Enforcement - How to deal with harassment from people driving cars?
 

I'm interested in this topic from a community advocacy angle. I'm heading up a bike/walk advocacy group in my town and I'm interested to see if there is any success stories about dealing with hostile behavior from people in cars.

This is a fairly constant issue - to have drivers intimidate people on bike and on foot. For example, yesterday afternoon, I'm biking along Main Street, I'm moving at basically the same speed as traffic (~20 mph), I'm taking the lane to making a left turn. The kid behind me makes a point of blasting his horn while passing on my right. This kind of behavior from people driving cars is hostile and intended to get bikes off the road. (for my part, I gave a friendly wave and big smile ... cause anger never makes it better). When I was bike-commuting, I'd experience some kind of harassment at least once a week, and I'm sure that anybody that rides on roads has a long list of stories like this, and much worse.

Local PD attended our last advocacy group meeting to talk about enforcement issues. The office shared the exact same behaviors from people driving cars while he was involved in a police bike training course. Honestly, honking at a group of people in police uniforms because the are biking on the road? Wow! Besides talking about aggressive drivers, we didn't talk about any direct action that the PD could offer to help with this issue.

Our town is growing because it is one of a very small number of places that is exceptionally bike/walk friendly. I want to make sure that the intimidating actions of a small number of people driving doesn't make our town a scary place to get around on foot or by bike.

Find a way to expose them. Publicize acceptable and unacceptable behavior on the road.

Videos, public shaming, access channels. I don't know, that's a tough one. You have to somehow build consensus in your community that these things are ok and these things are not (norms). Once it becomes the norm everyone pretty much falls in line

How did we get people to stop smoking or not start. How are we combating domestic violence, public littering, racism, and cruelty to animals?

Maybe start with a community group that shares your concerns

Good point, our 'culture of rage' is a tough nut to crack; and it's much larger than this niche subject of accepting a person riding a bike on the road. Hell, driving a car these days, I often get other drivers make threatening maneuvers ... but in my car, I have a seat belt, air bag, crumple zones, etc.

In a related note, we are not jerks to every person on the road that isn't in a car - over the Thanksgiving weekend we had a series of snow systems drop more than a foot of snow. The city was having a hard time keeping up with the snow and had little time to get back to some of the sidewalk ramps. We saw a person using a mobility scooter force to use the road because the sidewalk ramp wasn't cleared. All the drivers gave this person lots of room.

We wait. ~25 years and gasoline will be too expensive to waste on mouth-breathing cager commuters. The Military will sequester it all. Electric Vehicles will not be developed to any great degree because no one wanted them. We will own the streets. Woo hoo!

That is a mighty low bar! I think most cagers have enough humanity to spare the disabled the worst of their aggression and cluelessness. I notice they give parents towing child trailers similar amnesty.

Agreed. And funny enough, I find less issues with aggressive drivers when pulling my BOB trailer ... it doesn't look like a kid trailer at all, but I guess it idea that it might be a kid trailer [/shrug]

Sad if your local police will not be helpful. I have used local PD to get a couple of drivers convicted in a court. It is a 50/50 chance depending what cop gets the initial dispatch.

Maybe try your state police. Colorado State Patrol has a web page to report drivers. About 3 reports and the driver gets a talking from CSP. Have a video and some drivers get ticketed and others arrested.

Mount a camera on your wrist. When someone is approaching close, hold the camera out so the driver can see it. Often gets a quick lane change or hard braking before they reach you.

Check public records information. I can go on a judiciary web page for my state and look up traffic infractions associated with a license plate. Any tickets to that plate # gives the name of the driver and a link to other infractions from that driver. Go to https://www.familytreenow.com/ and you can often get an address and phone #. I have called a couple of drivers letting them know that I have video and any further harassment or endangerment leads to a police report or civil action.

Some drivers live in my area and I can often cycle by their house. That lets them know I am a nearby neighbor and that I know where they live.

