On my ride home yesterday while riding east on Locust Ave, I heard a loud speaker behind me.
“You wanna move out of the road!”
I looked back to see a big white ford 3/4 ton diesel truck with two rural looking fellows in it. I waved for them to go around me because there was two lanes in my direction, a passing/turn lane and two lanes in the other direction. Thats 50 feet of open road! They pulled up next to me and glared at me while doing the ricky racer engine rev thing. They pulled up to the stop sign and I changed lanes because I was planning to make a left turn when they went straight. I pulled up next to the drivers open window and declared,
“We can share the road!”
He said,
“You need to get your ass out of the road!!”
I declared again,
“I am allowed by law to use that entire lane!” as I pointed to the right lane.
He said,
“You need to get your ass on the sidewalk”
I explained to him that,
“It’s illegal to ride on the sidewalk, if You don’t want me to ride in the street, where can I ride?”
He said he didn’t care where just not in the road.
I pointed out his lack of understanding of the law and told him he needed to,
“READ THE LAW DUDE!”
The Tim Mcgraw look-alike drove straight through the instersection. I turned left. After a few more turns we met eachother again in the neighborhood at a two-way stop. He had to stop, I didnt. I took my time through that intersection.
He wasn’t overly mean or threatening but just very ignorant. Maybe if he could read I would hand him one of our blog business cards and invite him to be bike-enlightened.
NEXT TIME:
After the car has hassled you and you have the opportunity to catch up with it again in traffic, pull out your camera phone and take a picture (or pretend to) of their license plate.
You might even take a picture of the perp, if you are feeling particularly brave. This will hopefully prevent anymore BS and they might even get a little spooked. I’ve had people give me crap on my bike and It seems that whenever I take out my camera phone and point it at them, they disperse quickly.
Be careful out there.
5 users commented in " “Get Out Of The Road!!!!!!!!” "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbacksame issue we have with my 4 year old son, sometimes he doesn’t like to share.
The funniest line in this story:
“I explained to him,”
beautiful!
like talkin’ to a stick!
This is just silly, why do people have to be like that. I would hope that because our generation is a little more progressive and more recently greener, that later in life we won’t have to deal with attitudes like this. My first move would have been to correct his English, “out of the road”, I mean I barely speak hillbilly but come on.
Had this happen for the first time ever, the other day. Riding down Olive with my wife and daughter. A van pulls up with a man and woman who were at least 300 pounds a piece. I could hear them saying, “You need to your ass on the sidewalk…” After a couple of times of that I turned and told them to f*ck off, and go read the law. They then pulled into the Dollar Store parking lot, then the woman started yelling, “I’ll kick your ass mother f*cker!” I flipped them off and kept riding.
It’s like these people as kids rode bikes, rode them on sidewalks and then as adults think that is the way people are supposed to ride. I live in The Tower and hang out down there and it drives me BANANAS to see people hauling ass on bikes on the sidewalks. There ought to be a law.
wow!!! this is a bunch of angry people. they are mad because they are still paying the high price of gas. But all they are doing is letting out hot air, Im new to biking and i actually love it. Im a little nervous at times but im allowed on the street thats what the bike lane is for.Us biker have decided to park the cars and cycle I say way to go Bikers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and for the 300 opunders they could’nt never fit on any bike. Oops did i say that