Got rammed by a car on Friday.

Tarckives Bikes
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So on Fridays, our club hosts a “funride” of sorts. Specifically (to spare you all my longwindedness) we were heading with a group of 6 (including myself and redtailin) to the bike shop and then to a local eatery and alcoholery.

I’ve been hit by 4 cars now, I ride with my lights on ALL THE TIME. Helmet, ALL THE TIME.

ANyways, we’re approaching the intersection just before the bike shop. We’re riding in the center lane, which is the “go straight lane” and the light (roughly 300m ahead) is red.

All of the sudden, this small SUV decides to cross the double yellow, into oncoming traffic and floor past us on the left. She drove all of the .02 seconds to the red light at which she ended up roughly 6th in line behind other cars.

Myself and redtailin… being the idiots that we are decide that instead of stopping calmly behind her vehicle or proceeding to the front of the line, we would stop in front of her car so as to illustrate to her, hey… we’re all getting there at the same time.

We didn’t look at her, acknowledge her, say anything, etc.

Yes. I realize that I/we essentially instigated this by stopping in front of her. I don’t think it should really have led to what followed.

So I’m standing there on my retro direct (coz it can’t trackstand on the account it can’t go backwards) and redtailin is standing next to me. We had enough time to joke about his sick trackstanding skillz and make fun of each other and all of the sudden. This small SUV lifts their foot off the brake, applies it to the gas, and rams us and my bike.

There were 3 casual cyclists and me and 2 teammates on the ride. Everyone immediately starts yelling towards her to stop because they didn’t know exactly what was happening and I just looked back and started screaming wtf are u ramming me or some shit.

She flashed me this look like… “hah, what now” sort of… or like… stink eye u know.

So one of my teammates flies around from behind her car and just gets in front of her car. I just leaned my bicycle on the front of her car (as though this was going to stop her from leaving somehow?) and me and my other teammate promptly walk over to her window to explain to her that she’s an idiot.

Being that I’m all legal and shit, and by the way I was mentioning what to do in the last “stupid frat boy pieces of shit” thread I’m sure you can gather I was trying to yell at her in an educated way… she sort of sits there staring ahead while im asking her wtf she was doing ramming a cyclist.

She basically rammed her car into the left back of my bike and it sort of sideswiped up to my leg btw.

I was explaining to her that I was a human being and blah blah blah. She had her infant child in the backseat, she was this like 40 year old mom. She had an A pass for the univ so she’s some form of employee. I was basically just dumbfounded.

She after a lengthy rant from me, and me threatening like 5 times to call the police essentially decided to go with the story that:

“it was an accident”, “she isn’t used to cyclists on the road”, etc.

I eventually just said to her…

“ma’am, I just want you to know that I don’t believe your bullshit excuses for one second, I don’t think it was an accident, and I don’t accept your apology. But I’m not going to call the police because you have a family and I doubt that you need that, and I hope that this can be a learning experience for you” or something to that close effect.

Thats the readers digest version. The bike appears to be ok, I’m going to really check it over later. I know the rear fender is broken… but I think that may be it.

Hit by 4 cars. 3 on the bike, once while running. Now rammed once.

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It sucks too because there’s alot of emotional stress that comes with something like this. Realizing that some human being thinks of you as a dispensible object rather than another human being. It makes me very sad to think that something I love doing so much causes such hate in others.

Sigh…

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Also that it was an employee at the univ. I mean… she didn’t know, but I ride on the cycling team (not that it should matter) but… ugh… it made me want to not wear my und kit on the training ride today.

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Anyways… just needed to vent really.

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Fucking weak dude. Sorry to hear.

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That sucks, dude. I hate that faux-innocent “oops!” bullshit.

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Yeah… I wasn’t having it either. We kept her there for three total cycles of the traffic light. And its a busy intersection.

8

should have called the cops on her.

anyone who sees another human being as dispensable shouldn’t be voting or driving a 3000 lb flammable liquid filled death rocket.

but good on your for not calling the cops and ruining her life.

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This is what makes me most livid. It takes 5 seconds to wait for a cyclist to pass, on most occasions. I’m sorry to hear about your episode mate, but rest assured I am evening things out for you.

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Some asshole pulled this to a group of cyclists I knew in Melbourne. Long story short they thoroughly fucked up his SUV and left. I can’t say I don’t wish you’d done the same, but you’re a bigger man for handling it the way you did.

But…using your car as a weapon…you should lose voting and living free privileges.

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I respect and support this decision, especially since it must have been a difficult one to make at the time. But here’s what I would have done: I would have forcibly extricated her from her car, beat her mercilessly about the head, and then absconded with her child. I would raise the lad amongst my cycling peers, steeped in all things cylcedom until he became, like a boy raised by wolves, unknowable to and unable to know the non-cycling world. That’d learn 'er.

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shoulda called the cops, i would have in a heartbeat. people gotta realize this shit isn’t a game and you can’t expect to just get away with intentionally hitting people with your fucking car. based on my experience it’s unlikely the cops would have done shit anyways, but hopefully at least she would have had an “oh shit what have i done” moment when the fuzz rolled up.

anyway, how hard did she ram you? did you guys get knocked over or just kinda jostled?

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u dumb 4 not callin cops

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[quote=CheshireCat]should have called the cops on her.
[/quote]

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[quote=CheshireCat]should have called the cops on her.
[/quote]

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What if she hit you in your car on purspose? Cops, right? I honestly would have pursued assault charges. Sounds like the lecture she got was actually a good one and I doubt she’ll forget it, but I’m sure she’ll be laughing about ramming a cyclist when she retells the story.

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Don’t do it again, not callin’ the cops.

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The primary reasons I didn’t call the cops were

  1. I kept trying to get my cellphone out while I was threatening to call the cops, but couldn’t get it out for whatever reason.
  2. Being that I instigated it, no matter how little of an effect that should’ve had, with my CJ background I know that depending on the cop who shows up, I probably could’ve been just as fucked as she would’ve been. I just honestly didn’t feel like dealing with some cop with the whole ND attitude of “you shouldn’t have done that to her”.
  3. We had a couple new members riding with us, and I didn’t want the whole thing to be worse than it needed to be.

I know… poor excuses, but that was what was running through my head.

Also to how hard she rammed. It pushed me over into redtailin and moved my weighted rear wheel over. I think he may have fallen, but I don’t remember.

I’d equate the force to that of when someone behind you at a stop gets rearended and they’re pushed into your car.

And Petr, yeah… just yeah really.

I respect and support this decision, especially since it must have been a difficult one to make at the time. But here’s what I would have done: I would have forcibly extricated her from her car, beat her mercilessly about the head, and then absconded with her child. I would raise the lad amongst my cycling peers, steeped in all things cylcedom until he became, like a boy raised by wolves, unknowable to and unable to know the non-cycling world. That’d learn 'er.[/quote]

This is the best answer. I was actually thinking about this (comically of course) last night.