Bicycle Austin forum

I'm an archaeologist.  I used a bike to get to work and school for 4 years.  Now I drive a truck.  August 4th 7am the sun was already up light was fairly good I was driving a Ford Explorer at around 20mph.  I came up to a T junction.  Washington Square meets 30th there.  Washington square is an enormous pile of road It's a tiny little stretch, a block long but the road is huge, four lane highway huge.  The cyclist came barreling down the middle he was dipping and weaving.  I hit the brakes and he slewed out in front of me and shot me the finger before continuing on.  He was in the middle of the road.  He didn't signal.  Washington Avenue is tempting that way I guess. 

September 7th 5pm.  I do my grandfathers grocery shopping.  I drive between the Randalls and his house on Shoal Creek.  at 5pm the light was good I was waiting to make a left hand turn from 38th onto Shoal Creek.  The light turned there was no oncoming traffic. I made a gentle left hand turn.  I could hear the grocery bags shifting in the back.  I kept thinking about how I'd have to explain the broken eggs.  There were 5 cyclists ahead of me.  They chose not to use the bike lane.  I slowed down to 15 and then to under 5.  One of the cyclists in the rear turned and shot me the finger.   I was so tired.  I just wanted to drop the groceries off and go home and get a few hours sleep.  I had a flight in 16 hours and I hadn't had time to pack.  I pulled over and pretended to park on the street. 

Two of them peeled off and turned around.  One of them pushed his helmet into my window.  "Do you run us over? IS that what you do?" 

At that point I had been up for almost three days.  I didn't have the energy to argue with him and I didn't want to roll down my window to let him spit at me.  I stared at him.  His counterpart on the other side of my truck pounded on the window.  I waited to see if they would break something.  They didn't. 

The Angry Shouting guy tipped his wheel and they left.  I dropped off my groceries and got on a plane. 

November 10th 9am on Idlewilde.  I dropped off a friend and then headed back toward campus.  When the first rock hit my window I didn't really register it.  The second one I noticed.  There were two cyclists chucking rocks at me.  I know I shouldn't have but I cracked the window and yelled "Hey, ease up, what's wrong?"

One of them heaved a brick through the back windshield.  He was shrieking something.  I didn't stick around to listen.   I drive carefully.  I used to use a bike as my primary transportation.  It doesn't seem to matter.  4 wheels or 2 wheels, tons of steel or no, some people are just jerks who refuse to obey any rules and put all of us at risk.