Originally Posted by BenyBen
why are you taking politics in here?
I think this is def blowing out of proportions. Jev. You can't control the actions of your gf. But perhaps you could've followed her to make sure she was allright. If you didn't perform an agressive gesture on an allready agravated driver things would've been fine. Spit on a windshield, who cares right? Well most allready pissed off idiots do.
You seem to want ppl to agree with you that this driver was bad and stupid. I totaly agree with that. You do NOT take a heavy vehicle and ram into someone else just because you're pissed off, I totaly give you that. But I think in the end you need to sit down and think about the fact that because of your gesture, you got in trouble. Yes he's an idiot, but you baited that idiot.
BenyBen, I think we're basically agreeing here. I definitely would counsel against doing exactly what I did -- it's cost me over a $150 so far, and I didn't get anything out of it except a (mildly) interesting story, and a bone to pick. I completely accept that this could have been avoided,
should have been avoided by me. So I'm completely accepting responsibility for my actions.
What I'm having trouble understanding about the knee-jerk it's-your-fault reaction here is that these bicyclists seem to think that it's incompatible to think that you can both take responsibility for your own fault in a situation, yet still justifiably want to hold the other person responsible too. My girlfriend didn't just take after that guy because she didn't like his face, he was driving dangerously and aggressively
towards her. Of course, we can agree that the best way to deal with such a person in any given situation is to avoid their path -- I certainly learned my lesson there. But people like that kill bicyclists and pedestrians anyway, regardless of their attitudes. Now, I'm not suggesting that spitballs are the ammo bicyclists need to fight road rage, or that telling bad drivers to eff off is somehow effective anger management. But I am firmly of the opinion that guys who intentionally crash their cars into bikes need to have their drivers licenses taken away.