Funny Don! We love it. But, I also agree with you!

She deserved exactly what she got. If a few more parents disciplined their children...perhaps there would not be so many punks out spitting on other people's property.

Yeah, most bike riders I encounter on the street are definitely arseholes. He deserved a ass-kicking...but knew that anyone driving a nice car like a 911 likely had too much to lose. One day, he will guess wrong.

When I was in high school, only nerds and weirdos rode bikes. Sounds like that's becoming true again?

Luckily, not a problem in my rural area, where the traffic and lack of density allows motorists and bikes to give each other space.

But I have been caught where I've seen a group of them purposely hold up traffic...had me chewing nails. Stuff like this only breeds animosity.

Dantilla is right. I rode a lot 40 years ago. Commuted to one job for 9 months. I never rode just to tour, I rode to get to places.

Bicycling has changed. Just like the greed sit ins, the bike crowd is now militant. I'm not to appreciative of that but to date I've had no encounters. I'm not sure what I would do if someone hocked a big one on my car. I do know that I carry a bigger Maglight within reach that is most likely going to be bigger that anything the guy on the bike has.

Unless of course it's Red Beard with his semi automatic. You never know, especially in SoCal.

Or was that a revolver, James? :)

That's why he spat on the hood of the OP's car. He knows damn well that responding today can get you sued so fast it will make your head spin. My kids are coming up on driving and I constantly advise them that there is nothing more expensive than someone on a bicycle. Yes, pedestrians are expensive too but cyclists are often professionals (lawyers, etc.) and tend to be aggressive people on or off their bikes (more so on their bikes) and know how to use the law in their favor. I always give cyclists a MILE of room because I just cannot afford a $100K-plus lawsuit for accidentally grazing one with my car.

I'd like to see Mr. "holier than thou" Bike Nazi spit on some Chicano gang member's lowrider or a Harley biker who came a little too close. (A real Harley biker, not a lawyer in biker garb, although that could get ugly in its own way.) How do you think that would end?

Yeah, just ignore the guy. Ignoring them makes them the maddest.

Yep, ignore them. after all, even a well set up 944 is faster than a bicycle.

They ain't stupid. They know who to spit on and who not to.

I know how it feels, I stopped for gas in La Libertad El Salvador, my buddy got out and went to the head, I was gassing the truck and a local pulled up, started filling is tank, whipped it out and peed on my back wheel, I didn't do anything about it, it wasn't a friendly place anyway. This guy knew he was going to get away with it in his home town. We saw lots of people with guns, just not a nice place to drive through.

When I was in high school, kids from 14 to about 16 or 17 would never be caught dead on a bike -- sine they had just gotten driver's licenses and wanted to make sure people knew were were "big kids."

Then one day a friend's older sister came home from college (she was gorgeous La. French type - a Golden Girl at LSU) and spent most of her vacation riding her bike around the neighborhood. We ALL got bikes like hers (an English Racer!!) and started ridding our bikes then.

I find cars and bikers in bigger cities to be jerks - esp. California (but we expect that). Bad interactions here too somewhat. But if this really was deliberate, why didn't you follow him -- he may run out of energy before you run out of gas. Then you can have a nice "talk" with him. Start out calm, and make sure there are no security cams around...

Don't like to judge an entire class of people based on the actions of some, but jerks definitely seem to be over-represented among cyclists.

My daughter's school has limited parking. For years and years parents parked on the curb in front of the school at drop off and pick up time time. Last year the school got a visit from police. Seems some cyclist complained that the bike lane was blocked. My daughter has attended this school for 8 years and I've ever seen cyclists go by 4-5 times during drop off and pick up.

Now parents have to park next to the school in a deserted business park. Not a big deal until the space gets rented. Just seems odd that a couple of hundred people had to change their behavior just in case a couple of cyclist want to ride by during the 30 minutes morning or afternoon pick up times. I'm sure somewhere there's a couple of guys patting themselves on the back for taking care of that problem. :rolleyes:

My recollection of the bike lane statute allows use of the lane by vehicles when parked, making a right turn or legal standing. I would suggest looking at your local statute and getting an opinion from a private Attorney and the municipal Attorney.

Bikes are allowed/required to pass to the left of motor vehicles in this case. I think whoever made the call forcing the move is wrong....

As a current rider, I plead to not let one incident ruin future courtesy to bicyclists. In TN, the worst behavior I see is cyclists riding two abreast. That really irks me. On the other hand, the worst behavior by drivers is when they buzz me with no room to spare. Their casual disregard for my life is disappointing. As it would be wrong of me to label all cagers based on the few jackasses, it is disappointing to see one cyclist change one's perception of all cyclists.

I ride a lot of rural roads with good wide cycling shoulders and I try to give vehicles the right of way. I certainly try not to slow them down or make them hit the brakes. What I don't appreciate are cyclists that disregard the speed differential and are quite comfortable making a car go from 55 down to 20 just so they can have a big piece of the road, so much so that they seem to completely disrespect the larger vehicles. Almost taunting the cars to come closer. That's pretty stupid.

My background: I run every day [that I can] on the streets around Ft.Lauderdale, and I have to tell you that you need to be WAY proactive and pay lots of attention to cars in this city if you want to do what I do and stay alive; I've never had a real close call, but I've had a few run ins.

