Rich331

Unfortunately I lost my cool on a ride today. I was going on my normal route which is a 45mph road, one lane each direction with no shoulder. I was moving along about 22-23mph when a truck and car (two in each vehicle) passed me pretty close. The driver of the truck yelled some expletives. I ignored them and keep moving along.

About a 1/4 mile ahead they pulled over and start talking to each other. When I caught up to them the driver cursed at me again and told me to "get the F--- off the road". My blood hit it's boiling point and I yelled "F--- OFF"!

About a mile down the road the truck passed me again and cursed at me again. I did not see the other vehicle and became a little concerned, so I pulled over and waited for a minute. Sure enough the car came down the road, the passenger yelled and cursed at me as they drove by. I waved him to come back but they continued down the road.

In the past, I have had the typical horn honk and once a yell as I was passed. Up until this point, I have been able to ignore this but I have never had a group get this aggressive. Anyway, after the fact, I'm not to happy with myself for losing my temper. It could have become really ugly.

tkehler

I agree, that was a bit scary, given the isolation.

I NEVER challenge drivers unless there are other people or traffic around. (It's not smart to challenge drivers ever, but it's not like I'll learn to abstain from the odd finger or expletive or attempted cutting remark.)

One I do when riding is to yell at obnoxious drivers who speed thru School Zones -- the WORST offenders, bar none, are women drivers, moms who have just dropped their little angels off and are suddenly in a hurry to violate all known traffic by-laws. Every morning dropping my kids off I see some invariably obese chick in a minivan or hatchback yak on a cell phone (now illegal) or back blindly in an intersection, or speed off while yelling goodbye out the window to some person.

With gals, I just shake my head or ask them to slow down.

With guys, I yell stuff as they speed or veer crazily thru School Zones: "hey, don't you have kids? Or wouldn't your boyfriend let you adopt?"

Luckily I'm a big guy, and able to ride away in a hurry. Also, I'm in Canada where there are fewer firearms.

ls01

You didnt do anything wrong.1) They are clearly wrong in telling you to get off the road 2) They are not law enforcement and have no authority to tell you to do anything. What they did is called aggressive driving and is a ticket able offense. However next time get a tag # and call the local constabulary and make a report, in the end it will still come down to your word against theirs but if thing do escalate then there is a record of the aggression. You arent a machine sometimes it happens. Dont beat yourseelf up over it.

Born

I’m usually pretty nice, but while on the bike I can become a major SOB. It’s a tough life on these streets got to defend yourself . I have heard of bike messengers slashing people’s tires at stop lights and I think you are far from that! I agree the best thing is to always try and keep your cool. I’m afraid someday somebody will pull an Easy Rider on me.

MegaTom

I don't think he was second guessing his behavior because of some moral or legal rationale, but because it's not that smart of a thing to do. Especially when you're in an isolated area with a lack of witnesses where the driver can do some pretty serious damage to a guy on a bike if his road rage took him to that level. Obviously the driver was already suffering from some bit of the road rage, and it could have very easily been escalated another notch or two because of the cyclist's reaction.

Rich331

Thanks for the support guys. Yeah later when I cooled down, I was thinking things could have turned out not good for me. I was on a rural road not many cars around. One guy against possibly four, not too good odds.

KiuBWhy

Just always play the "smile and wave" game. And to second what others have said, don't escalate the situation when there's no one else around.

patentcad

Let it go young Padaweenie.

monsterkidz

I had the unfortunate experience of beating the piss out of a driver in the Bronx who intentionally swerved into the bike lane and almost took out my wife. I say unfortunate, because even though I won the fight, the whole experience screwed me up for days. It's really scary to see someone you love almost get run down by some mid 20s d-bag in a car.

Rich331

LOL. The sad thing is, I'm not that young!!

Dxisocos

Lol. Same here, but its still scary to have cars tailing you if you piss them off enough.
I've always thought that if i could bike fast enough, the cars drivers won't be as angry. But the funny thing is, why can't they just go over the lane a bit and pass us bikers. When i drive, I usually do that, giving the biker plenty of space to feel safe.

Reggieb

I lost my cool once. I got my first bike at the end of college, I had rowed, and needed something to do. I started riding around and outside a college town, lots of cyclists, so the drivers were very used to them. When I was home visiting, went on a long ride, and there are NO cyclists in my home town. TONS of people were honking at me, but one guy just LAID on his horn and swore at me for being on the road. (for reference, here is code from the state of Michigan "A moped or low-speed vehicle shall not be operated on a sidewalk constructed for the use of pedestrians.")

About 1/4 of a mile up, he is stopped at a red light, I come up next to him, unclip my left foot, and stop. He leans over, and starts cursing at me again. I just lost it, I leaned over and yelled at him "It's illegal for me to ride on the f****** sidewalk, you f****** a******" He mentioned something about how he would kick my a**. I am a big dude, so I unclipped the other foot, and stood up, and invited him to step on out of the vehicle. He did not oblige.

Anyhow, this was not one of my brighter moments, but the point is, it can happen. Especially if you are tired after a long ride, maybe a little hungry, or just in a bad mood already. We are both lucky things turned out alright in the end. We just have to be careful when we know that were in a bad mood, especially!

