Had a rage-inducing encounter the other day

"TheHondaBro" (wwaveform)
09/01/2016 at 16:13 • Filed to: None

I was driving down a two-lane road. On my side was a guy with a bicycle. On the other side was a group of women eager to cross the road. As I approach them, Jackass McBicycle sticks his ridiculous locomotion apparatus into my lane, effectively stopping me and the cars behind me. In a supposed attempt at chivalry, he motions to the group of women to cross the road, and they do.

I didn’t honk, but I should have leaned on the horn. What a jackass. Fuck jaywalkers.

DISCUSSION (41)

ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:19

Kinja'd!!!

lone_liberal > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:20

Usually the bike riders around here are pretty good about following the rules of the road but I ran in to one, figuratively, the other day that pissed me right off. He absolutely refused to use the perfectly good bike lane and instead chose to block traffic on a two lane arterial during the morning commute. What a great way to get support for more bike lanes. /s

TheHondaBro > ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper
09/01/2016 at 16:22

*Dramatization of Honda Accord plowing jaywalkers

ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:25

I have a dash cam, I dare people to step out in front when I have the right of way.

In the city Im like Moses, they see me coming and feel my intent. I part those pedestrian waters by will, or by force.

aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:26

This is why you need a loud car. So you can drop it down a few gears, let it engine brake and scare the shit out of everyone.

Bryan doesn't drive a 1M > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:26

Sounds like a typical PNW drive. The “smug chivalry” thing is really annoying around here. Drivers are constantly stopping to let other drivers or pedestrians go, but completely ignoring the right-of-way. They think they’re being friendly or generous, but they’re putting everyone in more danger.... and pissing me off.

The right-of-way isn’t about politeness, it’s so people don’t crash into each other!

Sorry, your story got me riled up.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > lone_liberal
09/01/2016 at 16:29

oh helllllll no

Had this happen to me last week too, nice paved bike path off the road.

Rides on edge of normal road that doesn’t even have a proper shoulder so if he needed to pull off he wouldn’t have been able to.

If a path or lane is provided it should be used.

djmt1 > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:37

Oi Yanks! What’s Jaywalking?

NostalgicCarLife > aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe
09/01/2016 at 16:38

Which is illegal in many places.

PatBateman > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:39

Train horn. You need one.

NostalgicCarLife > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:39

I don’t understand. Was bicycle guy crossing the street? Or was he in front of you, and then stopped to let people cross the street?

Hey Julie > aberson Bresident of the FullyAssed Committe
09/01/2016 at 16:41

My 280zx is just 2.5" pipe all the back from the cat.....biking is very popular in my rural Colorado town and sometimes those morons will ride three abreast sticking out into my lane and one time a 3-2 downshift with a particularly loud backfire made two of them crash into eachother

gin-san - shitpost specialist > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:41

He probably had good intentions, but the best thing to do on the road is follow the fucking rules of the road. The cyclist's job is not to act as a crossing guard, and the pedestrians should cross where designated, or where there's a large gap in traffic. This is how people get into unnecessary incidents; it's like those drivers who will stop in the middle of the lane or at a green light just to wave others through when it's completely wrong and the stopped driver has the right of way.

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:44

I honked at a lady after having her turning signals on for 4 blocks deciding which street to turn onto. She also made the widest slowest turn in the face of history. She turned as if she had an audi with terminal understeer.

Hermit Edwards > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 16:46

Sometimes banging on your steering wheel and screaming obscenities can be therapeutic, but missing a rare oppurtunity to lay on the horn sucks

TheHondaBro > NostalgicCarLife
09/01/2016 at 16:54

Walking on the sidewalk with his bike, stuck his bike in the middle of the road to stop me so that the others could cross.

TheHondaBro > djmt1
09/01/2016 at 16:55

Crossing the road where there is no designated crosswalk.

Urambo Tauro > lone_liberal
09/01/2016 at 16:56

If the bicyclist is not going to use the bicycle lane... does that mean we can use it to go around him?

Urambo Tauro > gin-san - shitpost specialist
09/01/2016 at 16:58

Courtesy’s great, and keeping the law is good too.

But when they conflict like this, and you have to choose one or the other, you’ve got to have priorities. Is it more important to follow established right-of-way, or to let someone else go in front of you?

The problem with ignoring right-of way here is that the “goodness” of extending courtesy towards one party is neutralized by the discourteousy forced upon the other road users (who, let’s be honest, had more right-of-way than the pedestrians).