-In August of last year, this woman refused to give way to me on a subdivision street. My choice was standing still and letting her go around me, or stepping into a particularly muddy stretch of swale. I stood my ground, crossed my arms in front of her. I'm not walking in the muck just because SHE doesn't know that the law in Florida says that she either needs to come to a complete stop, or traffic permitting, cross the double yellow and give me 3 feet of clearance.

and the 50-something woman slowly drove right into me! She pushed me away with the front of her Ford Expedition! I jumped back and slapped her windshield. I'm 100% serious! I got the plate number, and turned her into the police, who....[$130,000 per year] did nothing.

[Oh don't worry; I've seen her driving in traffic occasionally. One of these days she'll walk out of Publix or Home Depot and find her silly SUV all covered with key scratches. I'm not saying that I will do that- If she did this to me, she's sure to have done it to someone else, and they will TRASH her car!]

Getting back on the subject....

Every once in a while, I accidentally cut someone off in my car, or do something stupid. When I make a mistake...I make a point of trying to wave to the person that I screwed so that they know that I acknowledge my mistake. If no metal gets bent, then what is the cost of this? I ALWAYS do this. It is part of being an adult. If they bad mouth me, then I just take it. This guy on the bike? He was clueless. He should have waved and mouthed "Oh sorry!", that's how I would have done, and I suspect that 90% of people are just like me. He simply didn't hear you coming up from behind- remember, the rear engine cars have all the noise at the rear. His tiny response is unacceptable, and in my opinion you are in the right.

N!

PS: As to bicyclists being more militant? I suspect that is true, as I have become. The reason? Simple: Cell phones. EVERYONE is on their phone while driving these days, and they are ALL distracted and make DUMB decisions left and right! Those of us on two tires or on two running shoes have simply noticed it and have reacted. I really think that phone use in a moving car needs to be banned, and electronics should be built into cars to block cell phone use.

Or just require all vehicles to burn NormOline and in short order there won't be any cars to worry about

Worst encounter I had with a bike was when I was sitting at a red light first in line of a few cars. Just as the light was turning green I started my right turn. A bicyclist came up swiftly on the right side of the line of cars and had to hit the brakes or hit me in the right side.

He goes postal at me. Frankly it scared me that I came that close even thought he was passing on the right. I never figured out if he intended to go straight or turn right with me. This was a very narrow street, one lane in each direction, no parking shoulder and no bike lane. There really wasn't much room for him to be passing on the right.

I know that one would have gone against me in spite of his actions. There's not much you can do. I suppose one day eventually I'll end up nailing one of these idiots. I won't cry about it.

That's what ins is for and plenty of it.

There is no logic in this post. My no-alcohol formula would work BETTER in most cars with knock sensors, and would likely increase power on performance cars. This product would do no damage at all to any car, so I can hardly see where your post makes any sense.

Then again, you never were about "sense"-

N!

It's the tour de Lance around here. It's no longer a question of if, but when.

Earlier this year some Harley dOOd with tats and the whole badazz get-up got a little teed off when he "thought" I changed lanes in front of him a little too close. He came up to my window jawing and posturing....know what my response was? Gave him dual birds! No way did I infringe on his space but some of these bikers are predisposed to feeling we don't "see" them.....

Normally I'm not an instigator but when they want to start something I have no problem responding in kind. Not much he could do but just make a bunch of facial expressions...ha ha. I continued to give him multiple birds until we went in different directions....probably not used to such rude behaviour from a motorist! :p

Up into the 1990's I would consider myself an avid cyclist in both commuting (50 mile roundtrip) including a half dozen Saturday century / club rides thru the good months and heavy single track rides on Sundays. After my choice custom built mounts were stolen, that was the final pisser.

My commutes on country roads had ample shoulder to ride on with city bike routes having marked bike lanes but still weren't good enough for car drivers. Thats right, not good enough for car drivers! Chicago area sucks. Psychotic drivers everywhere. And if not psycho, are illegal talking and texting while driving, ferrocious fat face feeding or doing whatever they do with the digital gizmo dashboard and it only takes once to get nailed.

One time I was cycle commuting with another rider and while approaching a 4 way stop that was rush hour backed up for a 1/4 mile, we had a school bus driver actually MERGE into our bike lane, open his door and yell at us to get to the back of the line! Can you believe these idiots transport children?

Another time on a return commute, a psycho in a trashed out Cad followed me thru the town of Libertyville. His windows were smoke scuzzed and the creep was as fat as the car, which by the way, had no license tags! Anyhow, as I made my way out of town and onto the rural bike route, this guy catches up and rides off into the shoulder and slowly merges into me, PUSHING me off into the weeds. As he takes off, he ends up at another 4 way behind traffic, where I finally was able to get close enough to him and give him the gesture of a certified #$%^@r. Well, now it was game on and this jerk turns around and chases me down and I knew the only way was to ditch him behind a nearby building until he passed.

The next day on my routine commute, I spotted a County cop in the same vicinity. I mentioned the incident and he replied 'what do you want me to do?' I guess if you want to cycle in Illinois, it might be wise to pack something more than a pea shooter.