a tweaker ...

What is a tweaker?

It's a dog eat dog world out there, especially in the urban setting of DC.

This urban setting seems fine to me.

This urban setting seems fine to me.

But it ain't what he saw on TV!