A Friendly Message to Angry Motorists
 

I got kinda tired of having people honk the crap out of their horns at me.
Just made up some little laminated cards with magnetic tape. I'll post one on the next car who blows by, honking away. Here's the text

Dear Motorist:

Based on your lengthy honk earlier, I am led to believe that you were resentful of having to travel behind myself, a slow commuter cyclist. I do understand that the 5 seconds which you lost traveling behind me were very precious to you, and am sorry that they were wasted. However, I think you should know that I and other commuter cyclists are extremely resentful of the fact that automobiles such as yours are responsible for filling the atmosphere with outrageous amounts of carbon dioxide, inducing global warming, and effectively destroying the planet for all of our children.



They're easy to make, I suggest trying it.

My prayers are with your family in their time of loss. You could have been a lot less harsh, you are going to get squished the second time they see you.

especially if they're some of the global warming denying PnRers around here. ;)

Laminated cards? Nah... I prefer U-lock through the window. :lol:

It's not around here I'd be worried about.

MO Bike Federation has the ability to look up addresses for MO Motorists by license plate, and they will mail a letter to the owner of the vehicle that was reported. Their letter is a bit nicer.

http://mobikefed.org/motoristcontactletter.html

:rolleyes:

He'll counter by complaining about the elevated amount of water vapor coming out of your mouth due to biking.

Condensed version:
"We know the horn blows. How 'bout the driver?" :)

:roflmao: Short and sweet!

:D :D :D

Condense your message!

Wear headphones and blast them at a high volume. Problem solved.
Either that or do what another poster said last week. Ride around saying to yourself that someone is going to honk at you. Sooner or later you will become impervious to sir smallshrinkydinksinahurry's impatient horn blast for costing him 2 seconds.

u-lock through the window and a message saying "now we both get to enjoy the winter equally"

How 'bout -> "this time it's a laminated card on the car, next time it might just be a few .45cal rounds through the driver..... be nice to cyclists"

... I wonder if my frame pump bracket would hold my breach loader .410 shotgun (I know it wouldn't hold my pump-action twelve...)

I wouldn't do it because it would make me seem like a weenus. but that's just me.

I'd have to agree there. ^^^ If I made one it would just say "Learn to drive"

Realistically, though, most of the time, I think the drivers are simply scared and worried. I don't get honked at a lot, but when I do, it's usually obvious that I'm an unexpected object and they feel a need to alert me, probably mostly to make sure I'm aware of their presence.

I used to be pretty generous with the finger in the past, but now I just let it be. If they have a problem with me, they have the problem. I don't improve things by making it my problem as well...

I admire your effort, but I am reminded of Diane on "Cheers." Some might see that as an insult, but I'm betting you'd take it as a compliment.
The tragic part is that drivers imagine themselves as cool renegades, cranking their tunes in their Boxes of Individuality. Your note would only confirm their self-image.
What we need are pop-cultural images that depict car drivers as aßholes. You know how in movies, the guy with the British accent is always a villain? That's what we need for cars. We need images of cyclists in films who are heroic rather than comic. A protagonist with a bike in a movie — like "I Love Huckabees" or "40-Year-Old Virgin" or "Rushmore" — is likely to represent a futile struggle. Unfortunately, movies are made in Hollywood, where the car is God. We need to counter that. We need to make a cool bike movie.
So, uh...get right on that, O.K.?

^ Exactly. James Bond needs to ride a Rayleigh on his next mission. I'm not saying it can't shoot missles, or have skis pop out from the downtube, but it should be peddle powered.

Fixed, not derailleured.


(I own the copyright on that. In case.)

Knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood...

I've not been honked at by a motorist yet...but the dualie pickumup trucks and muddy Pontiac TransAms that come up behind me love to roar by as though the idiots behind the wheel have got something special in their foot pressing the accelerator...

Besides, I'm 220#, 6' 5" and geeked out as an Old F*rt riding the biggest bike they've probably ever seen. My seat is up at the same height as most of their roofs so what are they going to do, mess wid' de ol' guy?

I DO like the idea of a paste-on card. But in composing your message, remember that if someone is too stupid to know the law or drive correctly, they are unlikely to be able to read sentences longer than twelve words or words longer than eight letters...:eek:

Somehow, I get an image of a scene in an Indiana Jones film in my head. You know the one where Indy faces a sabre-wielding guy, and Indy just smiles wryly, gets his revolver out and shoots the man down, before he even got close enough to make a scratch.


Put Bond on a bike, and you can be sure that his enemies will have an armed chopper ready to take off from a nearby rooftop, and we'd have something like the Indy scene above... :D

That message is your car honk. There's nothing friendly about it.

Does this include the hag that was behind me on her horn for 45 seconds on a country road that was flat for 3 miles in either direction, in a passing zone, with no one on the road but me and her? She could have safely, quickly, and easily passed me without slowing down. Nope, there the was, 4 feet from my back tire, laying on the horn, driving 15 miles per hour.

Then she peeled out and took off going about 65 on a 40 MPH road.

Most of the honks I get are either friendly meepmeeps (from people who honk whenever they see me, and I wave back) or they're these excessively long get-the-****-off-my-****ing-road-mother-****ing-bike-guy honks.

f4k cagers.

I have no sympathy for them. I would not waste my time in creating such elaborate decorations for their cages......