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This is normal day for a bmw driver.
Treating bikers poorly is not just a U.S. thing, I’ve seen it the EU too, pretty nasty interactions. Drivers should be heavily fined for endangering people in more vulnerable situations.
Edit multiple people saying losing driving privileges, I think it usually works that way for repeat offenders. If someone does it once and the fine deters them then mission accomplished
If the only consequence of breaking the law is a fine, then it’s legal for the rich to do it. If a person can not be trusted to drive safely, they shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
I could have written the exact same paragraph even though I live on the other side of the planet. It’s crazy how universal this shit seems to be.
Can confirm. Just walked the Camino and everyone I talked to had a bad experience with BMW drivers. The brand is like a dickhead magnet.
Sounds about right. I had a similar encounter with a commercial minivan driver on a 30 kph backstreet in Toronto.
As someone who does enjoy cars, fuck BMW owners, they are always the stupidest, angriest, pettiest drivers on the road. I wouldn’t invite one to my wedding.
I’m just saying this because yesterday I drove behind a BMW M5 driver who was the exact opposite of an aggressive driver. They were so cautious and considerate of others around them I actually took notice. Broke my world for a moment, I expected them to be a jerk but nope. It was a welcomed weird.
I divorced one and they are now with another BMW driver.
Oh no they teamed up! Twice the terror!
Yeah, now there is nobody who can stop them.
Anybody have experience adding a dashcam to their bike? I wonder if documenting these cases could help start change
Go on ‘The Youtube’, there are thousands of videos of bicyclists with dash cams in hairy situations.
There’s an app for that - it’s called, succinctly, “dashcam for your bike”. They sell clip-on phone holders for your bike and do some image stabilization in the video they record, and have integration so you can report people/items blocking the bike lane to the local infrastructure. Would recommend.
I can only imagine the invisible typewriter used by my city when a report comes in like that.
Forwarded directly to the “we’ll get right on that” department
Heh, full disclosure: I was in a startup program with the dude who makes it so I’m def biased, but in Pittsburgh they put bollards on a road to establish separation for the bike lane with credit to the reports from the app giving them historical tracking on how prevalent it was. So yeah, reports may not send out someone posthaste, but they can improve the situation for sure.
That works. Also, having the bike lane on an elevated level above car traffic works well.
The Dutch have the best traffic rules and laws giving the advantages to the bicyclists. Driving in and out of traffic circle is a neck breaking experience.
Why did you have his toddler in the back seat??
Yeah, some drivers seem to DGAG about the rules. Like I’m cycling straight and you’re turning, asshole, honk whatever you want. [Note: applicable to Russia, your experiences may vary]
Electric rage.
“2 designated bike lanes”
Op had an option to not be in danger then. They were in the car lane to feel the drama.
So you’re assuming the bike was in a car lane instead of a car trying to drive in the designated bike lane?
Considering the car was going 70 in a thirty it doesn’t sound like he obeyed the rules of the road.
So you’re assuming the bike was in a car lane instead of a car trying to drive in the designated bike lane?
You’re picking and choosing assumptions that suit your preference.
Considering the car was going 70 in a thirty it doesn’t sound like he obeyed the rules of the road.
Nor did the cyclist. Two wrongs don’t make you right.
Nor did the cyclist. Two wrongs don’t make you right.
Again there is no reason to assume the cyclist isn’t in the bike lane or is breaking any kind of law. You just decided entirely on your own that they must be in the road.
I saw a car driving on the bike path just yesterday. Not even a bike lane, I completely separate path on the side of the road separated by a big ditch. They drove on the bike path to avoid traffic lights.
If we’re going by anecdotes, I saw a cyclist ignore a red last week and in the past month several ignore stop signs.
We aren’t going by anecdotes. We are going by what’s most reasonable to assume.
Reasonable to assume a cyclist that aren’t required to hold a license to be out on the road won’t obey road rules.
That’s not reasonable to assume. Let me prove it?
