Abuse from drivers?
bluedoggy
Posts: 285
Do cyclist's ever get verbal or even physical abuse from car drivers? Reason i ask is when i go on my first commute maybe because of my lack of experience i might get a bit? How do you handle it.
Wilier cento uno.
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Sometimes, just shrug it off.0
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Hi, my first post!! Hello All!!,
.............. regularly I get the ''Road Tax Dodger'' when I'm filtering through queues ....... I just approach them cool, calmly and collectively, and explain I have 3 cars............ the only ''tax dodging I'm doing. is the Company car park levy of 15 squids a month :POrange 5 Pro 650b 2014
Orange Crush 650b 20140 -
Not every ride, but maybe once/twice a week you will get the:
"are you going for Gold mate"
"Oi Mate, you wheels are going round!!!"
"Get out of the road"
"Use the path"
blah blah.... what i laugh at, these people would never shout at you if you were both walking towards each other!
I dont even react, dont even look at them, and I have never had a further issue with that person.... Some of my mates have slapped the back of cars, hit wing mirrors and shouted back, and always get more abuse and it goes on and on...
The fact is, if you ignore it, it goes away, it takes more of a person to shrug it off!!.. just pretend you dont hear them, dont let it wind you up and you will enjoy cycling a lot more!
Thasts my view on it anyway.
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You will ALWAYS get some driver who will be irate, and in my experience it counts fo both commuting and longer rides into the country. Best advice I have is to smile in the knowledge your pedalling, and not let it get to you. After a while you adopt the happy go lucky attitude and shrug off their litle tantrums as that. As long as you are savvy re traffic it is only those who's blood pressure is high who will hoot, or shout.
On the hooting bit, why?, dont get it............... :?0 -
I have never had a motorist give me angry words
maybe cos i look a little scary
or i'm 6'4" and athletic in build
most people have heard the stories of people picking a fight with a football player..... then discovering they are pro athlete's and the hard man act doesn't go much further than hard man words....
I seen motorist's pick a fight with cyclists and they pick on the smaller 1's
seen 1 guy give this girl a row for nothing, the lack of eyebrows and the headscarf on her head says she is not that well but I was doing the same thing and he did not challenge me.........
picks on female cancer patients instead - bunch of cowards
but if you cant hack confrontation avoid it0 -
As said above, the 6 foot 4 brick sh&thouses seem to get less stick for some reason....
Yes, you will get abuse, but most of it is the impotent ragings of a fat, lazy social inadequate who'll gesture or shout from behind their windscreen and then scarper. This is unpleasant, but harmless. Just ignore it.
And whatever you do, don't have a look at the Your Rants thread in Commuting Chat!
Edit: I'm not saying it happens a lot, but to say it never happens would be a lie.0 -
I dont often get abuse whilst out on my bike, although I dont live in a city.
I dont mind the "are you going for gold mate" style of remarks. They're only having a laugh, cheers them up.
I've had abuse shouted at me once or twice though, I remember shouting back "put your fucking foot down mate, because if I catch you I'll tear your fucking throat out"
They didnt stop
I am 6'2" but I'm not particularly muscular. Saying that, I do have skin head, tattoos and a scar above my right eye (where I hit my head on the bottom of car) so I dont look particularly easy on the eye. It did the job anyway!0 -
Please... Not this AGAIN!!! Please!!!!!!!0
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Bluedoggy wrote:
I wouldnt pay attention to what Secteur shouts back when he is on the receiving end of abuse..........0 -
I get verbal abuse nearly every other ride BUT its always in casual clothes and when riding round town , against my better judgment i normally give them the finger or when i catch up with them at the next set of lights a bang on there window and a few chosen words normally makes them wise up to there stupidty .0
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I recently had a van passenger screaming his head off at me and ordering me to get on the path.
The chap failed to notice that there was no path but, apparently, I'm the pr1ck
Either too much or not enough Crack me thinks
"You really think you can burn off sugar with exercise?" downhill paul0 -
Not very often in Edinburgh itself, but if I'm riding through some of the dives in East Lothian I occasionally get a bit of grief from kids. Round here it mainly seems to be people in expensive German cars who think they own the road and everyone else should get out of their way and the rules don't apply to them.0
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cars frequently beep at me.. scares the crap out of me.0
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Just remember to ride confidently. Don't let drivers bully you into riding along the curb. Take the space you need and move decisively, with clear signals, and plenty of time ahead. You'll inevitably annoy some drivers no matter what you do. But at least they'll know where you're going and what your intentions are, and most of them will drive appropriately.
If your body language invites them to make stupid manoeuvres, they will.
Most people are actually very courteous, I find. It's that small minority.0 -
I get cars beeping and shouts, but they are always shouts of genuine encouragement, even the police, out on another fund raising mission, will give you the thumbs up as you go by so I guess it depends where you live.my isetta is a 300cc bike0
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Spy cam on you helmet. Best 25 quid you'll spend.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-DVR-808- ... 073wt_10690 -
Best one i have had was when we me n the lads i was cycling with were on a steep climb in the dales, car slows right up beside us and starts cheering/encouraging Full Metal Jacket style, needless to say he stayed with us till the top. We almost had to stop cycling not because we were tired but because we were laughing so much.
