"This is Called 'Car Punching'"

On Jun 2, 10:16 pm, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:
Fence Tortoise wrote:
Also effective is "Window Crumbling" where you take your
Kryptonite lock and swing it into the driver's window, causing
it to shatter into thousands of tiny pieces covering their lap
and scaring the holy living **** out of the hapless driver.

Try that around here, and you will get run over.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

But should the case ever go to court the driver would first have to
admit that number one he was making an illegal pass on the right and
two that he was close enough to be hit with enough force to break the
window, both of which together would constitute an illegal pass and
under TX law be enough to use as assault with a deadly, under which it
is permissible to use any level of force as self-defense. At least
that's what the cop told the guy whose window I broke when he passed
me on the right and I used my hand to break his open window. The cop
told the guy as far as he was concerned the driver had run into me and
damaged his car, but then the cop lives a few streets down from me in
my neighborhood and knows me as a cyclist that was previously
assaulted with a motor vehicle and a bit "skittish" around motor
vehicles.

In ba.bicycles Opus wrote:
On Jun 2, 10:16 pm, Tom Sherman ?_?
wrote:
Fence Tortoise wrote:
Also effective is "Window Crumbling" where you take your
Kryptonite lock and swing it into the driver's window, causing
it to shatter into thousands of tiny pieces covering their lap
and scaring the holy living **** out of the hapless driver.

Try that around here, and you will get run over.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

But should the case ever go to court the driver would first have to
admit that number one he was making an illegal pass on the right and
two that he was close enough to be hit with enough force to break the
window, both of which together would constitute an illegal pass and
under TX law be enough to use as assault with a deadly, under which it
is permissible to use any level of force as self-defense. At least
that's what the cop told the guy whose window I broke when he passed
me on the right and I used my hand to break his open window. The cop
told the guy as far as he was concerned the driver had run into me and
damaged his car, but then the cop lives a few streets down from me in
my neighborhood and knows me as a cyclist that was previously
assaulted with a motor vehicle and a bit "skittish" around motor
vehicles.

Violence begets more violence.

At one time it felt good to knock/bang on cars that drifted too close to me that
were going close to my speed. The idea was to alert the driver like a horn honk,
not to damage his car. But after one driver slammed on his brakes I decided the
practice was too risky. Now, I concentrate more on riding my bike and if I have
the presence of mind to collect information such as license plate number, to
report the incident, either to police or a local "incident report" website,
depending on circumstances.

--
Bill Bushnell
http://pobox.com/~bushnell/

On Jun 1, 12:26*pm, Jym Dyer wrote:
=v= There was a letter to the "Mr. Roadshow" column in the
_San_Jose_Mercury_News_ last week from Jane Phipps, a motorist
who pulled into the shoulder because she had "an urgent need
to attend to," and said her car was banged on by a cyclist:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12431993

There are followup letters today. *Check out the first one:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12480108

| This is about the incident on Foothill Expressway when a woman
| pulled over to the shoulder to make an emergency phone call
| and a bicyclist rode past and slammed his hand twice against
| her car, creating two dents. This is called "car punching" and
| is a term used by some bikers for intentionally denting cars
| when the driver does something that is dangerous for bicycles.
| ...
| * * * Jim Bodwin
| * * * Cupertino

=v= I have never heard the phrase "car punching." *Have you?
Has anyone, aside from the one cyclist Jim Bodwin of Cupertino
has an anecdote about? *Gary Richards made sure to highlight
it in the column headline, so now all his readers will think
it's a common phrase and practice.

=v= Also, I smell a rat. *The original correspondent only
mentioned "an urgent need to attend to" and yet Jim Bodwin of
Cupertino somehow knows that it was "an emergency phone call."
(The word "emergency" is very relevant because it's what the
California Vehicle Code requires for pulling over into the
shoulder.) *Two letters down, correspondent Derek Lindsey of
Santa Clara somehow has also somehow thought to promote the
"urgent" need to an "emergency," and oh so very conveniently
asks Richards to "expound on what an emergency actually is."

=v= Richards replies:

| I define an emergency as an immediate safety issue or an
| urgent matter of great importance. Phipps received an urgent
| message from her husband, who was in New York for an important
| meeting.

Right. *It was an IMPORTANT meeting, so the URGENT matter is
nearly just exactly the same thing as an EMERGENCY. *Heck, if
it's good enough for Mr. Roadshow, surely the CVC is applicable,
right? *Yak away, motorists! *Don't mind little old us, you need
to pull over into the shoulder for EMERGENCY phone calls from
the other side of the country, where IMPORTANT things happen!
* * _Jym_



I really really doubt that a cyclist can dent a car by hitting it with
their fist. More likely they will break their fist first.
Have you ever tried it? It's a ridiculous claim. Secondly no cyclist
would pound on a car for going into the shoulder unless she cut him
off. Serves her right, should be punched, what the hell, her phone
call ("emergency") was more important than his life?JB

jenben writes:

On Jun 1, 12:26Â*pm, Jym Dyer wrote:
=v= There was a letter to the "Mr. Roadshow" column in the
_San_Jose_Mercury_News_ last week from Jane Phipps, a motorist
who pulled into the shoulder because she had "an urgent need
to attend to," and said her car was banged on by a cyclist:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12431993

There are followup letters today. Â*Check out the first one:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12480108

I really really doubt that a cyclist can dent a car by hitting it with
their fist. More likely they will break their fist first.
Have you ever tried it? It's a ridiculous claim. Secondly no cyclist
would pound on a car for going into the shoulder unless she cut him
off. Serves her right, should be punched, what the hell, her phone
call ("emergency") was more important than his life?JB

Nothing in the original account talked about a cell phone call, nor
did it say the cyclist was cut off (which is not likely given that
this road is straight with no business driveways along it and a
45 mph speed limit). It also did not say the car was pounded with
a fist. She heard a banging sound. It could have been wacked with
a pump or U-lock, if those were easily accessible while riding
(depending on how they were mounted on the bike). She could also
have been making it all up for all we know. If you wack a car
with an open hand, you can make a fair bit of noise with no
damage to the car. If the cyclist had done that and there was
an existing dent the driver hadn't noticed before, it would be
easy to attribute the dent to the cyclist.

