"I'm going to knock your head off with a baseball bat"

In one of the communities I regularly ride through, it is actually
against the law to ride on the sidewalk as the sidewalk is reserved for
pedestrian traffic.

I ride on the sidewalk any time I need to, regardless of the law. I
have not been confronted or ever bugged by a police officer, but my
daughter has received a friendly comment from one over the loud speaker
of his vehicle when she was riding through the same neighborhood.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 20:42:47 -0500, Preston Crawford
wrote:

What can you do when faced with this? I'm so sick of
it. I want to carry a camera with me and just photograph the hell out of
these people and take them to court. I wonder if I should carry mace with
me at all times. I don't want to. I'm not a fighter. But at a certain
point when not only are you being threatened by their vehicles, but
they're threatening to wield weapons, what do you do? I'm at a loss.


Reaching for the phone was the smart move.

As for the rest....

Forget the pepper spray. It isn't even effective against a motivated dog.

I am very much an advocate of personal armament for the law-abiding citizen. I
own and carry guns myself.

However.

Even a gun versus a car is a losing proposition.

If the goon is out of the car your best bet is to out-run him or use the bike as
a weapon. If the latter is outside your abilities then no other non-lethal is
going to do the job.

Stick with the phone. Maybe a camera, but the phone works. In fact, go to it
first, before explanations.

Ron

Preston Crawford wrote:

He starts yelling at me to "f***ing get on the sidewalk".

While difficult to do, the BEST response is to pretend you don't even
hear him. I'll admit I can't always manage it, but when I do it works
great.

If you're doing nothing wrong, and this guy is yelling and cursing,
most people will be able to figure out who the moron is. If you're both
yelling and cursing it's hard to tell .

He's trying to get a reaction. When you totally ignore him, it takes
all the fun out of it for him.

Now, if it escalates to threats or worse, that's when you quietly take
out your cell phone and start dialing 911. I think you did good!

Art Harris

On 6 Apr 2005 08:02:03 -0700, wrote:

Seriously, I can recall such incidents, but the recollections don't
evoke any negative emotions. It's more like "Oh yeah, that happened to
me at that intersection." Period.

Regarding avoiding confrontation sites: First, if there is a more
"peaceful" route that's otherwise equivalent, I see no problem with
using it. A large part of why I ride is aesthetic, and just as I
prefer prettier roads, quieter traffic, etc, I'd prefer more pleasant
drivers.

But in Preston's case, where the site can't be avoided? I wouldn't
worry much at all. One of my worst confrontations with a motorist was
on my usual route home from work. He was so mad he was feinting at
charging me on foot, trying to scare me. I was smirking and slowly
shaking my head in disbelief - and holding a can of Halt dog spray
behind my handlebar bag. Of course, he eventually just drove off.

I wondered when I'd run into him again, but I never did. Of course, by
then I had his license number and he knew it. (I'd read it aloud to
him.) I watched for him for a few weeks, but eventually forgot all
about that. You will too, if you don't dwell on the incident
excessively.

- Frank Krygowski

I think Frank is what I would call a natural cycling zen master.

jj

First, what you did was fine. It worked, and the guy is probably
frustrated in knowing that the law is on your side. He may even learn
from the experience. At this point, let it go. Don't fret about it.
Don't accept the negative energy.

I keep thinking there must be a way to use psychological jiu-jitsu in

The perfect application of the principle of Ju would be if they got out of
the car and you rode away.

--
mac the naïf

I actually came up with a good retort only a few seconds (as opposed to
hours) after a woman in a yellow pick-up yelled something
incomprehensible out her window. Too late to actually say it, but
quicker-witted than my norm:

"Hark, fair Juliet speaks!"

Continuing in this idiom, I found some others that might be worth
memorizing:

"If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt."

"How now, wool-sack, what mutter you?"

"How now my sweet creature of bombast?"

You get the idea. You can find your own at Shakespearean insult sites
such as http://www.iwaynet.net/~ggwiz/f/auinsult.htm

Worth a shot?

-JR

"Tom Keats" wrote: (clip) But without cyclists to get mad at, they'd just
get mad at something/somebody else. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
No reason to think they aren't doing that anyway. If cyclists tried to
improve their world view by just disappearing, they would still be giving
the finger through the windshield at each other, screaming at pedestrians,
cutting each other off angrily in lane changes, and talking to the steering
wheel about perceived injustices. And that's just in their cars.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 00:01:32 -0400, jj wrote:

On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 20:42:47 -0500, Preston Crawford
wrote:

In the end he drove off, I road off, but I'm really starting to get tired
of this garbage. This happens far too often and I do everything you're
supposed to do when it comes to riding. And yet still it happens. And it's
never "damn you for passing me" or "how dare you take the lane". The road
raging is always because I'm on the road period. Period! Nothing more.
Nothing less. You don't deserve to be on the road, so I'm going to
threaten to kill you. What can you do when faced with this? I'm so sick of
it. I want to carry a camera with me and just photograph the hell out of
these people and take them to court. I wonder if I should carry mace with
me at all times. I don't want to. I'm not a fighter. But at a certain
point when not only are you being threatened by their vehicles, but
they're threatening to wield weapons, what do you do? I'm at a loss.

Preston

As bad as it sounds, no matter where you live you have to just face
facts that this s*** will happen. Everyone gets hassled and yelled at
and threatened. Just last year,a friend of mine had to jump off the
road into a ditch because a bunch of teenage yahoos trieyd to run him
over- by BACKING UP at high speed! THis is in a sort of rural area
with no sidewalk and not much traffic and is favored by cyclists. I
know people who have been run over, clotheslined, thratened with
fists, etc. Most peoplle are okay but sadly we have to excpect that
there are idiots like that out there- just like we have to accept that
there are people who hate blacks or jews or gays. It's yukky, but it's
just a fact of life.

Fortunately, no one was injured in this incident!

On 6 Apr 2005 12:41:30 -0700, "SlowRider"
wrote:

I actually came up with a good retort only a few seconds (as opposed to
hours) after a woman in a yellow pick-up yelled something
incomprehensible out her window. Too late to actually say it, but
quicker-witted than my norm:

"Hark, fair Juliet speaks!"

Continuing in this idiom, I found some others that might be worth
memorizing:

"If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt."

"How now, wool-sack, what mutter you?"

"How now my sweet creature of bombast?"

You get the idea. You can find your own at Shakespearean insult sites
such as http://www.iwaynet.net/~ggwiz/f/auinsult.htm

Worth a shot?

-JR

Here's one from shakespeare that we should all keep in mind:

"The greatest safety lies in fear."

Not an insult, but it's relevant anyways.

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 02:41:50 -0500, Preston Crawford
wrote:

On 2005-04-06, Leo Lichtman wrote:

"jj" wrote: (clip) In that event the first thing you want to do if you
can't immediately escape and ride off down a side street is get off the
bike. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
However, keep in mind that if he starts to get out of the car, you may be
able to position yourself to ride off. That's going to leave him looking
pretty stupid. This is one circumstance where I believe everyone will agree
that riding on the sidewalk or against traffic would be justified.

I've replayed this over and over again and I thought of the above
scenario. And the first thought that popped into my head was that I'd head
for his car, pull the keys and call the cops. Don't know why. Maybe I just
haven't gotten over it yet.

Preston

This is prime opportunity to write a "community view" in your local newspaper
about this and other road morons you've encountered.
Trying to argue with a car is, at best, futile. The best thing you can do is
save your vocal cords and just shake your head. To me, this says, your such an
idiot I'm not even going to try and explain it to you. And he know that all of
the other cagers see it too. :-)