Advocacy & Safety - what is it with drivers? some of them actually try to hit me...

Hi, I am a road cycler in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I've had two really weird incidents lately when riding my bike. The first one, was two weeks ago, I was minding my business on my side of the road, and there weren't any cars on my side. Then, ahead of me, a car made a left turn onto the road I was on, he was going in the opposite direction as me, and was on his side of the road. Then all of a sudden, he turned diagonally so his lights were facing me directly, and accelerated. i was thinking to myself 'oh my god i am going to die', and i could not believe that a car was actually going after me head on, a lot of bikers worst nightmare. so before i knew it, the car had swerved into me, and i was up on the curb, and the driver stared out his window at me, then he sped on and went back to his side of the road. i am so pissed i could not get the license plate number or throw a heavy rock at his windshield or something. i felt like killing him. i think stuff like this happens a lot, and the drivers are trying to play a stupid joke.

okay, another thing happened to me and it was actually earlier today. everyday I do 10 laps around this lake, and i usually have no trouble with motorists. but today i noticed a car doing the laps with me, which is very odd, at first i thought he was trying to say something to me, but then i ignored it. then later the next time he passed me, he was in fact yelling F*** you the whole entire time to me. I just hate drivers like that it pisses me off. and being on a bike theres not much i can do about it. do any of you have similar experiences like this? how do you deal with it usually? especially in a situation like the first one?

Here's what you do:

1. Remove yourself from harm.

2. Call the police.

Step two is more effective if you took the plates between the event and step one. In either case, the single worst thing you can do expend energy immersing yourself further into the situation, rather than extricating yourself from it.

Other general strategies I use to avoid such situations are staying away from large or heavily trafficked roads. If you live in a bike-lane/sidewalk/MUP-friendly town, I'd suggest employing those options in place of large streets whenever possible.

And here I thought the Twin Cities were KINDA bike-friendly!

I've had paranoid fantasies about having to deal with things like this, usually after a near-miss (like back in June, a high-speed buzz by a full-sized Chevy PU), but I've never heard of it actually happening.

Check into the laws about carrying pepper spray; if they're that close to you, you're in danger, and are entitled to defend yourself.

Then all of a sudden, he turned diagonally so his lights were facing me directly, and accelerated.

Same thing happened to me years ago while riding with a friend on a 2-lane state highway with no traffic on a Sunday morning. A male driving a pick-up (of course?) wearing a Stetson (it was rural) with his tobacco-chewin' (I presume) "lady" at his side on the bench seat crossed the double-yellow and put his wheels right on the fog line my side of the road. I was the lead rider, and I could plainly see the fellow had not fallen asleep and was looking right at me. All I did was put my head down and look at my feet and the fog line. I did not budge one inch and neither did my companion. The driver swerved back into his lane once he realized I was not looking at him.

Ain't that sum fun? They probably just left church.

Same thing happened to me years ago while riding with a friend on a 2-lane state highway with no traffic on a Sunday morning. A male driving a pick-up (of course?) wearing a Stetson (it was rural) with his tobacco-chewin' (I presume) "lady" at his side on the bench seat crossed the double-yellow and put his wheels right on the fog line my side of the road. I was the lead rider, and I could plainly see the fellow had not fallen asleep and was looking right at me. All I did was put my head down and look at my feet and the fog line. I did not budge one inch and neither did my companion. The driver swerved back into his lane once he realized I was not looking at him.

Ain't that sum fun? They probably just left church.

Ay yay yay. You are nuts. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn't somewhat in awe...

Paul Nicholas:

It won't be any encouragement to know that the same thing has happended to me while I was driving a 9,000 pound vehicle. Today I had a small, small car try to do a head-on with me. If I had not evaded and braked we would have crunched. Yesterday, a vehicle went from the right hand lane on a four lane road across my lane and into the left turn lane. Then it turned left without waiting for the light. These are just the latest.

There must be a lot of ego-centric people who have barely suppressed anger combined with a near terminal lack of intelligence.

But, there are also many drivers who look out for me on my bike and really help me. Unfortunately, although the rectal orifices are few they make a disturbance all out of proportion to their numbers.

Paul Nicholas:

Also being a bicycle driver in Minneapolis/St. Paul I have one question? Were you stopping for the stop signs? When I am stopped with the car traffic waiting a stop light, or stop sign, and another bicycle driver blows it off I check the faces of the car drivers. If the other bicycle driver is a child the car drivers are pretty cool with it, everybody watches the kid until he/she has cleared the intersection and then we all go back to driving. On the other hand if the other bicycle driver is an adult the car drivers are visibly irritated.

ATAC49er:

Odd thing about the Twin Cities, in the thousands of road miles I've ridden here, I have rarely had an issue with car drivers. But over my regular route I have had other bicycle drivers cut me off, ignore my right of way, endanger my life by pissing off the car drivers around me, etc, etc. So I'm thinking the car drivers are friendly enough if you follow the rules but don't count on the other bicycle drivers being friendly.

About once a month it seems like I get teenagers yelling dumb stuff at me. Always boys, always at least 3 of them in the car, guess there really isn't much else to do in this town. There was one time when I was on the sidewalk (I always check for peds and yield to them, I would rather not take my chances on the street with the way people drive around here), and all of a sudden I heard something hit near me as a car came by. I realized that someone in the car had tried to hit me with the remains of his Circle K Thirst buster. Has the car continued past some punk kid was hanging out the window and decided to call me a ******.