Re: Rights v Responsibilities

Yelling and repeatedly passing as a way to be concerned for your
safety? That's nearly as good as the firefighter got out and shot at a
cyclist's head last year because he was riding with a kid in tow which
seemed unsafe. Nothing says "I'm concerned for your safety" like
driving like a maniac. I would have tried to get his license plate and
reported a reckless driver to the police for that one.

I've had similar instances with police here. One parked across two
lanes, blocking traffic, to tell me that I didn't signal on a lane
which divides into two lanes (towards the end of Seneca St). I told
him that the lane become two, and that I hadn't changed lanes, and he
said something to the effect of "oh yeah, that makes sense" and drove
off. Another time I was finishing a group ride, just 2 of us left,
coming back from Cass Park into town over the bridge and a cop used
the megaphone on the car to tell us to move to the side. We were about
2' off the curb to start, so I'm not sure what he expected. It's sad
that I've called to file complaints about cops at least twice now,
neither of which were for these instances.

I generally try to talk to drivers that do really stupid things if we
meet again at the next stop. I start by taking a photo of their
license plate (JIC they do something really stupid), tell them how
scary it is to be passed or cut off in whatever way they did it, and
ask them to please respect everyone's space on the road. Many times I
get the response of "oh I'm so sorry I didn't know" but more often
it's more like "I don't care, now get away from my car." If they don't
respond positively, I inform them that I do have their license plate,
and have no trouble calling the cops to report reckless drivers. I'm
not sure what effect my calls to cops has done, but hopefully the
drivers get a call from them. Only once did I file a report in hopes
of giving someone a ticket for their truly reckless behavior. I found
it really wasn't worth my time though (took nearly 2 hours) and it
probably only make the driver more mad when they get the ticket.

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Andrejs Ozolins <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've had two occasions when I stopped to exchange views with a motorist.
>
> One was with the driver of a pickup truck who had hollered at me a couple
> times, dropping back each time to pass and holler again. I was, of course,
> petrified when he stopped to get out of his truck, but started to talk and
> explain what I was up to and let him get his word in. It took a while, but I
> finally got a story. This man had once witnessed a cyclist get whacked by
> the riarview mirror of a truck and the cyclist had been hurt. This
> experience had impressed itself upon the man as proof positive that riding
> on the road is unsafe and his yelling at me was actually his way of
> conveying this important information to me. He sincerely feared for the
> safety of cyclists. So, I took a turn and explained that I wasn't reckless,
> that I knew about hazards, took precautions, had a family that I didn't want
> to orphan, but that riding on the highways was possible to do safely and the
> obligation of motorists to respect. The guy really slowed down from his
> initial fiery passion and, when we parted, seemed to have an altered
> perspective. He had previously thought cyclists must be idiots and/or
> scofflaws, so having a civil conversation made, I think, a big impact.
>
> The second instance was when a police officer was yelling at me to get to
> the curb on a very narrow street in the city. I continued to ride about 3
> feet out from the curb, up the hill and, when he pulled over the yellow line
> to yell at me through his open window, I didn't respond for a while.
> Finally, he made some indication that I should pull over for him and stop,
> so I did. Well, he was convinced that bikes had to make room for cars,
> regardless of any safety issues and I tried to counter that, in fact, I had
> a right to be riding there and he had a right to pass only if it was safe
> (no oncoming traffic, etc.). That got nowhere for a while. Then, I figured
> that he had me pegged for a psychotic anarchist, so I thought maybe I could
> temper that impression. I told him that I'd been riding a lot, had a job,
> had a son who had nearly been killed in a bike crash, and that I had given a
> lot of thought to the matter of safety and rights of cyclists and had used
> that information in my involvement with the bike club. The officer gradually
> calmed down a bit and became less adamant. When I told him, finally, that
> the law actually favors my taking the lane in a situation where passing is
> unsafe within the lane, and urged him to look it up when he got back to the
> station, he actually accepted the mission and seemed ready to learn
> something.
>
> So, what I get from those experiences is that people come at bicyclists with
> a huge lot of uninformed baggage, assumptions about cycling and cyclists
> that have no basis in real law or real people. It takes time to defuse the
> force of those preconceptions, but sometimes it can be done.
>
> Andrejs
> Ithaca, NY
>
>
> On 2/9/11 10:01 AM, Chuck Davis wrote:
>>
>> My experience suggests that it is often difficult to explain anything to
>> anyone who doesn't want to listen
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Rod
>> Skeggs<touringindochina-/[email protected]>wrote:
>>
>>>> >  >I hope you mean engage in the mutually respectful
>>>
>>> >  exchange of ideas through polite conversation.  %^)<
>>> >
>
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