I've had enough - the worm has turned!

yourpaceormine

Quite frankly I've had enough....

of having things thrown at me, being driven off the road, of being physically threatened, having tirades of profanity shouted at me

Why? Because I'm on a bike. What makes people hate me because I ride a bike? If their hatred was based on my skin tone, or which god I did or didn't believe in then action groups would be lobbying parliament for 'action' against hate crime.

I've tried waving two fingers, I''m done with counting to twenty and ignoring it. now whenever it happens I phone 999 and report it. No in reality I don't expect the Police will do anything about it, but it makes me feel better.

Kieran_Burns

I really don't get this, or get the abuse.

I have a very rare tirade or some numpty shout something, but things thrown at me? Never.

I'm about to start my 10 mile commute which is all country roads to / from work and I really don't anticpate anything untoward happening here either. I really feel for you and am sorry you have to put up with so much abuse, but really I can't imagine it happening to me.

essex-commuter

Last year I had something throw at me twice. Once I think it was a stone, the second time it was an apple...I know that because it hit me on the leg.

90% of my commute is on country lanes, I was a target when I was in a built up area...that's pretty obvious though.

It's all down to the area you live and commute I guess.

suzyb

Is it people throwing things at you because they dislike the fact your commuting by bike/using the road etc.

Or is it because they are a**holes and being on a bike makes you an easy target.

essex-commuter

In both of my cases the objects were thrown by a group of youngsters on a street corner...so I would go for the latter.

Skippy2309

Had something thrown before but was not an issue, abuse sometimes, mainly cabbies depending on my route..... but I usually give out worse than I get. even with a dodgy ride involving loads of swearing makes me feel nice and calm when I get to work.


I always tell the missus not everyone is as competent on the road as you are. We both drive but only I cycle so she struggles to see the cyclists point of view, will get her to cycle at some point :P

Chaz.Harding

yourpaceormine - maybe it's because you're such a collosal arsehole, you're (in)famous, and people universally hate you?

Ok, I'm JOKING.

Seriously, I think it's down to where you live and commute. I guess you either ride past a bus-stop full of school kids (kids are evil), or commute in a busy city or town?

jpower10

I've had a can of coke hurled at me from an overtaking car window, whilst time trialling (the can was full, partially opened and fizzing everywhere) - a bit of a brown trouser moment!

Just glad it didn't land under the front wheel....

surreyxc

just get a headcam to record all the fun, and see how much they enjoy your movie when you post it to the police and publish on you tube, just make sure you get HD so it captures the number plates.

iain_j

Is it just a particular road/part of town? Could you go a different way to avoid it? There's routes I avoid for this reason.

hisoka

I can empathise alot with regards to this.

Yesterday someone in a white van (passenger side) threw something glass down at the floor directly in front of me. They must have known they were doing it as they aimed it! Totally blew out my back tyre, was lucky it wasn't the front as I was going a fair wack on a very busy road.

Some people are just tw*ts and should have the book of law smash them over the head.

Christophe3967

Maybe its a just a London thing (and Surrey too maybe) but I rarely get any hassle. Perhaps its just the number of bikes, so drivers have resigned themselves to the fact that bikes are part of the scenery...

oscarbudgie

D-Lock every last motherfukcing one of 'em.

MonkeyMonster

Same as Christophe in that I get nothing aimed verbally or physically - sorry to hear you don't get it so easy chaps!

cjcp

Yeah, sorry to hear you guys have it rough.

I've had an orange thrown at me. Hit me on the jaw. That was abroad though. In Balham.

Bikequin

As Oscar said buy a bigger D-Lock!

Seriously though, I've had the odd snowball thrown at me but nothing more. Also I don't then to get too much verbal abuse - I definitely give more than I get. In fact thinking about it the only time I seem to get any verbals at all are when either I've made a mistake on my bike or I've pointed out to a white Van driver what the ASL is there for.

Cafewanda

CJ, did that count as part of your 5 a day? :P

Only healthy folk live in Balham


Nothing thrown at me yet.............

amnezia

Christophe3967 wrote:

Maybe its a just a London thing (and Surrey too maybe) but I rarely get any hassle. Perhaps its just the number of bikes, so drivers have resigned themselves to the fact that bikes are part of the scenery...

I rarely get any hassle in London either. At worst I've been on the receiving end of a few choice words.

I have actually had some quite funny banter with white van men.

kurako

Cafewanda wrote:

CJ, did that count as part of your 5 a day? :P

Only healthy folk live in Balham


Nothing thrown at me yet.............

It was probably organic too

biondino

This doesn't happen in London. Bloody provinces.

yourpaceormine

It may shock you all that I'm commuting through deepest darkest Derbyshire along the A624. Must be lots of very bored motorists who see a bit of cyclist baiting as a way of breaking up the monotony of nice road in beautiful countryside.

Things thrown at me : in the last ten years of this route... bottle of weewee with no top on it so gave a nice shower effect (nice), enough fruit to fill a good fruitbowl, empty coke cans

Best excuse for being driven off the road - was a lorry driver, he stopped to complain about my hand gestures from the gutter... "Im trying to earn a living, I'm not going up and down this road for fun"

Scariest moment - the local plasterer who had driven me into the kerb, annotyed by my hand gesture, stopped then tried to pull me off my bike as I passed. This was probaly the inspiration for no more hand gestures, just phone the police.