EDIT: I now live in Georgia, not Michigan, and the people are a lot nicer around here, haha!

Cat4Lifer

You know, something somewhat similar happened to me a few months ago, and felt pretty bad about it after I calmed down.

A "mid-sized" SUV was encroaching in on me while I was riding in a bike-lane; I guess she was try to circumnavigate traffic to get up corner to make her right turn. In effect, she was using the bike-lane as if it were an extension of the right-hand turning-lane. As she got closer and I passed along her right, I reached out to tap/bang on her window--both to let her know I was there and as a punitive action--and I accidently hit her mirror.

Upset, she revved up the engine of her SUV behind me and acted as if she was gonna run me over; I just stopped at the light and just turned to look at her. She started yelling at me and telling me to "f'-off" and that I had no business hitting her car. I responded by yelling back at her and calling her a "b'tch" and she should just learn to drive and STFU. After a few seconds of this tasteless behavior she tells me "And you know what else? You need cycle harder, because you're fat!" I could not help but laugh at that. She was right; I am fat. My reaction to her insult seemed to anger her even more, which made me laugh even more.

Anyway, the light turned green and I rode off and she turned right. Afterward I felt pretty embaressed over my behavior. I should have explained to her that I meant to tap her window to let her know she was turning into my path and that I accidently hit her mirror. That may not have curbed her behavior, but at least I wouldn't have acted like an ass.

spry

Lean over and shoot the guy a "moon"as he passes you.

*Don't try this stunt in Frisco.

Snowman219

I carry a bloody hook and a severed arm on the outside of my pack, never any problems.

gitarzan

While it was not on a bike, I recently got in a yelling match with some dude who was in a turn lane and suddenly rolled back into traffic, cutting me off. And HE was mad at me for surprising him!

My blessing was that his license plate was "BIG MRON". BIG MRON. I guessed it meant Big Myron, but made sure he knew that I interpreted it otherwise.

JMallez

I lost my cool the other day on a ride, the road was completely empty then an 18 wheeler comes from behind decides not to scoot over or change lanes to pass us (me and another guy were riding single file), so he passes us in the same lane we are riding in! The wind (and my own nervousness from being so close to such a huge truck) almost made me fall. If I would have fallen who knows how many of his tires would have ran me over. He finally passes (seemed like an eternity) and I started provoking him, for the next couple of miles I wished I would have caught up to him or he would have stopped, I wasn't thinking about if he had a gun or not, just about what i wanted to do to him if i caught him at a stop...

Another time a guy was honking and yelling at me and the gf as we were on a the road (a slow, not busy road) and it was her first time. I would have lost my cool if i wasn't wearing the company jersey and if the guy wasn't in a $100k car and probably the ceo at one of our clients :-s

But seriously all these idiots in cars, i just want to put them on a road bike, be an a$$ to them and see how they like it...my bet is they don't know how dangerous it is out there for us.

Velo Vol 

Don't tick off drivers--it rarely leads to anything good.

KiuBWhy

They know how dangerous it is. They just don't care.

kleinboogie

I had a close call today to, kid was passing around a blind corner and we almost met. When I come across drivers behaving badly I just imagine they're having a bad day or are clueless. In either case there's nothing I can say that can make them or me feel better so I just try to get as far away from them as quickly as possible. It's one second of terror, frustration or confusion. Compared to the hours of enjoyment I'm engaged in riding my bike it's totally irrelevant. Enjoy

Phiberglass

I keep a 8" long philips screw driver on my bike. A punch to the fender with the screw driver puts a nice sized hole. They don't know what hit them until they get home.

Mr.Barbeque!

Giving someone the finger or saying "F off" is expected but doing something like this will send someone in a complete rage as they drive on. I have yet been able to do this, only riding a week, but when I have been driving and someone starts in with me, I do my thumb on nose finger wiggle and they go nuts...I always win!

Shuke

Exactly. If they pass you too closely or cut you off, just give them a sarcastic wave like "thanks jack*ss" and mutter "thanks for all the room d-----bag". They'll think "oh gosh, the bike-rider guy is graciously thanking me for giving him tons of room! What a nice fellow!" while you get to keep all of your limbs and bike frame intact..lucky you.

urbanknight

I started trying to implement the "smile and wave" method and it usually works just fine... as well as just ignoring them. I agree that it's not smart to start things because they have the bigger vehicle, especially since in your case there were more of them. In cases where they escalate it without my contribution, I pull out my cell phone and casually take a picture of their plate or type it into a text message. I would happily explain that I'm sending it to my wife, but they always seem to get the idea without asking.

WCroadie

+1 and usually the advice I follow, last week tho after several unnecessary close calls, some big fat a-hole decides to lay on the horn cause the courteous driver in front of him was giving me plenty of room while going up a small hill near my home. I wave the kind driver around and swung out into the lane, looked back to see a huge pig of a driver waving and freaking out, honking, cursing etc. As I heard them speed up to pass me I took out my half filled water bottle and launched it into the side of their car. They never slowed. I usually ignore the a-hole out there but I snapped that day. I do not recommend doing what I did. You never know in this crazy world who will pull out a gun or just swerve into you.

It happens, stay safe out there.