No, of course riding a bike is not the same as privileges born of circumstances of birth, though this person was a woman.
Idk, I don’t think it’s character assassination to say you’ve been lucky that these incidents have not been malicious? I’m kinda jealous tbh. I don’t think a yelling match should be escalated to deadly force, I simply think you’re refusing to consider that deadly force was already a part of the equation due to the actions of the driver, and for some people that won’t be a new thing in interacting with drivers.
While I think we can all agree that there is great discrimination toward people of color and women, I don’t think it is my place to further muse about such things?
that article is a clickbait garbage fire, and that’s what it was written to be, and it’s doing what it’s supposed to, which is allow people to strengthen their own opinions with the absence of facts.
<3
curious to know, have you lived in NYC your whole life? i’m not asking to dismiss your feelings, just thinking that might help me understand and empathize with them more better
Somewhat relevant (and somewhat trying to change the subject), bike advocacy orgs have been dropping enforcement from their road safety strategies. I’ve been struggling with how I feel about this, but I think BikePGH has a good explanation. The key bit is
If a street is designed in such a way that we also need armed police to monitor it, then the design has already failed. People drive based off of the streets they are given, so if we want to slow cars down, then we need to make sure it’s uncomfortable for drivers to speed in the first place, also known as “self-enforcing streets.”
I’ve definitely called the cops to report dangerous drivers when cycling. Sometimes the police even respond. The drivers have always been middle-aged white men, usually driving expensive cars.
I think part of @Crustradamus’s point is there can be things done to roadways and driving policy to make these sorts of confrontations less likely to start to begin with. And, things can be done with gun policy to make these sorts of confrontations less likely to escalate to the point of fatality.
Fwiw I do not carry a gun and have very little desire to do so. But when women I know have told me about how they’ve often had interactions where road rage has moved quickly towards gendered violence… idk it makes me willing to consider that this woman made an accurate assessment of where the situation was headed and acted accordingly.
true. i was looking at it from a “drivers = bad, never gonna change” perspective.
there is a real way to make these interactions less likely and hostile, but it requires systemic change that is really hard, and seems like “really hard” = impossible in people’s minds
I agree with this. So again colored by my experience in NYC, the police generally do.not.give.a.shit. about vehicular violence. The only hope is to design streets that do not allow for cars to easily speed, that have lots of “road furniture” which is difficult to navigate around for vehicles, etc… Same theory with speed cameras. The police ain’t cutting it. Need robots to send tickets out.
as i’ve said before, i’m trying to grow in a way that allows me to face a world that does not care about my safety with peace and tranquility and being-the-bigger-personism, instead of KILL EM ALL LET GOD SORT IT OUT.
but there are ingrained opinions that i have that need the basic mental tenant to change before i can change the things based off that tenant.
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were out for a recreational ride. We were on a small state road just outside a town center. The road had a bit of a bend to it. We heard a truck behind us and very quickly it was making a pass. It was a large pickup with oversized mirrors and towing an even wider trailer. My wife called out “watch out” or some such to me as it passed and I saw it coming out of the corner of my eye and squeezed toward the curb. The driver gave both of us less than a foot of passing room.
As the vehicle passed, we saw the blue and black paint scheme…it was the state police mounted unit towing a horse trailer. I got the trailer’s license plate. My wife and I chatted for a sec and agreed that was an inexcusably dangerous pass, made more egregious that it was a police vehicle (two weeks into all the BLM protests, so police really should have been on best behavior) AND the mounted unit that should understand “vulnerable road users.”
We pulled over in the next driveway and called the local police, knowing that there’s no love lost between local PD and state troopers. The dispatcher took my report and said he would “send it out to patrol.” When I got home, I had a voicemail from the the state trooper apologizing. He’d called about 15 min after I reported it. He started out with the classic “sorry if you felt …” but ultimately made an unconditional apology. I’ve saved that voicemail for posterity. I figure until we defund the police, we can play them off against each other.
Perhaps my favorite road rage situation occurred one time when my friend and I were riding out of NYC on road bikes. I don’t remember what the trigger was but long story short some guy in a shitty Hyundai started honking and/or yelling at us. I reciprocated, egging him on a bit, and that’s when things got interesting.
He called me a dirty fag kike or something. In response I did the logical thing and put my hand down my bibs, simulating pleasuring myself–with my crotch at the level of his face since I was on a bike and he was seated in his car. I also questioned how he had the gall to use anti-Semitic slurs on the Upper West side of Manhattan (like literally blocks from where Seinfeld was set, to give you an idea, lol), told him his sad untermensch ass would be one of the first to go in the Third Reich, etc…
This prompted him to turn on his radio, which started blasting literal Hitler music. Like some Wagner or some shit. I started laughing at the ridiculousness of this sad white guy in a shitty old car trying to intimidate me with his Hitler music. This definitely made him more angry, and he told me he had a gun. He started reaching for his glovebox as I told him that was an interesting thing I was going to tell police in a minute (also intending to gtfo immediately), but then the light changed and he sped off–likely a bit freaked out that he just basically told me he was going to shoot me.
I haven’t once suggested that we need weapons to protect ourselves. You have a narrative in your head about the people that were carrying a concealed weapon.
I have suggested that based on the information available to us that the motorist assaulted the cyclist couple with a deadly weapon and was killed in the process.
I’ve also suggested that this is likely both legally and ethically correct. That’s the end of my “suggestions”. I’ve implied, and you’ve failed to pick up on this, that more than one of the parties was in possession of a deadly weapon, and that tighter regulation on those deadly weapons would be beneficial for cyclist safety.
Your assertion that had a gun not been present the situation wouldn’t have resulted in a death is wildly speculative. Your assumptions about the motivations of the cyclist carrying the gun is again, wildly speculative.
