Got rammed by a car on Friday.

yea, no cops coz we were hungry, no time to waste on talking to cops! And after all we probably would have gotten screwed because we rode up in front of her.
I didnt fall over because of getting hit, I just lost balance a bit. If I did fall over it was probably coz sick trackstanding skillz

c’mon dude you were just adrenalined up and made a dumb decision. coming to terms with that will help you next time you’re in a situation with veins full of hot fire and a need to think clearly.

any browbeating and finger wagging on your behalf almost assuredly sent her into the sunset giggling. her having learned road bullying cyclists is without consequence, she is free to do shit like this again.

I know… I have too much faith in humanity. WTF.

re: adrenaline fucking your decision making ability: a fucking city bus in Melbourne nearly clips my gf, I ride up and catch the guy at the next stop. I was less than polite and hanging onto his window, he says “gtfo or I’m calling the cops”. I ride on. I should have said “fuck yeah, I’ll fuckin call em”. Instead I freaked and went home, didn’t even think to get his name or plate or whatever.

Next time something like that happened I got plate numbers and called a taxi driver’s company and the cops.

Next time someone pisses you off driving, just give em a nudge. Then explain they were being an ass and they deserved it, and any cop would see it that way. You don’t get to hit cars, pedestrians, or even smartass cyclists.

if any cop gives you shit point out it’s his job to protect vulnerable road users and if he woln’t do something about it his supervisor will. it’s normal policy for a supervisor to come if you request it. talk to them calmly and politely. they like that. find out his last name and call him "officer _____ " they REALLY like that.

i dunno about your state but here you can actually write other road users tickets. you get the plate number and you can file a ticket at the court house.

i suppose my point is while i’m not the number 1 fan of cops, any situation like the one you mention i think calling a cop is the best case scenario. drivers tend to not have actual knowledge of the road use laws, and a cop usually will, and will pride himself on informing the igonorant. both parties tend to get heated, and do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, in the presence of some public authority figure this is much less likely.

by all means, have faith in humanity. have faith they will be totally unpredictable when even a little bit pissed off.

I would have called the cops or vandalized her car, it’s bullshit that she did that and suffered no consequences. I had a similar instance (although the leadup was that this lady was attempting to pass me in the oncoming lane while I made a left turn and almost killed me) and while I fucked up her car out of anger I still think it was the right decision. Too many aggressive shitheads think that when they get behind the wheel they enter a world of anonymous action without consequence, some people need to be reminded that they have to answer for their shit.

You guys can call the man stupid for not calling the cops, but I keep coming back to this:

I think it’s very unlikely that any officer would do anything other than accept the woman’s “it was an accident” excuse, even if they didn’t believe it. But on the offhand chance that you were to get a cop who took their job seriously and decided to level a charge of assault with a deadly weapon or reckless endangerment or something, the ramifications of that would be worse than what she deserves for what she actually did, which was initiate a low speed collision with a cyclist that resulted in no bodily harm and little damage to the bicycle. I am not trying to stick up for this woman. She’s obviously someone who makes very, very stupid decisions and she could be a terrible person. She should be held responsible for the damage to the bike. But I am backing the OP for what strikes me as admirable restraint and ability to maintain perspective in an extremely stressful situation.

this.

its pretty interesting and discusses what happens to people (psychologically) when they climb in a car

[quote=johnnyraja]You guys can call the man stupid for not calling the cops, but I keep coming back to this:

I think it’s very unlikely that any officer would do anything other than accept the woman’s “it was an accident” excuse, even if they didn’t believe it. But on the offhand chance that you were to get a cop who took their job seriously and decided to level a charge of assault with a deadly weapon or reckless endangerment or something, the ramifications of that would be worse than what she deserves for what she actually did, which was initiate a low speed collision with a cyclist that resulted in no bodily harm and little damage to the bicycle. I am not trying to stick up for this woman. She’s obviously someone who makes very, very stupid decisions and she could be a terrible person. She should be held responsible for the damage to the bike. But I am backing the OP for what strikes me as admirable restraint and ability to maintain perspective in an extremely stressful situation.[/quote]

It was alot of this ^ honestly. As I said, I’m about to finish my degree in criminal justice (along with aviation). I know my rights, I know the laws. I know (and told her) that she could be charged with vehicular assault or menacing etc. The most rational choice here is to let bygons be bygons. It sounds stupid, but whatever. A cop showing up to deal with a no injury car accident with little to know damages (in terms of money) wouldn’t have proven my point any more than me getting in her face the way I did. Hopefully while she was on the verge of tears and I let her drive away she’s thinking rationally and saying “ok, I hate cyclists… but my reactions were over the top” hell, maybe she even gained some respect because I was educated and nice (enough) to her for cyclists.

Sending her to jail maybe would’ve “taught her a lesson” but I doubt it would’ve been the lesson you all suggest it would’ve been. I suspect if a cyclist sent me to jail like that, I’d have more hate towards cyclists in the future.

Either way, there is no “right answer”. I can’t say that I’ll send someone to jail should it ever happen again, and I can’t say that I won’t. All I can say is, with the situation that happened, I weighed the options of what to do, how I felt I could best handle it at that time, and made my choice. Frankly, I’m glad I don’t have the guilt in my head of taking someone’s mom away from them.