On the other end of it i have the usual cars beeping, oh and one of the creative ones was "push bike wanker" I just shrug it offBike - Scott Aspect 45
Roadie - Trek 1.5 20130 -
estampida wrote:I have never had a motorist give me angry words
maybe cos i look a little scary
or i'm 6'4" and athletic in build
most people have heard the stories of people picking a fight with a football player..... then discovering they are pro athlete's and the hard man act doesn't go much further than hard man words....
I seen motorist's pick a fight with cyclists and they pick on the smaller 1's
seen 1 guy give this girl a row for nothing, the lack of eyebrows and the headscarf on her head says she is not that well but I was doing the same thing and he did not challenge me.........
picks on female cancer patients instead - bunch of cowards
but if you cant hack confrontation avoid it
My partners just about finished radiotherapy for Breast Cancer after Chemo and an op. I'm not a big fella but you would not like to know what I would have done to a muppet if they had been rude enough to abuse her when she had her headscarf and no eyebrows..... Mind you they've grown back in like Dennis Healy's.......
On a lighter note I was very pleasantly surprised at the courtesy shown to me by car drivers in Glenrothes on my first run on a bike in 30 years. After 8 years as a driving Instructor I was impressed.0 -
I don't tend to get much abuse when I'm out riding. I've had a WVM beep at me for the heinous crime of cycling on the road instead of the adjacent cycle path (I was tempted to remonstrate with him when I caught up to him in the queue at the roundabout down the road) and I've had a passenger throw an empty can of pop at my head which he found funny. I saw that particular vehicle in a supermarket car park the next day (it was a distinctive yellow Ford Ka and I caught the number plate) and I wish I told the young lady who was driving it to keep better control of her passengers. I've also had a car full of young lads doing strange chicken noises at me as they passed me by. Evidently a lot of weirdoes in Grimsby :shock: That's been about it since I started riding seriously early last year.
Most drivers I find seem to tolerate my presence when I'm out cycling. There's one or two who are positively courteous and I always try and give them a thumbs up.0 -
Scum of the earth, those people.saintly_jim wrote:Evidently a lot of weirdoes in Grimsby.
Not like us sophisticated Cleethorpes residents.
Going (very slowly) up a hill on the A68 yesterday some prick in a truck beeped his horn and overtook with about half a foot of room. I was with my dad and his mate and I felt a bit rude for shouting "fuck you, you daft cunt".
Truck drivers and taxi drivers are mostly pricks, as are van drivers. Fact of life.0 -
JamesB5446 wrote:
Scum of the earth, those people.saintly_jim wrote:Evidently a lot of weirdoes in Grimsby.
Not like us sophisticated Cleethorpes residents.
Going (very slowly) up a hill on the A68 yesterday some prick in a truck beeped his horn and overtook with about half a foot of room. I was with my dad and his mate and I felt a bit rude for shouting "fark you, you daft ****".
Truck drivers and taxi drivers are mostly pricks, as are van drivers. Fact of life.
I very rarely have issues with vans and Taxis round Edinburgh. But saying that the most danger I've been in is when a taxi suddenly stopped on a cobbled road in driving rain and the passengers flung the door open on me. I was glad I had stripped and cleaned my disk brakes a few nights before. The passengers acted like I was the one in the wrong too.0 -
The ones that piss me off are the chavs in their Golf GTI's, usually have a fat teenage pregnant girlfriend sat next to them. They come zooming past at 80mph and within 2 feet just to impress the porker sat next to them.
Please do us all a favour and hit the next tree and remove yourself from the gene pool. because I'll drive past and wont waste my free minutes on you.0 -
first ride ever a few days ago, and i got beeped at for a similar reason above, riding in the far lane with a cycle lane on the other side. mainly because the road splits half way up and id like to get home rather than blindly follow cycle paths to nowhere in particular.
but he still felt need to honk, i was so tempted to start shouting obscenities but i held back.Bikes: CAAD8 105, CAAD10 105.0 -
ive had loads of abuse since starting road riding
2 times been buzzed by cars or vans with some prick hanging out the window shouting abuse - both times they had a red light within seconds of doing so.
theyre not so clever when you actually catch up to them and they cant move. :evil:
had water bottles thrown at me and generally beeped and shouted at regularly.0 -
bails87 wrote:As said above, the 6 foot 4 brick sh&thouses seem to get less stick for some reason....
Yes, you will get abuse, but most of it is the impotent ragings of a fat, lazy social inadequate who'll gesture or shout from behind their windscreen and then scarper. This is unpleasant, but harmless. Just ignore it.
And whatever you do, don't have a look at the Your Rants thread in Commuting Chat!
Edit: I'm not saying it happens a lot, but to say it never happens would be a lie.
This.
It's sporadic for me, but it does happen. Some of it isn't so much 'abusive' as 'ignorant and vocal'; the shouting of silly plebs who think I shouldn't be on the road, or should hug the kerb.0 -
Never had any abuse. I had some Dutch guy in a Passat give a friendly beep and a wave as he went by (maybe a cyclist?), but on the bad side just a couple of people passing a little too close. Most people are pretty good though - I've even had a few people wait in passing places for me to pass them going the other way!
Road - Dolan Preffisio
MTB - On-One Inbred
I have no idea what's going on here.0
