Terrible people are Terrible

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 01/03/2016 at 21:34 • Filed to: None

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We finally made the last leg of our trip today. West of Baton Rouge lies a 10-mile -long bridge over the Atchafalaya basin. The bridge is fairly narrow with no shoulders and speed limits are set differently for trucks and cars. As you can guess, accidents are common and when they happen, the interstate is shut down since there’s nowhere to go. Our trip was delayed by one today.

To make room for emergency vehicles, both lanes of traffic have to squeeze as close to the guard rails as possible so the emergency vehicles can go up the middle. Here’s where the terrible people show up. There were two cars chasing the ambulance and fire truck that passed us today. They weren’t running emergency lights, so I doubt they were volunteer emergency services. As soon as they passed, this douchebag in an F-150 who was near me in line decided he would jump in behind them. He only managed one car length before I and the mustang ahead of him cut him off. His one car length did get him around one other car.

I do wonder what happened to the ambulance chasers. It’s my understanding that state police officers take that behavior seriously, but I don’t know if someone further up the que managed to cut them off. I wish I’d had a dash cam running so I could provide some footage for the police. I need to look into getting one soon.

CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/03/2016 at 21:54

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Ambulance chasers are the worst. I hope they get their bar licence revoked.

TheRealBicycleBuck > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 01/03/2016 at 22:04

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I guess I set myself up for that one.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/03/2016 at 22:11

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those people are the worst.

I almost rear ended (and almost got rear ended myself) due to some impatient Windstar driver with an 80’s vintage vanity plate deciding to skip the line. The time they tried to save with cutting me off was negated by the traffic light just ahead, and the line slipped by while they tried to squeeze back in. this is just outside my workplace. a pretty busy supermarket.

FucenSpaz > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/04/2016 at 05:38

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Dude, Do you know if what’s acceptable to you is acceptable to him? He already thinks Traffic Laws don’t apply to Him. How about legal carry of a firearm and murder ?

Let the Professionals handle it. Your not a special snow flake. Who’s in your car? Anybody someone else would care about when they start shooting, or just drag you out of the car?

SHIT happens, you can plan and be careful and shit still happens. Why increase your danger in Life?

TheRealBicycleBuck > FucenSpaz 01/04/2016 at 08:25

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This is the South. It is expected that EVERYBODY is armed and dangerous.

Perhaps I didn’t paint a clear enough picture of the situation. In the 18 miles between Henderson and Ramah, there are exactly two exits. The wreck happened just east of the Whiskey Bay Pilot Channel (the east fork of the river in the pic below). We were stuck just west of there.

Most of the bridge is two 11 foot lanes with no shoulder. There is just enough room to allow a third vehicle through if everyone moves to the side. When you add a third vehicle, everyone gets jammed.

Mr. F-150 is lucky he didn’t get shot. If he had persisted in bullying his way through, I’m sure that someone, or more likely a whole bunch of someones would have dragged his ass out of his truck and tossed him off the bridge.

FucenSpaz > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/04/2016 at 09:01

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I’m talking Mr F-150 actions towards you, and your family in the Car. Shit Happens. Your increasing the danger to yourself and everyone else in the car TO BE RIGHT, plus whos to know if anybody can hit what they aim at.

FBI agents in actual Gunfights average only 60% accuracy.

TheRealBicycleBuck > FucenSpaz 01/04/2016 at 09:11

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It is clear that you have no idea what things are really like down here. Fear mongering will get you nowhere. When sheeple run amok, criminals run the world. If I were the least bit concerned about Mr. F-150 being a violent a-hole, I would have done things differently. As it was, the crowd of people stuck on that bridge worked together to put him in his place. NOBODY was going to let him get through.

FucenSpaz > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/04/2016 at 09:18

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LOL you don’t know if he was armed. You can’t control other peoples actions. Are you Police trained in this type of stuff? Or just a civillian? Whom thinks nothing Bad will ever happen because he’s a Special Snowflake? How many times have you been shot at?

TheRealBicycleBuck > FucenSpaz 01/04/2016 at 12:54

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Your concerns are laughable. At my age, I’m way more likely to die of of an accident (unintentional injury in CDC speak), cancer, heart disease, or suicide. The two leading unintentional injuries are accidental poisoning (usually alcohol or drug overdose) and motor vehicle accident.

You also missed the part where I said the expectation down here is that EVERYBODY is armed and dangerous. The ownership rate in Louisiana is 45.6%. That is based on the General Social Survey, not registration.

I choose to live my life without fear of bad things that might happen. I happen to understand statistics, so I recognize which situations are truly dangerous and which are not. Sure, there is always a tiny risk that some wacko is going to start shooting. How much of a risk? Let’s see!

In 2013, 2,596,993 people died in the U.S. From that group, 16,121 died from assault, 11,208 died from assault by firearm. That’s 0.4%.

Since there aren’t many babies or old people dying by firearm, it’s a bit more useful to split those numbers by age group. Within my age group, the number is a bit higher with assaults by firearm representing around 3% of all deaths. Looks a lot riskier to be me!

But wait. That isn’t the whole story. There were 14,196 homicides in 2013 ( FBI ). This number is a bit lower than the CDC stats, but we’ll go with it. It has been estimated that 31 of those could be attributed to road rage ( SafeMotorist ), but how they determine that number and whether or not they were firearm-related isn’t clear. Let’s assume that they were all due to firearms. That’s 0.2%.

Now let’s assume that the risks are equally distributed (big leap here) and the 0.2% rate directly applies to the 3% rate of firearm homicides in my age group (it doesn’t). That leaves me with a 0.6% chance that Mr. F-150 was carrying, was willing to pull his weapon on a crowded bridge with no avenue for escape, was willing to fire his weapon at me, and managed to kill me. All of this would have to happen in a place where, according to the statistics, almost half of the cars around him contained firearms and owners who were willing to use them. This also assumes that all of the people who have firearms at home also carry firearms in their car, which I know from personal experience isn’t true.

To put it in perspective, men in my age group are more likely to die from heart disease (18%), cancer (16%), accidental poisoning (12% - this includes alcohol, accidental overdose of prescription drugs, and illegal drugs), or motor vehicle accidents (7%). I’m even more likely to die from suicide (9%) than by being shot (3%).

I worry about real risks. I’m not one of the hysterics who are always worried about things that aren’t likely to happen.

FucenSpaz > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/13/2016 at 18:07

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Well yes a small risk, but Mr. F-150 has already shown that his schedule is more important then doing what would be legal or ethical in the situation, disregarding what the other motorists will think. So what happens when he is denied what he wants? Then there is the challege of you saying,” No, you can’t do what you want”.

Just not worth it to me.

Lincoln-Hawk > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/14/2016 at 11:10

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Who cares what he does? Would him following the ambulance have affected you in any way? There’s no point in putting yourself at risk just to try and play highway enforcer. Also:

“This is the South. It is expected that EVERYBODY is armed and dangerous.”

“Mr. F-150 is lucky he didn’t get shot.”

“That leaves me with a 0.6% chance that Mr. F-150 was carrying, was willing to pull his weapon on a crowded bridge with no avenue for escape, was willing to fire his weapon at me, and managed to kill me.”