Are you Food Safety Certified from a credited organization? No?
Then obviously your cooking must be poisonous.
I however am food safety certified. I cannot cook at all. Suck at cooking. I do know proper temps, and how to store food. I still cannot cook.
Having a license only PROVES you know the rules. Having one doesn’t mean your GOOD at thing or even that you will FOLLOW the rules. It just proves you KNOW the rules.
Likewise not having a license doesn’t mean you DONT know the rules or WONT follow the rules. It only means you haven’t proven to a licensing body that you do.
I don’t have a medical license, but I know you shouldn’t take opioids every day of your life or you’ll get addicted to them. Clearly many doctors did not know that or did not care.
Edit: hell one more fun one.
When I was in school we had a state issued standardized test called the TAAS test. I got a perfect score every single year. Got every single question in the entire test, every category, correct. 100 percent.
However I was failing most of my classes. Did I know the material or did I not? One certificate said I exceptional and perfect, the other certificate says I was far below my peers.
Which one was right?
You’re picking and choosing assumptions that suit your preference.
That’s pretty rich considering you’re assuming OP (on a bike) specifically mentioned two designated bike lanes, decided to ride in the road instead, then told all of us so we would know he’s a jerk.
If they were riding in the road they wouldn’t have mentioned the bike lanes at all so they looked like the “good guy”
“So I was stomping on some kittens right, then this guy cut in line at Walmart right in front of me! What a jerk”
Why would someone include the part of the story that made them the bad guy?
You are the one assuming whatever fits you’re narrative the best. You must drive a BMW and are here to troll bike riders.
And where did they say the car drive in the bike lane? They didn’t. This is your narrative.
Op said they were on a bike. Op said there were two designated bike lanes. Ok said car nearly hit them.
One of two things must be true.
Car entered the bike lane. A thing that happens often.
Op was riding in the traffic lane instead of the two designated bike lanes, then posted about it, and specifically mentioned the two bike lanes they were not using for no reason other than to make themself look bad. A thing that doesn’t happen often.
You see how short one explanation is compared to the other? Yeah the short explanation is probably what happened. It’s the most likely explanation.
It does happen often. Many Cyclists often do not obey road rules. ‘Rules are for thee and not for me.’ And it’s hilarious you think anyone that entitled has any self observation enough to think they would look bad while doing so. Riding a bike should absolutely require a license to be out on the road.
And BMW drivers are well known for their courtesy on the road? Oh right even car drivers know people who drive bmws think they are special and do whatever they want.
Go home troll.
Op had an option to not be in danger then. They were in the car lane to feel the drama.
That’s you making a wild leap to blame the bike.
I’m using what’s called occums razor. Op mentioned the bike lanes. Op didn’t say anything about being in the main road.
It’s more reasonable to assume they were using the bike lanes they mentioned. It’s unreasonable to assume they were in the road and only mentioned the bike lanes to us in order to make themselves look bad. That doesn’t make sense.
I love the drama of getting hit by cars on the way to pick up my kid
So you admit you don’t use the designated bike lanes
do you buy your cars based on how many children you can mow down? or is it anyone not in a 4ton death machine?
Wow you’re so deeply obsessed with me. It would be Flattering in a way but creepily unhealthy how much this has encompassed your life for a week now.
Do you buy your bike by how many stop signs you can run through?
ESH IMO, the “Not gonna let them pass me crowd” is almost as dangerous as the wreckless driver crowd. Just let them pass, if you feel they are breaking the law then report them accordingly.
Stop taking the law into your own hands, it’s dangerous.
It’s a one lane one way street, there’s nothing to let them pass though. They were just driving responsibly from the sounds of it.
on a single file one-way side street with 2 designated bike lanes. He was furious that I wouldn’t let him speed past him
The description is weird, but it sounds to me like there’s 1 lane for cars and 2 (narrow) bike lanes on either side and the biker was in the middle to prevent him from passing
They were just driving responsibly from the sounds of it.
