Bike Rage II

My personal bike rage incident, continued from last time ...

The incident in question took place last fall. I was riding home in the dark, which is typical for that time of year, so I had my blinking headlight turned on. I was riding down a residential street a couple blocks south of the Rockridge BART when a pickup that was facing the same direction as me pulled out of a parking spot ahead of me and attempted to make a U-turn in the middle of the block. Of course the road was too narrow, so he was at a right angle to the street in the opposite lane as I approached. I slowed down, but he didn't seem to be moving, so I (foolishly) assumed he'd seen me and was waiting. But as I got closer, he suddenly put the truck in reverse and backed into my lane. I slammed on my brakes and stopped just in time as he came to a stop completely obstructing my way.

To understand my frame of mind at this moment, we need to step back to my morning commute just a few weeks before. A half-block from the scene of my incident with the pickup, some woman in a Saab ran a stop sign and came within inches of running directly into me. Then, when I gave her a piece of my mind, she had the gall to yell at me. Although her windows were rolled up, reading her lips wasn't too hard, especially with her accompanying hand gesture. That she had the audacity to curse me out after almost running into me just infuriated me more. So, on this chilly fall night, when this truck nearly ran into me, something in me snapped. I cut loose with a stream of obscenities, and I even coasted closer to his driver's-side window. I'm not sure what I was hoping to accomplish with this. He looked at me and started speaking, but his window was rolled up. With the incident involving the slag in the Saab fresh in my mind, I assumed the worst, so I started giving back as good as I assumed I was getting.

Me: You $%$&!@!, watch $^!^#%@! where $$%&#&@! going!
Him: (inaudible behind window) wom wom wom wom
Me: $%#%!$!@!!
Him: (slowly rolling down window) wom wom wom ...eally sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there. Are you alright?

Well ... didn't I feel like an asshole. Traffic was starting to back up behind us on either side, so I sheepishly muttered something about being ok and rode around the back of his truck. In retrospect, I wasn't particularly conspicuous in the dark (on a poorly lit street) with nothing but a little flashing LED to light my way, and I sympathize with the guy in the truck.

I'd like to think that since then, I've been chastened and had a cooler head during my commute. But that probably isn't true -- especially during my evening commute when my blood sugar is low. Nevertheless, I would hope I could stop short of physical violence if I had a run-in with a minivan driving soccer mom from Redwood City. I'm no fan of mobs, which is one of the reasons I've never participated in Critical Mass, and maybe that will be my saving grace.

Bike Rage

I've been thinking a lot lately about how my life is going to be different next year. One of the big differences associated with small-town livin' is going to be that I'll probably live close enough to work to walk. This means no more bike commuting. I'll miss the exercise and the feel of the wind through my hair, but I can get these things by riding my bike recreationally. One thing I won't miss is dealing with traffic while riding my bike.

Bike-car interactions have been much in the news around here these days because of an incident that happened during Critical Mass at the end of March. For those not familiar with it, Critical Mass is a once-monthly, anarchic bike ride through San Francisco (with a companion ride in Berkeley/Oakland) to raise awareness of cyclists and to argue for increased bike safety. It's more of a concept than an organization because it's decentralized (you don't have to be a member to ride) and the routes aren't announced until just before they start. In fact, you may have a Critical Mass in your own town.

It's an organization that I'm generally predisposed to support. As a cyclist, I have had more than my fair share of boneheaded drivers doing boneheaded things that have put me in physical danger. Anything that 1) raises awareness of cyclists and 2) shoves a big middle finger skyward toward a car-obssessed culture is worthy of my support. Unfortunately, as is typical of any radical group with no central organization, Critical Mass, too, gets its share of boneheads.

So back to where I started, last month during Critical Mass, a woman from Redwood City driving a minivan (can you picture a person more culturally in opposition to a Critical Mass rider?) got caught up in the ride and was soon surrounded by slow-moving cyclists. What happened next is a matter of great speculation. Eyewitness accounts vary, but most of the stories have the woman hitting one of the cyclists (accidentally by many, but not all, accounts) and things quickly escalating. The end result was the woman's car was dented, scratched, and had its windows knocked in. And of course, her children were terrified.

It's rare that I find myself siding with the suburban mom in the minivan, but I'm afraid the good folks of Critical Mass (at least the ones at Polk and Gough at the time of the incident) did not do us cyclists any favors. Cyclist-motorist relations are already tense in the city (less so in the less congested East Bay), and regardless of who was in the wrong, this has only made things worse. The SF Chronicle has been deluged with letters weighing in on the topic, with most people criticizing the ill-behaved cyclists. Which got me to wondering: Am I just another one of those ill-behaved cyclists?

You know how mellow people are sometimes the most vulgar, aggressive drivers? That's me on my bike. Only it's worse because the stakes seem so much higher -- there's little separating me from the car or the pavement. I've certainly fantasized about giving a beat-down to drivers that have cut me off or almost run me over, even though I haven't been in a fight since I was eight. I don't know how I would react in a situation like the one during the last Critical Mass. Would I have jumped in? I know that my instincts and my better nature may not be trustworthy in that context. I'd like to think that good sense would prevail, but in my next post I will offer as Exhibit A an experience I had last fall while riding home from school that might suggest otherwise.