Don’t take my recap as a lack of empathy, though. I;m sure if this had happened to me there would have been a couple of seconds where I thought, “Oh shit this crazy asshole is going to run me over and kill me,” and I would have been terrified.

Nah, I got ya.

accident or “accident” she was in the wrong either way. cops are the people society pays to enforce acceptable behavior. call them when in doubt if that behavior is acceptable.

and the notion someone gets a pass because they are capable of procreation is real stupid. any two assholes with the right genital combination can make offspring. it’s no get out jail card.

I’m glad you and your bike are ok. Mixing it up with a sociopath driver is some scary shit.

But I gotta agree with Doug, letting her off the hook because she was able to squeeze out a baby is bizarre logic, and I think it was irresponsible to everyone else who uses those roads.

If it had actually been an accident I would have let her go, but when you hit someone with your car to “teach them a lesson” that sends a strong message- get the fuck out of my way or get hurt- that is absolutely unacceptable.

If for no other reason I would have called the cops so there is a record of her behavior the next time she “accidentally” hits a cyclist. Basically she is so selfish that she not only thinks about hitting an unprotected human being with a multi-ton vehicle because you use a different mode of transportation but actually follow through on that train of thought. Not only that but she smirked at you afterward like she was proud of it! She only apologized to get you out of her way so she could go on about her business.

I doubt she learned anything from this encounter, other than cyclists are pussies who she can trample over at will. (I’m not at all saying that your a pussy, just that that is probably how she interpreted it.)

But I digress. The important thing is that you didn’t get hurt. I’m gonna go drink a beer for you.

I wasn’t trying to say that the kid should be the only reason not to call in the law. No matter who was driving, a broken fender is not really worth a criminal charge. If I were in that situation, seeing the kid probably would have helped remind me of that. Yeah, it’s teaching your kid a terrible lesson, but seeing your mom get berated to the brink of tears would probably be a pretty powerful lesson, too.

You shoulda called the cops. She wouldn’t have spent a night in jail, probably would have just gotten a ticket of some sort. Family shmamily. What about yours? Or the next person she hits?

You should have called the cops just to make sure she bought you a new fender. AND rim, while you’re at it.

And even if she didn’t get a ticket, you should have wasted her time by making her wait and talk with the cops. Make her recognize that while cyclists are a minor inconvenience, fucking hitting them is a MAJOR inconvenience.

Furthermore, if she works for the university you should take it to THEM as well. Their faculty are assaulting their students/athletes? Unacceptable.

Calling the police is not a magical “make everything okay” button. Recently a friend of a friend was in an altercation where a driver chased him and a few friends down several blocks, hopped a curb with her car, rand him and his bike over, exited the vehicle, and punched him in the head several times. The police came and arrested him and one of his friends he was riding with because the driver lied and said they spit in her face, “rammed their bikes” into her car while they were riding next to her on a busy bridge. (Since then, he’s been bailed and approached a lawyer who’s known a cyclist friendly and wants $2000 he doesn’t have to represent his case in court.) Because she had a kid in the car the cops were severely biased and trying to “serve and protect” her rather than who was clearly the victim.

What makes the situation worse is that he had a portable bike stand and tools in his bag and was on his way to fix homeless/poor people’s bikes for free at the time. Dude’s been mostly taking the train and bus ever since, and who can blame him?

There’s no real “best” thing to do in any situation, but use your best judgement. Be rational, be assertive, and don’t let yourself be a doormat. I’d like to write here “calling the police can’t ever hurt,” but unfortunately that’s not always the case.

[quote=white folks]
i suppose my point is while i’m not the number 1 fan of cops, any situation like the one you mention i think calling a cop is the best case scenario.[/quote]

unfortunately true that if you want to see results that are positive to you in any such situation, you have to play by certain rules, which means calling the cops. while i would take more satisfaction from dealing with it personally and i tend to not have a lot of faith in the cops, if you want insurance monies or even just to be taken seriously by the offending party, you have to start with the first step of calling the cops.

[quote=scape ghost]Calling the police is not a magical “make everything okay” button. Recently a friend of a friend was in an altercation where a driver chased him and a few friends down several blocks, hopped a curb with her car, rand him and his bike over, exited the vehicle, and punched him in the head several times. The police came and arrested him and one of his friends he was riding with because the driver lied and said they spit in her face, “rammed their bikes” into her car while they were riding next to her on a busy bridge. (Since then, he’s been bailed and approached a lawyer who’s known a cyclist friendly and wants $2000 he doesn’t have to represent his case in court.) Because she had a kid in the car the cops were severely biased and trying to “serve and protect” her rather than who was clearly the victim.

What makes the situation worse is that he had a portable bike stand and tools in his bag and was on his way to fix homeless/poor people’s bikes for free at the time. Dude’s been mostly taking the train and bus ever since, and who can blame him?

There’s no real “best” thing to do in any situation, but use your best judgement. Be rational, be assertive, and don’t let yourself be a doormat. I’d like to write here “calling the police can’t ever hurt,” but unfortunately that’s not always the case.[/quote]

fuck right off with your bullshit story new guy

i retract everything i said

just do this:
http://www.koinlocal6.com/content/news/topstories/story/Bike-road-rage-suspect-to-face-judge-on-assault/fP1K2sPERUa8he38B0FJYA.cspx?rss=1100