That may be so, but pulling to the side to let an aggressive driver pass you is the smarter choice. Especially on a bike. Bike vs Car faceoffs usually don’t end well for the biker.
You may have missed the part where the driver of the BMW “hopped the curb” “at 70”. I have some doubts about the speed, but if you’re going over a curb at speed to try to pass someone, you’re in the wrong.
I think that description is a little suspect. If you hop a curb at 70, your car is getting jacked up.
Never said he wasn’t, but the biker was also putting his and his kids life at risk just to make a statement. The same type of aggressive driver who will “hop the curb at 70” are also the same who are unpredictable and could lose it and run you over.
Is taking the law into your own hands just to make a statement really worth your or your children’s lives? When you could have just avoided the entire situation by pulling to the side and letting the aggressive driver pass while you noted down the license plate?
Sorry, that wasn’t my point. If the driver had to hop a curb to threaten the cyclist, how would the cyclist have been able to simply “pulled to the side” to let him past when there’s a curb between them.
Ah gotcha, yea the OOP post isn’t particularly clear, but from my understanding there was a time before the driver got fully enraged where the biker could have pulled off onto the curb themselves
It does seem like there’s something “off” about that description. Itd be interesting to know where this all happened.
I can imagine a driver raging at a cyclist and then later chasing them and hopping a curb to threaten. Or hopping the curb onto a sidewalk to pass them and swerving back onto the road in a threatening manner. Both strike me as very much dangerous and disproportionate reactions to having to go a bit slow for 30 seconds.
The swerving at them was when coming back off the curb into the road, I think. If there was a curb between them, there’s no way the cyclist was preventing him from passing.
Edit: crappy drawing
Most likely one contraflow bike lane, plus one car lane with sharrow, like this.
Also, bike needs to be in the center of the lane to avoid the door-zone.
No, the group of people who don’t kill any people with their vehicles is not “just as dangerous” as the group who kills 25,000+ people/year
I like biking but don’t do much of it anymore because of crazy drivers.
I’m sure plenty of pedestrians have been killed by cyclists. I’ve almost been run over multiple times by spandex warriors running red lights. I’m not convinced if you looked at percentages and not raw numbers you wouldn’t find just as many irresponsible cyclists as you do drivers. I see multiple drivers doing something stupid every day and I see a cyclist every week or two doing something stupid. Difference is I see 200 cars a day and 4 cyclists.
The best thing for your safety on a bike is to let the aggressive driver go, not to police them. Antagonizing an irate driver is a recipe for disaster no matter if you are in a car, on a bike or a pedestrian.
I’m sure plenty of pedestrians have been killed by cyclists.
I did some quick searching and found 2019 data from Europe. In all of the EU that year, bicycles killed 19 pedestrians while cars killed 3200 pedestrians. Over 168 pedestrians killed by a car for each killed by a bicycle. I know there are plenty of irresponsible cyclists, and yet they are still a tiny fraction as dangerous as a driver.
The “Not gonna let them pass me crowd” includes both drivers and bikers.
Nah, let em kill me. Fuck it.
I was on my way to my kids school (with bike seat)
Reckless drivers would be quite wreckful.
It isn’t about stubbornly not letting people past it is called riding defensively. People pass far too fucking close in their cars and usually at too high a speed. If you place yourself in a position where they can’t pass you until there is enough room to do so safely then it protects yourself more from these idiotic cunts. I couldn’t care less if I am pissing you off if it means you aren’t going to put my life at risk trying to squeeze past me.
Bikes have as much right to be on the road as cars and if you wanted to could ride right in the middle of the lane and that is still completely within the law if that is what you are so concerned about. In fact being the smaller and more vulnerable of the road users the bike has the right of way in the eyes of the law so the driver, by law, should be giving way to the cyclist. They should also be giving 1.5m of space when they do pass the cyclist which 75% of people don’t do.
