BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I thought that citizens of that age were encouraging the whippersnappers to get off thier dang lawns, and generally not chasing them onto the grass.

They say cycling is the new golf.

Wow glad to hear the cyclist is alive, hope they recover well.

Also glad to hear the driver was charged with assault with a deadly weapon because that is exactly what trying to run someone down with a car is.

That's just crazy.

An idea came to me on the ride home today. The electronic portion of the drivers test could have a kind of phantom sub-program that would record the test-ees (stefb stop right there, this is serious) actual responses, but randomly display intentionally incorrect responses, or occasionally not respond at all to the test-takers inputs. Sort of a blind frustration test. The test-taker could be observed by a test administrator, and if they displayed some degree of irrational or excessively agitated behavior, they would be sent on for additional evaluation for any propensity to "raging".

The road test skills portion of the driver's test should include passing a cyclist / avoiding right hooks.

thats the day i pull my job application from the dmv.

I thought the DMV did frustration testing already, using lines that close just when you reach the front, and forms that are always the right one when they hand them to you, but never the right one when you fill them out and hand them back (shred).

(Though I must admit that my limited experience with them hasn't matched their Kafkaesque reputation.)

The road test authority figure should send a txt message to the driver a few seconds before they're approaching a cyclist. I'm guessing there's a no cell phone rule for the test, but it should probably be the opposite so that the driver is tested with live ammunition.

Please read the article. He didnt hate

cyclists... he hated young people!

"The driver said something to the effect that Zoia was too young to be in Oakmont,"

Nothing new here. I just got chased down on Route 51 this morning between Route 88 and Nobles where I turn to go over the hill to South Side.

Some turd in a white pickup got angry that I can weave in and out of traffic and that he kept ending up behind me over and over again — so he starts laying on the horn, trying to run me off the road whenever he passed me, and then when he got ahead of me, tried ramming his truck into me as I went to overtake him (again). Finally I got sick of him, got right in front of him and just rode center-lane with my middle finger up in his face while all the other drivers sat there laughing at the jackass.

I thought he was going to follow me up Nobles and try to run me off the road again but he must have been in too much of a hurry and went straight.

This is every single day of my biking experience I deal with at least one asshole like this. He was making such an ass of himself that everyone else was paying attention to him and should he have actually hit me I am sure someone would have kept him from being able to run.

I find it amusing that pricks like that don't scream and yell and try and run farm tractors off the road (which I see all the time, even on Rt 51 — but it is fine to try and run a bike off the road and actually try and hit them. I've been clipped a few times this year by people angry enough to actually try and swerve into me.

I am buying a window breaker to carry strapped to my handlebars or something for the next one who does it.

Adam, I may be misunderstanding the situation but if you were advancing at the same pace as the jerk in the pickup, why not just let him pass and ride behind him? My self-preservation instinct makes me prefer to be behind aggressive jerks rather than in front of them.

Maybe I'm just passive or nonconfrontational but I don't like to pick on angry people who are bigger or more dangerous. I don't even pick on people my own size.

Cycles of the lights. Cars get way ahead of you and then you catch back up to them at the next traffic light, then I pass a bunch of them... Light turns green and they slowly catch back up.

I am referring to the route 88 / 51 "ClusterF" and related intersections up to Nobles. That whole stretch is a cyclist's "dream" in terms of passing angry drivers (even though there is almost NEVER any space to get around the cars in the line).

Not saying that is my IDEAL road to ride by ANY stretch but if I chose any other routes it would increase my commute by over a mile and put 2x more climbing in my way — when I am just trying to get to work. I am way more apt to take longer routes home than I am in the morning.

One thing I miss about where I used to live was that I could take an almost no-cars route home even though it added about 3 miles to the trip (they were well worth it though).

I am not as confrontational as I sound. Most of the time I don't even pay any attention to the horn honking etc but when someone starts going absolutely crazy like this guy did this morning my anger kicks in and I start screaming back or making that person's commute as miserable as I can (without making it an inconvenience for me of course).

The prick almost hit another car because he was too busy trying to cut me off and run me off the road.

The fact this guy in the article actually chased someone onto a golf course does not surprise me one bit.

Granted this was ONE GUY out of how many hundred or so cars I encountered on my way into work this morning — it is just those ones who stand out is all.

So a hit and run is solved because another near-victim of his got his license plate number last October, and kept the plate number on file for a year.

Bravo--I'm now making it my mission in life to get plate numbers of any transgressors (pictures if possible), and then keeping a detailed spreadsheet for future reference.

Every time I have a rotten experience on the bike with a passing car, I pull over and tweet the plate. No pics, but it's out there for everyone to see.

like this

Excellent idea--public, and logged for future reference!

@joanne: Trying to get a picture in most cases is futile. My helmet cam is always on for commutes. I've been riding with one for about a year and posting stuff to youtube and to the oblivious pgh motorists on video thread here when something makes me extremely uncomfortable. Plate numbers are pretty easy to pick out from video frames. No mess or fuss digging out a camera after the fact (by then, there is no evidence anyway).

I've read in a couple places that you also need driver description for the record.

Am I the only one that finds this eerily similary to a previous incident, or is this a repeat posting on the same incident that's changed because the nut's been arrested?