Soul Boy

I've had the usual run in with WVM and cabbies, it's to be expected.

But in my time I've been spat at while passing a bus stop (Harrow Rd, Kensal Green) - went back but some larger lads were with the little sod that did it. Let that one slide.

Had a bottle thrown out of a car window, accompanied by "here have some p1ss" (Camden) - couldn't catch the f-ers.

Had a knife pulled on the Grand Union towpath (Notting Hill) - shouldn't have stopped to argue the toss, he was obviuosly a loon. But phoned that one through to the Police who responded very quickly, but couldn't find the culprit.

But this is in 20 years of cycling almost daily, so not regular occurance. and nothing has stopped me riding. 8)

NGale

I have been lucky in Exeter. My commutes have been incident free. However Torquay has been a different matter. The incident there where a driver left hooked me and then got out of his car to assault me has still left me shaken even after all these months, I certinally haven't cycled in Torquay since.

On the whole my commuting experiances are positive, but it does just take the odd one or two to jade the whole picture.

Headhuunter

Apart from bad behaviour by WVM and cabbies/minicab drivers almost taking me down, I've only once had something thrown at me - a bunch of kids at the side of the road, 1 of whom threw a stone which bounced off my helmet and left a fair gash in it, would have been pretty nasty if I hadn't been wearing it. Phoned the police, they were generally useless.

Other than that, riding through London, I haven't had an purposeful abuse from anyone as far as I can remember

DonDaddyD

It happens (not as bad a the OP) to me but no more so than when I'm in the car arguing with other drivers.

Maybe its just me.

teagar

I've experienced largely the same.

Even today a van was delibreatly nudging my backwheel.

It was the same 5 years ago, but then, because I often joined in abusing drivers, banging on their windows etc, I figured I just had it coming.

Now that I have grown up a bit, I'm a pretty passive cyclist. Where it makes sense to avoid a dangerous situation due to car ignorance, even when they're clearly in the wrong and i'm in the right, with right of way, I still let it pass. I don't swear, I don't raise my voice, I don't make any gestures. I avoid drawing any uncessary attention towards me.

I still get plenty of abuse though. They don't escalate anymore, but I get abuse nonetheless.

My experiences do differ from quite a few on the forum in the sense that the people doing it are often much older.

About 3 months ago a driver literally tried to run me over, before getting out of the car and punched me off my bike. He was with his wife and son, and was probably in his early 40s. (he got called into questioning by the police but denied it - was his word against mine so the case was dropped).

The guys who threw beer bottles at me from their van were probably over 30 too.

The guys who pushed me off by leaning out a moving car, breaking my pelvis, were certainly not youths.

I'm sure it's something to do with the fact I'm 5ft6 and slighly built at 54kg (around 8 stone)

The only advice I can give, is that if drivers are abusing you for an apparant infringement you've made, however right or wrong they are (especially if they're wrong), just apologise as sincerely as you can. It's the best disarmament out there.


Anyone fancy commuting in Cambridge?

lae

A lad threw a stone at my girlfriend when I was cycling behind her. I took pity on him as he was obviously pretty dim - at first he didn't see me, then he tried to outrun me... I gave him a fairly hefty clout as I went past.

Best story of road-based retribution I've got is when I was in my car though. A few years ago I drove a beaten up Hillman Avenger GT (my GT had quad headlights, 4-dial dash, racing stripes, split bumpers, wolfrace wheels, weber carbs and a drainpipe exhaust, and it was my pride and joy). In a car park, a man in a fairly new BMW 4x4 thing opened his door into mine. I politely pointed out that he had dented my car (and that there was some of my paint on his door), he just stared at me and said 'Well your car is covered in dents already'. Then he walked off. As a classic car owner I carried a few tools in the boot, one of them being a 24" breaker bar. It leaves a bigger dent than a door does, I can tell you.

mudcovered

Good god. :shock: Sounds like some of you are riding though warzones with the amount of stuff that it being thrown at you.

I've had one incident of stone throwing (Grand Union Canal just outside London) and more locally I got water thrown at me (from a passing car) as I was climbing a hill on a hot day.

Mike

RedJohn

Strewth ...
I've had ... one tw@t blowing his horn because he had to overtake while I was riding two-abreast on a nice clear straight road.

That's about it in three years ... tho' the rottweiler chasing me wasn't a whole lot of fun!

teagar

When things are going fine, I can handle it. The abuse quickly runs off my bike and doesn't affect me.


Over the past few months I've been suffering with some SAD, which has left me, obviously, pretty down, and anxious all the time, about not very much.

The daily commute became a real haunt in my head.

Understandably, everytime a car comes very close by me at night I still can't help but flinch in case someone's about to push me off. This is around 3 years after I got pushed off.

If it's of any use, I never had ANY abuse whatsoever in Sheffield and the peaks. In 3 years, none whatsoever.

yourpaceormine

Update: Derbyshire Police are taking matters furhter against both the driver and his passenger...

there was me thinking they'd ignore it!