I know of someone that does carry a gun on his commute! The other day a dog attacked him within the city limits and he shot it! The police came and said they were having troubles with the owners of the dog (meth abuse) so it was okay! I'd hate to be the motorist that honked at him.

I had an incident a few weeks ago. I was on the last 2 miles of a 70+ mile ride and was getting pretty tired. There is a bike path on this part of the route, but it goes back and forth across the rode and at that point I was not interested in stopping and walking my bike across the cross walk. So I was riding on the shoulder. 99% of the people were having no trouble with me there but one butthead in a big red, doolie pickup honked right in my ear and yelled "bike path" at me. Scared the snot out of me!

The one good thing it did, though, was make me ride faster. I wanted so badly to catch up with him, put on my sweetest face and say "I'm sorry you had such a hard time going by me. No one else did. Maybe that penis substitute that you're driving is too big for you, hmmm?"

My booboo- I meant to say the GREEN light was about to turn yellow. The gumbas in the car were stopped at a red light.

I hate hwn people yell "BIKE PATH!" I saw some shmuck in a fancy car yell at some kid on a bike (not a roadie, just some teenager on a mountain bike), who was going along a busy street and minding all the rules. He yelled "GET ON THE SIDEWALK!" Yeah, that makes sense, endanger the pedestrians.

Horn blowers I've encountered have been treated to any of the following returns

• wave and smile, personnally I think this is best
• the bird
• stopped dead in my tracks in front of car and asked driver repeatedly if they are in a hurry, then I explained that if they are in a hurry I will do my best to get out of the way. This went on while the traffic light turned from green to yellow to red two times and the driver sat in the car with the windows up, sweating profusely.
• chased, caught, threatened to pull driver from car and beat him senseless (to late)
• chased and caught without being noticed, leaned low and close enough to scream in passenger's ear at the top of my lungs, laughed as driver headed for carwash to clean upholstery
• chased, caught, rode slowly in front of vehicle while offering to call police from cell phone to discus bicyclist's rights to the road
• spotted car / driver an hour later in town after country road encounter and berated a confession and apology from him while I clutched cell phone in one hand and Halt pepper spray in the other.

Again, a wave and smile are probably the best since you never know what kind of phsyco you are dealing with, think about it, what if they are as crazy as you? - and - There is always the possibility that your actions will escalate the drivers distain for cyclist and the next rider may recieve more than a horn blast.

KleinMp99 it seems that your #1 answer is always the middle finger! But, i with you! when people do that yo me, i just wave for flick them off!

for the most part i freak out when i hear some one honk (cuz im on a back road and deep in thought or some thing). The worst that has happened was i moved into the path of the car that honked and then they stopped and i sayed some choice words. I dunno i stay away from roads now!(now that i have my mt. bike)

Jared

In New Jersey it is an offense under the criminal code, it comes under harassment. It states that any alarming conduct with the
purpose to alarm or seriously annoy another.

If you get the license plate and a description of the operartor you could go that route.

But if you take any other action it just shows that that person(s) are controlling you. A simple wave or peace sign and just keep the cadene steady.

The worst honks are when they start about 100 yards behind you and hit their horns all the way until they are 100 yards in front of you, damn i hate people sometimes i nearly fall off my bike and have a heart attack when they do that. And to top it all of it is ussually from behind me so i dont know if they are planning on swerving into me or what. One time when i was riding in the country I had a car full of hicks pull up and say they could get me arrested for riding where i was. I was riding on the edge of a rarely travelled country road. Also many a times I've had things thrown at me, ussually only along bigger busier roads though I ussually have less problems riding on country roads unless it is at night when all the high schoolers go to their drinking stations. Sometimes i wish i lived in Europe so you could know all the honks were friendly.

You are sorely mistaken.. I live in the Netherlands which is considered by many as the most bike friendly country.. HAH
NOT!! We have bike - apartheid, which means mandatory bike paths. When you step out of the line, that is, take the lane because of the appalling state of these paths : bricks, tiles, uprooted trees, cars start honking menacingly, drive by very very closely and I've had it happened that they stop very suddenly right in front of me and start threatening.
I had this happen 3 days ago when I simply crossed a main traffic light rather than the bike traffic light where you have to push a button, the main t.l. is both easier and safer..
At the other side, a car started honking and blocked the path further on... he was an off-duty cop who threatened me to give a fine and gave me a lecture... OH I HATE THIS f***ing country sometimes...
BUt if you're obliging to the rules, and don't mind waiting 2 times to go left, pushing 1000 buttons to get across and don't mind averaging just 15 km/hr , be our guest..

But if you want friendly honks, Newfoundland, Canada is the ONLY place to go... never before did I receive that many friendly honks.. mind you, there's an awesome wind to battle there, so they are thinking to encourage a mad guy/girl.

Ivana

It happened to me yesterday, near the end of a 25 mile ride. We had just gotten back into town and were lugging uphill on a curving road. I don't like this road and normally avoid it but bridge construction has made it the most viable route.