If the cyclist was “trying not to be an asshole”, he failed. Had the vehicles passed through first, the pedestrians wouldn’t have thought of him as rude. It would have been just a minor inconvenience for them, and no one would have been an asshole.

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper
09/01/2016 at 17:06

I hate to break it to you, but unless you live in Texas, there is almost no situation where you will have right of way over a pedestrian while driving. http://www.ncsl.org/research/trans…

smobgirl > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
09/01/2016 at 17:11

Not trying to be that guy, but there are some situations where an offset bike lane are actually less safe. You're less visible to anyone turning across from the road or onto the road so if you're going faster than 5 mph it can be safer to be in the road. We had one like that on my old commute and I definitely stuck to it on the uphill but when I was cruising downhill at 30ish mph (on a 35mph road) I stayed in the road to not get t-boned.

ESSSIX GmbH - Accountant/Wagon Thumper > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
09/01/2016 at 17:13

Trust me... In nyc they have strict pedestrian laws.

TheHondaBro > gin-san - shitpost specialist
09/01/2016 at 17:13

I don’t care if he had good intentions. I could have been rear-ended by the car behind me that didn’t expect to be stopping randomly on the road.

Future next gen S2000 owner > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 17:17

I’m convinced people on bikes are the worst in traffic. Jackass McBicycle is lucky. Putting yourself in front of a moving vehicle to block traffic to let people cross is asking to get run over.

It should be legal to shoot people like that with a paintball gun.

I had a similar-ish scenario the other day. Traffic merges from two lanes into one. The road hasn’t changed for years, everyone knows it is there. Everyone gets in the left lane and waits, as the right lane merges into the left. Jackass McBicycle’s relative decided to pace the traffic to their left. Effectively locking two lanes at the same speed - for the better part of a 1/4 mile. This doesn’t sound bad but morning rush hour backs up this section for about 1/2 mi. Moron McIdiot slows down traffic enough that it backs up into the intersection because other morons don’t wait for the intersection to clear.

I was so wishing I could get behind them and just lay into the horn. Alas, I only got two or three cars behind them.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > gin-san - shitpost specialist
09/01/2016 at 17:18

Yeah, worst is what if a car behind him got mad, couldn’t see the people illegally crossing the road, drove around jackass mcjackassonabike and hit the women? Sure, it may have been his fault (if you can’t pass) but it would have been an easy thing to occur. Follow the rules!!

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 17:19

I would have flipped him the bird a few dozen times.

gin-san - shitpost specialist > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 17:24

I wasn’t trying to justify it; cyclist is definitely in the wrong and your frustration is justified.

NostalgicCarLife > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 17:24

This has happened to me, but then I remembered I was in a machine that moves me along with no personal effort expended, and it seemed kind of absurd to get mad after that thought.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > NostalgicCarLife
09/01/2016 at 17:26

The guy on the bike owns one too.

NostalgicCarLife > Shamoononon drives like a farmer
09/01/2016 at 17:33

owns one what?

bhtooefr > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
09/01/2016 at 19:05

What if the lane is unsafe (very common)? What if the path is unsafe (less common, but not unheard of), or doesn’t go where the person is going (for instance, a path separated from the roadway with no way to turn left)?

Most of my complaints here deal with bike lanes more than paths, as separated paths do have serious safety benefits if implemented properly (but implemented improperly, they can be incredibly dangerous too).

As smobgirl mentioned, many bike lanes are situated such that they reduce visibility of cyclists to motorists, making it far more likely that a motorist will turn across their path. (It’s to the point that cycling experts call one of these types of crashes the “right hook”, where a car passes a cyclist, misjudges the speed, and then immediately turns right across their path into a driveway or onto a side street. It happens often enough that that’s a well-known name for it among cyclists.)

In more urban areas, bike lanes are often in the “door zone”, where unthinking motorists fling their doors open into the path of an oncoming cyclist:

Kinja'd!!!

Some bike lanes are filled with debris, or blocked by motorists illegally in the bike lane.

Many bike lanes in the US don’t handle intersections at all, they just end just before the intersection, the most vulnerable point. Alternately, they’ll do things like have right-turning traffic cross the bike lane, and motorists rarely look before doing it. And, almost no bike lanes in the US provide a good way to turn left (mind you, this is possible in quite a few ways), other than getting out of the bike lane, taking control of the normal lane, and then moving left.