Most drivers don’t know the rules and laws of the road and just make up their own like you are now pretending people are “taking the law into their own hands” because you car brained fucks want to get to where you are going 30 seconds faster.
Clearly, you didn’t understand my original comment or read anything else in the thread, here’s another comment I wrote earlier:
You’re putting your own life in danger when you do crap like that, all it’ll take is one aggressive driver having a particularly bad day to run you over. Sure, they’ll probably get arrested and face consequences for that, but it won’t really matter all that much to you when you’re dead.
It’s like debating with the “fuck seatbelts” people stg.
With that attitude, you’ll likely end up as a statistic. You’re just as bad as the entitled “car brains”, except things go badly in Car vs Bike scenarios for the biker.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about or how to ride defensively when you are a cyclist on the road.
“Almost ironically, the way to make yourself safer while cycling on the road is by being in the way. ‘Defensive cycling’ helps you do that by preventing other road users from taking advantage of your relatively small size and slow speed.”
https://www.edinburghbicycle.com/blog/what-is-defensive-cycling
Many cyclists try to be courteous to motor vehicles by sticking as close to the side of the road as possible. Even though that does give drivers more room to pass, it also makes you harder to spot. Try to be at least three or four feet (one metre) away from the edge of the road. If you’re not blending in with the curb or the sidewalk, it will be easier for turning motor vehicles to spot you."
https://pedalstreet.com/defensive-cycling/#Do_not_hug_the_curb
"Don’t ride near the curbs.
Give yourself 2-3 feet of space to bail out in case a vehicle comes too close."
https://www.thegeekycyclist.com/tips/bicycle-safety-tips/
I one of your responses you say they should just hop up on to the curb, no, never! The footpath is for pedestrians, people walking, not for riding bikes on. Then you are putting pedestrians at risk.
And constantly saying you should “take down their VRM and report them to someone” as if that will do any good at all, the police couldn’t care less about that kind of stuff and achieves absolutely nothing. Jog on mate.
That’s all for normal traffic/day to day
I’m talking about after someone has clearly started on a path of aggression and road rage as described by OOP. People have been shot or run over or run into (if in a car, I’m not even talking about just bikers) over slights like cutting someone off.
Once someone has demonstrated severe aggression like described, it’s time to get out of the way, not amplify it
Lots of drivers pass too close and too fast, and the majority of the time they want to zoom past me only to roll stop through the next stop sign or wait for me to arrive at the crosswalk and press the light. They’ll also stop if a car is parking, or another car coming in the opposite. Nah, they can wait for me on my bike or they can use another any of the 100 roads specifically designated for them.
Though, not all the time. If I’m taking the lane it’s for a reason. It doesn’t help when drivers then use that moment to ride up right behind me. Car drivers treat bikers like shit and expect to be treated like royalty.
Into a red light though? Sounds like there’s more to the story
As a car-owner and someone who’s glad to now live in an area with phblic transportation I can confidently say that people are just astoundingly stupid, short-sighted, and impatient. Also blind, apparently, because they will ride my ass, cut someone off beside me to rip by, only to jump in front of me and slam the brakes because I’m not going slower than the people in front of me just because I’m leaving space. They’re in an SUV and my BRZ is barely over 4’ tall so they should be able to see just fine. If I’m really lucky I get to watch them pull into slower traffic beside me just because there’s some space for half a second and then have to wait for me to pass them after they got stuck behind the large truck that was always there but they somehow missed. And since it’ll need being said my top speed on the highway is plenty fast so if I’m not doing it it’s because there’s traffic and we all can’t go any faster.
People fucking suck and are stupid as hell, and rich or pseudo-rich Torontonians try really hard to be the best at being the worst, especially when they get the pleasure of endangering a person on a bicycle. I’m not the least bit surprised by any of this.
It’s been a good three years since I had to gaze upon any traffic situations on Turtle Island. I don’t miss it
I think Canada should be ashamed of the 401. Widest Highway in North America, and the competition is fierce. Good on you for distancing yourself from this.
