BIKE: Re: Road Rage (Long)

[Joe Mitchell]

Here! Here! Mr. Bluejay. The POLICE DESERVE A BIG WET KISS OF A THANK YOU FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR.

I hope this is not an anomaly..

JM
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Bluejay <bikes>
Sent: Mar 15, 2005 1:39 PM
To: Austin Bikes <forum>
Subject: BIKE: Re:  Road Rage (Long)

I'm surprised no one has commented on how the police were sympathetic 
to the cyclist's rights and told the motorist that in no uncertain 
terms.  Are we taking that for granted?  Because that's not how it used 
to be, not by a long shot.  I remember a post on this list where after 
a cyclist got yelled at and nearly run over by some road raging 
motorists and the cyclist called the police, the dispatcher asked, 
"Wasn't there a sidewalk there you could have ridden on?".  There are 
lots of cases where the police never showed up when called or just 
didn't care when they did.  This, to me is pretty historic.  I usually 
don't put every individual case of harassment up on the website, 
because if I did then that's all I'd do.  But I'll put this one up 
because it shows how the police acted really, really well.

-MBJ-


> Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 14:25:22 -0600
> From: "Grant, Jon" <JGrant>
> Subject: BIKE: Road Rage (Long)
> To: <forum-bicycleaustin.info>
> Message-ID: <BE5B4F52.18FF%JGrant>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
> Hi, all,
>
> My name is Jon Grant, and I'm new to this list just now.
>
> (I already posted this to the iBob list so for those of you who are on 
> that
> one too, please forgive the cross-post. I'll not make a habit of it.)
>
> I often commute by bicycle to my office downtown. I do my best to 
> share the
> road responsibly and sensitively, but sometimes that isn¹t enough.
>
> On Thursday morning, March 10, 2005, as I rode north across the 
> Congress
> Avenue bridge, a car driver behind me aggressively pulled around and 
> hit his
> brakes, coming to a sudden, complete stop right in front of me. I was
> puzzled by the move, as I had been riding at the right curb, as 
> straight as
> I could manage.
>
> I watched as he entered his parking garage, and I called 911. As I 
> spoke
> with the police dispatcher, the driver walked out of the garage and
> confronted me. He screamed in obscene language that he had commuted by
> bicycle for two years and that he had ³never once held up traffic.² He
> called me ³a disgrace to the bicycling community² for ³completely 
> blocking
> traffic,² then walked away.
>
> A pair of police officers on bicycles showed up less than five minutes 
> later
> and took notes as I described the driver, his car, and the incident. 
> One
> officer even went to the man¹s office building in an attempt to find 
> him.
> Then the three of us rode into the garage and found his car.
>
> The driver must have been watching from his office window, because he 
> came
> to the garage and confronted the officers with his ³side of the story,²
> about how I was ³taking up the whole lane at five miles an hour² and 
> how he
> only intended ³to teach him a lesson on what it feels like to be held 
> up by
> somebody -- you know, tit for tat.² He told the cops that I ³was never 
> in
> any actual danger.²
>
> The police were not sympathetic to his admission that he had just
> deliberately used his car to try to intimidate a bicycler. They told 
> him
> that bicycles had a right to use the road, just like cars, and that his
> action was inappropriate and illegal. They also pointed out that he 
> couldn't
> have been too inconvenienced if he had managed to pass me in the first
> place. He continued to argue that he had only done what anyone else 
> would
> do.
>
> They asked what resolution I expected. I told them that, while I 
> thought
> pursuing further legal options would only make matters worse, I hoped 
> the
> man would realize greater understanding for those with whom he is 
> bound to
> share the road. As I left, they told me they would file a ³road rage²
> report, and that they intended to ³talk to this guy for a little 
> while.²
>
> I expect inattentiveness and ignorance on the road, but when drivers 
> choose
> to express their frustration in willfully dangerous ways, I will call 
> the
> police every time. We don¹t allow children to get their way by throwing
> tantrums, and we certainly cannot afford to allow bullying behavior 
> from
> adults wielding two-ton cars as weapons.
>
> --Jon Grant


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