I'm hearing a lot of stories from bicyclists this week about abuse they've taken at the hands of drivers recently. Eve in our office said she was riding next to the white line on Cheney-Spokane Road over the weekend, when a car came up right behind her and laid on the horn, scaring the heck out of her. When she gave him the 'What do you want me to do?' gesture, the driver acted like he might hit her, then swerved around her violently and gave her the finger.
And Martin Beran just posted on Twitter that someone pulled up to him today and yelled, "You're not a &^%$# car, get off the road!!"
Yikes, folks. I know we're all testy about the return to fall weather but take a deep breath and count to 10. It's called Share the Road.
6 comments:
Does not surprise me, I was waiting for the bus on Nevada yesterday and an idiot yelled at me as he passed me in a pickup. He was not the driver, but yelled at all the pedestrians along Nevada.
Too bad those type of people will not read a blog like this or even care about others.
BikePortland.org had a good post today - Bike Law 101.
It described 3 laws on the books we should know about: Harassment, Menacing, and Assault in the 4th degree.
Harassment is offensive physical contact or abusive words or gestures intended to provoke a violent response.
Menacing is behavior that attempts to place you in fear of imminent serious physical injury. Like someone yelling and swerving at you.
Assault in the 4th degree applies when physical injury results.
Bikeportland explained it all much more clearly than I.
So, do we have laws like Oregon?
Erik
Seems like there's just no courtesy these days. Just like I get yelled at pretty much daily trying to cross downtown streets when I have the walk signal. On the plus side though, the other pedestrians are very friendly. I walk six blocks from the Plaza to work everyday and at least two or three complete strangers will say hi or good morning to me every day. Even the street kids are nice considering it's so early in the morning!
@Erik- for some reason your comment went into the blog's 'spam' box and I just noticed it. You've got some excellent insight into this issue. I have spent a while digging around and I can't find any similar laws for either Washington State or locally. The closest I could find was this section out of the Washington Bicycle Commute Guide:
Dealing with Harassment:
Most motorists are courteous and happy to share the road with cyclists, but unfortunately, the small minority of drivers who are rude or threatening stand out. Harassment can make a commute unenjoyable or even dangerous.
Fortunately, it rarely occurs. If harassed, try to keep your cool and remember that your safety is the priority. You will rarely convince an irate motorist to share
the road, and besides, you don’t want to provoke a person unstable enough to harass you in the first place. Your best bet is to develop your riding skills, know your rights, ride legally and try to keep calm in the event you are harassed. Noting a car’s license plate, description and occupants may help when reporting
an incident to the authorities.
While it's well-intentioned, that doesn't help a lot. Of course, as I'm fond of pointing out, having laws against harassment don't help a lot either if they're not enforced. I know I sound like a broken record because I say this all the time, but there just isn't money right now to enforce some of the laws we already have so I'm not sure new laws specifically targetting harassement of bicyclists would make much of a difference.
I rode my bike on errands on Sunday morning and two separate people thanked me (!!) for riding my bike and helping to save the environment. I think there's lots of good people out there too.
With the yelling and harrasing...it's the old 80/20 rule - 20% of the people out there create 80% of the problems.
Well that's encouraging! No one ever thanks me for riding the bus (except STA. They even moved my bus stop closer to my work). Glad to hear a positive story.
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