A young woman with a hairstyle left over from the 80's (Put down the hairspray and step away from the mirror) driving a gigantic white-trash land cruiser didn't like us being there. She hit the horn three times as she passed.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

I gave her a big, cheesey smile and an enthusiastic wave. I don't think she liked it. She hit the horn again.

BEEEEEEP!

after getting things thrown at me (a lit cigarette being the worst) a honk is not that bad. there are plenty of grown ups that don't know how to 'use their words' when out of a vehicle, so what makes us think that they can verbalize or even just 'deal' with their frustrations in a constructive manner. i had a guy in a conversion van, with little kids in it yell and cus at me that i should be on a sidewalk somewhere.

Life is a long race, and i always imagine the rude people i encounter as blowing a gasket many miles from the finish (fancy way of saying heart attack or stroke in their 50's)

YOU DON'T SUPPOSE there is an SUV Forums where there are people who say log on and say "and once, i had to alter my course and swerve into the other lane of oncoming traffic - well, there was no car there at the time and there was only me and that damn bike on the road..... but he expected me to just ease over a wee bit as if to say 'hello, i'm out for a little ride....beautiful day for a bike ride/......and then he said Merry XMas to me!!!! he must have been on drugs' i read in the paper that all those bike riders are on EPO and steroids and they have the 'roid rage, man!!! they scare me, so i honk and speed around to get the hell out of ther!!!!"

I once had a dog bark at me, it was leaning out of the back window of a car, and it unleashed one hell of a WOOOOOFFF as it passed me. I swear this beasts teeth was a few millimeters from my ear when he barked. I had to replace my cycling shorts.....

I have only had one incendent worth recounting, riding to town with a coupla friends, we had firecrackers thrown at us, fooled them tho we didn't fall down or go off into the ditch, HA!!
Seems we need some new inovative equipment. A helmet cam that records both front and reat views, and a bicycle pump stout enough to defend against the avarage doberman yet still inflate tires afterwardsand only be a pound heaver than a regular one.
As a farmer and old tractor fan I have similar proablems with selfish drivers, at least gravel roads get me off the paving.
kev

One time, this SOB in his huge mac cargo truck gave me a big honker as he drove buy, for no reason at all. I wasn't even in his way. I flicked him off so I would feel justified!

What is worse than honking is this experience I have had:

Why do we have the yellow warning line on train station plateforms? It's because if we are too near the edge, when a train speeds past, the low pressure air will suck you towards the moving train. Yes you will die.

What happened to me was once I was cycling with my friends along a wide and desserted road. We were one after another in a line along the side of the road and maintained about 20 meters gap. Then this huge truck( semi) drove by, and for no reason he was speeding and actually drove nearer to me as he passed by me. I felt a strong force sucking me towards the truck but I was lucky to be able to control myself. Then as the truck left me it returned to it's original driving line. What an a55 hole, he did it on purpose!

I get honked at, barked at and thrown things at. I have nerves of steel, I don't flinch or get flustered. If the steel box operators get their jollies by doing things to me, great, they are not bothering others while they're bothering me, and I don't care.

I've told this one before, but it has a backwards twist for this thread...

I was at the end of my 14 mile commute in afternoon traffic. A small downhill alongside a long line of trapped motor vehicles, at the bottom, a traffic light...no shoulder.

Three pedestrians making their way towards me against traffic, as the custom is with no sidewalk. I slow down, but no give. I persist moving slowly, hoping they'll see I have no where else to go (they can walk a few feet in the gravel edge, right?) They finally step off the street, and I increase speed a little bit downhill towards the light. The biggest guy sticks his arm straight out at me, fist balled, elbow pointed backwards ("clothesline") about my neck level.

I held up my right arm to block--NEVER DO THIS. As soon our arms connected it was like catching your handlebar on a fencepost. My front wheel turned sideways and I went over the bars on my head/face.

Twist: as I revived (bloody and dazed,) there were at least four motorists who were not in such a hurry that they couldn't stop to see if I was ok. (I think they were a little frightened at my appearance as I thanked them.) They waited until the ambulance arrived. (All four were African-American women, I think because of the area where it happened. They were so caring...)

Wouldn't want to do it again, though!

Did you ever manage to catch up to the guy that put his arm out or manage to get the police after him, maybe one of the people who stopped could identify him.

Lots of willing witnesses, police report filed, but no arrests.

I have had the same close calls that you all have. I live out here in rural northwestern kansass(not misspelled) and have to put up with a lot of guff. There are lots of awesome trails and fishing holes around here to find, but you have to travel many miles of wasteland to find them, and by doing so, you encounter the inbred mechanic who is out testing his blown hotrod that he built for a 100 bucks, and thinks that you are the best thing to aim at since he has killed all the local wildlife already. I work full time for a fireworks distributor, and get my hands on some pretty interesting things, plus I have discovered how to build my own little toys. So whenever I get bumped off the road, I just let them go by, and later that night, it's funny to watch him scatter in four different directions at once cause he thinks that osama bin laden is over his house.

Now that's funny!

if a guy stuck out his arm to knock me off, i think i'd stick out my foot about nut level and give a good swift kick.