As I recall, the area is a shoulder, not a bike lane. Drivers
can be stopped there for all sorts of reasons such as the car
breaking down. The right way to handle it is to merge into
the traffic lane and pass, leaving a safe distance from the
stopped vehicle in case a door opens unexpectedly.


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Jym: Whatever you do, please tread relatively lightly on Gary Richards
(Mr. Roadshow). For someone writing a car column, he's surprisingly
bike-friendly most of the time. No problem pointing out the errors of
his ways when they happen, but do so as if it's likely a
misunderstanding on his part and not hostility towards cyclists.

--Mike-- * * Chain Reaction Bicycleswww.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Mike:

Roadshow (I would prefer lemmingshow) seems pretty neutral about bikes
to me. My impression of him and his column is that he is in the
business of selling newspapers and controversy sells papers. Out of
the blue, without naming his sources or establishing accuracy, he
publishes a tale sure to tick off both drivers and riders. This
creates a flush of emotion and a flurry of copy to fill his column but
doesn’t help drivers and riders get along. It’s trolling. The net
effect is negative in my eye. I’ve written him a couple times about
this before but I’ve never heard back from him.

As for “car punching” I’ve never heard the phrase. I have done similar
things, not to damage anything but to get peoples attention. Not long
ago I encountered a FedEx truck stopped in the bike lane for a
delivery. The truck wasn’t over to the curb even though there was
space along the curb. I was forced into traffic on a busy downtown
street. As I went by the truck, I knocked on it hoping that the driver
would catch on and pull farther over next time. I don’t know if I got
his attention but since I had crocheted gloves, I was left with sore
knuckles.

Dan

For someone writing a car column, he's surprisingly
bike-friendly most of the time.

=v= He affects a neutral, even-handed tone, which is part
of being in the newspaper biz, but biases creep out. The
piece I'm complaining about here is more egregious than
usual because he clearly doctored the letters he purports
to be responding to, and that response is sheer spin to
make a non-emergency seem to qualify as an emergency.

=v= I don't take kindly to a lack of journalistic integrity.

Roadshow (I would prefer lemmingshow) seems pretty neutral
about bikes to me.

=v= I've been following Gary Richards/"Mr. Roadshow" for over
a decade now. Eevery now and then he'll do a column about bikes
on the road and he will ALWAYS leave a crucial piece of the law
out. Generally he keeps emphasizing the "as far to the right as
practicable" clause of the law and he'll leave out the many and
varied exceptions to that clause.

=v= So his readers persist in their belief that we all have to
hug the gutter at all times, no matter what.

=v= Bicyclists have sent him corrections many times, and he
still persists in making the same error.
_Jym_

Nothing in the original account talked about a cell phone
call, ...

=v= The original account only mentioned an "urgent task," but
it was confirmed in the followup column that it was actually a
cellphone call. Gary Richards/Mr. Roadshow set up that column
(and edited its letters -- unless of course his correspondents
were all telephathic) to spin the "urgent task" cellphone call
into a California Vehicle Code-compliant "emergency," which of
course it was not.

... nor did it say the cyclist was cut off (which is not
likely given that this road is straight with no business
driveways along it and a 45 mph speed limit).

=v= While it's remotely possible that this incident was the
work of a sociopathic cyclist who just goes around hitting cars,
I find *that* unlikely. I don't condone banging on cars, but
neither do I assume that cyclists bang on cars without a reason.
The far more likely scenario is that the motorist did something
enraging, probably life-threatening. Motorists who are focused
on answering the cellphone* aren't known for being attentive to
safe driving.
_Jym_

__________________________________________________ ______________
* Or are perhaps already gabbing on the cellphone. Who knows?
All we have is the motorist's self-serving side of the story,
which so conveniently/suspiciously matches the wording in the
California Driver's Manual.

=v= I've been following Gary Richards/"Mr. Roadshow" ....
Every now and then he'll do a column about bikes on the road
and he will ALWAYS leave a crucial piece of the law out.

=v= For reference, I wrote about that in ba.bicycles befo

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...f%40econet.org

_Jym_

Jym Dyer writes:

Nothing in the original account talked about a cell phone
call, ...
... nor did it say the cyclist was cut off (which is not
likely given that this road is straight with no business
driveways along it and a 45 mph speed limit).

=v= While it's remotely possible that this incident was the
work of a sociopathic cyclist who just goes around hitting cars,
I find *that* unlikely.

I assumed that the cyclist was mad about having to merge into
45 mph traffic to pass - an 8 foot shoulder is not wide enough
to safely pass a parked car.

I don't think it is likely that the cyclist was cut off, although
that is possible - usually cyclists get cut off when people turn
into driveways or onto cross streets and those are few and far
between on this road (no driveways and few cross streets).

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

On Jun 4, 5:57 am, jenben wrote:
I really really doubt that a cyclist can dent a car by hitting it with
their fist. More likely they will break their fist first.

Wrong. With today's tissue-paper cars it's easy. Boots, knees, and
elbows are preferable though.

Have you ever tried it? It's a ridiculous claim.

The statute of limitations has not run out yet, so no comment.
---
Jef