Paths in the US are often only implemented on one side of the street, and don’t forbid pedestrians. (Properly implemented, there’s a sidewalk for the pedestrians.) And, they’re often placed too close to the street, so motorists don’t have enough room to stop parallel to the path and look for oncoming cyclists (and aren’t REQUIRED to stop before crossing the path)... and being further offset from the street, cyclists are even less visible on a path, to motorists in the street, than in a lane.

tl;dr: Bad bicycle infrastructure is worse than no bicycle infrastructure. (Good bicycle infrastructure requires serious investment, and planning , though.)

bhtooefr > Hey Julie
09/01/2016 at 19:09

They almost certainly have the right to the right travel lane in Colorado, unless your specific town has ordinances against it. (Oregon and California are the only states that mandate cycle lane usage by cyclists, and then only under certain conditions (typically safety-related).

That said, three abreast is often not legal.

bhtooefr > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 19:10

Yeah, that is douchey to the extreme, and I’m saying that as someone who usually sides with the cyclist.

Tristan > Bryan doesn't drive a 1M
09/01/2016 at 19:55

Portlander here. Agree 100%. Also, why does everyone in this bloody state drive 10 mph under the already usually ludicrously low speed limits? Seriously... w have the slowest, most timid and annoyingly courteous drivers in the country.

Bryan doesn't drive a 1M > Tristan
09/01/2016 at 19:59

Yes, I did a road trip through Oregon recently and your speed limits are absurdly low. “Uh oh, kids, there’s an almost imperceptible bend comig up in the 6 lane divided highway we’re on! Say your prayers because there’s just no way we’re going to survive turns like this at a blistering 50 miles per hour!”

NJAnon > TheHondaBro
09/01/2016 at 23:06

I haven’t seen that before, but I have seen some uptight bicyclists on crosswalks.

The messed up part would’ve been if there was a wreck. The bicycle guy trying to get his game on could have caused the accidents but just rides away and theres no license plate on a bicycle and you can’t chase it on foot.

Tristan > Bryan doesn't drive a 1M
09/02/2016 at 00:17

It’s just painful. I moved here from Florida a year and a half ago. Southerners DGAF about speed limits. Last time I went back down there I had a rental F-1fiddy Ecoboost with seriously out of balance tires, so I kept my speed down around 80 and almost got run over. Florida may have terrible drivers, but at least they act like they have somewhere to be!

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > smobgirl
09/02/2016 at 09:26

The area I was driving is pretty wide open and the path is very visible and a nice 20-25 feet off the road. I’ve walked it before (I don’t use headphones and always keep an eye out to jump out of the way of bikes) and it’s in great shape. I’d roller blade down it at 20 mph with confidence, should tell you how cared for it is.

The road I was driving on is NOT well cared for with debris and gravel scattered onto the side of the road. The whole shoulder is all gravel. There’s probably 6 inches of pavement on the far side of the white line.

The path was the right choice on this 50 mph road, it’s maintained so well for a reason.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > bhtooefr
09/02/2016 at 09:28

Here’s my reply to smobgirl. What I’m talking about was MY situation - not all. I’m in full on suburbia for home and work.

The path was the right choice on this 50 mph road, it’s maintained so well for a reason.

smobgirl > bhtooefr
09/02/2016 at 09:37

One of my students lives in a neighborhood that recently got bike lanes and I was impressed at how well-done they were. They added elevated lanes on the road shoulder for bikes (eliminating the debris problem and reducing the danger from weaving cars) and then put the pedestrian sidewalk offset 10-15 feet from the road.

But since the world can’t be perfect, they also changed all of the intersections to traffic circles that are too narrow for the county snow plows. I don’t think they have the money to fix it now either.

bhtooefr > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
09/02/2016 at 21:03

Yeah, in that case, I’ll agree - and I’m jealous of that path.

That said, given your comments about the shoulder... if I’m riding on the road (which, I’m only doing that if the paths don’t go where I’m going, or I’m getting to or from a path), I’m typically controlling the lane, for my safety - I’m more noticeable when controlling the lane, and cars give me more clearance. The shoulder is out of the question, except as an escape path for someone who doesn’t notice me in time. The only exception is if the lane is wide enough for me to share it with motor vehicles safely, but even then, I may control it in cases where motor vehicles might turn across my path.