chirojeremy

I was on my way home from school today when I noticed a car honking behind me. There was no one behind him and I waved him over to pass me in the other lane. He breezes by me with about 2 feet to spare then cuts in front of me. After a few hundred feet I see him pulling into some IT company parking lot. So I decided to catch up to him and give him a little VC education! After he circled the lot a few times trying to find a parking spot, he saw me and pulled over. I pulled up along side his door and he proceeded to yell at me "do you know you are not allowed to ride on the street?". I was pissed! I yelled back at him "do you know I have as much of a right to that lane as any motorcycle or scooter?!" He said "you can not drive non motor vehicles on the street". I replied back "where was a supposed to ride, there is no sidewalk. I have every right to that lane, and if you want to test me, I have my cell phone in my bag and we can call a police officer to the scene and I will file harrassment charges on you for using your horn in a non emergency and threatening manner and we will see who is right!" He said "I dont want to test you, and you may be right". My parting words were "when was the last time you had driver's education? When you were 16? Maybe 40 years ago that was what the law state, but its not like that anymore. Maybe you should know what you are talking about before you honk".

I felt so good after that. Dont people understand that if you are going to harrass someone to not do it where you can be confronted shortly after that? What if I had a gun and a temper? Well, I have the temper. Thank God I dont allow myself to own a gun. lol

Ed Holland

...what if he had a gun and a temper. Anyway, well done to you.

gcottay

Best wishes in growing maturity and a long, happy life. In that last, I would advise not following and lecturing miscreant drivers. You may well find one of them willing to do you harm.

chirojeremy

I think I could have handled myself just fine. The way I see it is not as a sense of immaturity, but making the streets safer one driver at a time. He said he was going to look it up when he gets home. If he does that and is able to see I was right, he will be much more courteous to other cyclists on the road...

Ed Holland

Don't hold your breath...

genec

I carry small cards with me upon which are printed the laws of CA as they apply to cyclists... the first line starts with "21200. (a) Every person riding a bicycle upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this division..."

The cards are business size, and quite handy. In my over 30 years of cycling, I have come to find out that apparently it is my responsibility to train each and every darn motorist out there... OK, that is not really the case, but over the years it sure seems that way... time and time again I have had situations similar to your's; when clearly some motorist did not have a clue.

So in spite of how predictable and law abiding I may be, there are those motorists who just don't know, and will tend to treat cyclists in any way they feel fit.

I have posted the laws on the outside of my cube, and found that few of my co-workers were aware of the rights of cyclists... no surprise to me.

kjmillig

I carry cards with Texas bike law info when on my bike. But I also carry a gun legally. If someone followed me into a parking lot and approached my car I'd be reaching for it. Maybe they do have a temper and a weapon. I have a weapon and the training to keep a semi-cool head in a threatening situation. Don't pull up beside me and start screaming.

rando

you have good insurance, right?

Bekologist

i think it sounds like a potentially reasonable outcome to a possibly escalating and hazardous scenario.

most every driver I've had words with is all talk and no bluster but I've also had to use pepper spray and been chased thru residential districts by enraged motorists for just having words.

The motorists that are jackasses dont' know the rules of the road, are already dangerous drivers in and of itself. they don't care about road safety or bicyclists' rights.

I think massive public ad campaigns would serve us a lot better than the farfetched and highly unrealistic cyclist edication motive of the vc crewe.

chirojeremy

I was ready to go to blows with him if it came to that point. Not because I wanted to persay, but I knew it could happen. I am a pretty big guy, so I felt secure in my ability to defend myself..

chipcom 

Road rage is not vc, unless you subscribe to HH's (may he be lurking in peace) "Monkey See, Monkey Do" version of vc.

Bekologist

come on, chip..... if motorists rage, surely vc bicyclists must rage too

Feathers

talking guns & bodily violence will get this thread locked. stay on the cycling topic!!!

Bekologist

is it VC to act like a jackass motorist?

gcottay

Logic would suggest a "Yes" to this question.

• Vehicular cyclists are all humans.
• Every human is capable of jackass behavior.

Thus vehicular cyclists can accomplish jackass behavior.

chipcom 

Acting like a jackass is not one of the rules of the road..it's more like one of the rules of the road-rager.

Bekologist

VC and the ragin' cagers!

tete a tete, or turn the other cheek??

WWjfD?

John C. Ratliff

I was riding home this afternoon, and after going through an intersection, there was a region of the roadway that was definately one-lane each way, with no where to go on the outside but bad gravel. I let about three cars go by in the intersection, then proceeded to take the lane and ride in the right tire track, but far enough out that no one should be able to get by me without going into the other lane, across double yellow stripes. A car came behind me, went by me by a good five feet, but was three feet into the other lane with opposing traffic coming right at him. I was less than 20 yards from an area where I could go over into a bike lane when he passed.

Just after he passed me, there is a downhill where I got up to about 20 mph. The driver had already passed me, but less than 100 yards away he pulled into a filling station. I looked at my watch, and he had gained 10 seconds by the time I got to the filling station driveway, so I pulled in and went over to where he had stopped to fill his car. He was out, in the process of getting the gas, when I asked him why he had made the illegal pass to get by me? He replied, "I passed you by over five feet, so why is it an illegal pass?" I told him that he had to cross into opposing traffic, and that he had only gained ten seconds. Was that risk worth ten seconds? That was the question I left with him. He was driving a Farmer's Insurance vehicle.

I felt pretty good as I left for home.

John

noisebeam

I wouldn't have wasted my time. I have no issue if other drivers cross the double yellow to pass me when there is visibility and the opposing traffic didn't seem to be a safety problem in this case. A big so what from me.

Now if the passing driver or opposing drivers had to swerve or brake suddenly to avoid each other I could understand the issue, but still wouldn't have wasted my time.

Al

Ed Holland

This highlights some issues of road design. I notice in the USA, the default is for a double yellow line that indicates vehicles must stay to its right. Only rarely is this a dashed line. In the UK, the default on most roads is a dashed white line - meaning that crossing the centre line to overtake on single lane roads is legal. In places where overtaking would be dangerous, solid double white centre lines (not to be crossed in normal driving) are applied.

I prefer the "allow it unless it is specifically disallowed" approach.

Ed

noisebeam

That is how it should be and very often is done in the US (although a dashed yellow is used instead of dashed white). However locally I've noted on some residential 25mph streets as part of traffic calming re-striping that double yellow are added where there were no stripes before.

Al

genec

Why not... is ten seconds "gain" worth the potential of a collision? Perhaps by asking the question, John brought up an issue the motorist is going to have to weigh more carefully in the future....

Without that question... if the motorist was in tight quarters, I would imagine that he would simply think "damn cyclist." But in reality, it was the motorist's decision.

After a few more years of commuting you might also start asking the same questions... of why you were treated a certain way or drivers acted a certain way around you... you might even eventually make a stop similar to what John did. Time will tell.

I used to be "so what" on so many similar things... only to discover that they happened over and over again... and at that point you begin to wonder why...

noisebeam

Because I didn't read from John's description that there was any real potential for collision. Perhaps he was not dramatic enough about the closeness and relative speed of oncoming traffic. But I did not read it as a blind pass as John also knew there was oncoming traffic.

Maybe the driver did not know that it was only going to save 10sec, perhaps only decided to stop to fill up when the found the station.

Al

noisebeam

Over the past short years cycling I've come to care less about what others do and more about what I do and have come to enjoy cycling in traffic even more as a result.

Bekologist

Come ON, Noisebeam! You videotape motorists honking at you, passing unsafely, and post them to You Tube! you can't pull off the 'I don't care' routine in here! You are ALL ABOUT other's road transgressions....

Maybe you guys missed it was an insurance agent's vehicle. Dangerous drivers often pass unsafely to save mere seconds, endangering cyclists or worse. The 'rush around to the red light' is a commonly executed bonehead maneuver.

The fact it was an insurance agent, and john gave them cause to consider, makes me say, "kudos, John."