Post bad driver videos on facebook and youtube and include the town name for searches. Pass videos of the worst drivers and facebook/youtube links to your local news. They may run a story for a really good video on a slow news night to fill air time.

I don't know what to do about harassment but there are some good suggestion from CB HI. I was just e-mailing a good friend about a birthday party I attended in my home town just a few days ago. It was for my brother-in-law who had turned 80 y.o. and was attended by about 75 people, many who I've know since I was 6 or 7 y.o. That was a largely agricultural community where we had the same milkman and postman for all the years of my adolescence. The 3rd and 4th grade teachers were neighbors as was the man who drove the school bus who we bought eggs from. There was a sense of community which is lacking in many places today so there is little connection to others. The frenetic pace of our society leaves little time or inclination to build those connections and the situation seems to be getting worst.

Several years ago I read an article in which psychologists or ethnologists created situations for experimental animals where they were put under pressure of over-crowding and or limited food supply. What they found was that pressure produced aggression and fighting in those animals with and mistreatment of their own young. Human animals react in just the same way. We can find, weekly, news reports where a parent has killed their own child so these are not isolated incidents. We can find, almost daily, reports a pointless mass shootings. The aggression we may experience as cyclists is a further expression of that pressure.I live in a small town where there are still many common links so I don't experience harassment. I have in the past lived in a very busy area where I liked the work but not the environment in that part of the world. My solution was to move to a small town.

I try to ignore people yelling, whatever. And, for the most part, it is a vast minority of drivers.

A horn is hard to interpret.

There is a point of slowing down and "Sharing the Road" (meaning everyone, bikes share with cars, cars share with bikes, and everyone acknowledges the constraints of the others). Unfortunately that concept is lost on many drivers.

I do need to start recording video. But, fear that nobody will care if an accident isn't involved.

It's not often that folks give me a hard time on the road, but the last time it happened was memorable because a person in the vehicle shouted "GET A LAWYER!".

Jim from Boston - Lots of good stuff, thank you!

This is very relatable:

Furthermore in my experience, the most uncomfortable time on the road is being stuck in traffic, where there is no danger, but unrelenting immobilization. So if stress (specifically distress) is inimical to good health, driving is an added risk exposure, as if we didn’t know that https://www.bikeforums.net/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

I really don't know, having been riding in my city for the past ten years, what the right approach to the unpleasant motorist is. My father was a wise man and I was driving with him one day long ago. Someone cut us off and I expressed my displeasure with the other driver, who then flipped me off and sped away. My dad waited for me to calm down and then he said: "BPC, you really ought not do that. You have no idea what kind of state that other person may be in. They may just have been fired or their wife and kids may have just booted them out of the house or they may have just received a cancer diagnosis. You have no idea what kind of situation that person is in. They could have a gun.They might be panicked and desperate and you adding to that stress could push them over the edge and ultimately end up very, very badly for you."

I thought about that and I decided that, as usual, my father was on the money. And I have not responded to another driver angrily since, as far as I can recall. I may shake my head, as I did the other day when someone ran a light, almost hit me, then yelled at me, then took off. Take a couple deep breaths. Thank my maker. Then, clip in and move on. I just do not believe that direct confrontation at the moment of the incident (or shortly thereafter) is a good idea. These people are not in a place to be receptive to outside feedback at that time. Maybe later, but definitely not then.

I don't favor the GoPro approach of filming every second of my life. That seems a bit paranoid to me. So, that one, I won't personally be doing. My approach now is to do what I can to encourage good behavior. So, whenever a motorist stops to let me go through an intersection in which she/he has the right of way, which happens all the time here, I always cheerfully acknowledge the gesture. Go out of my way to show them a cyclist obeying the laws and behaving well. I bet I have 8-10 good interactions with vehicles to every one bad one. My hope is that the more drivers see us as a group as conscientious and well-comported, the more likely those drivers are likely over time to adopt a friendly attitude toward us.

So, for me, that's it. Reward good behavior. Now, if I see a drunk driver or someone just blowing through red lights and I can get their plate, I will definitely dial 911. But usually, I am too focused on not dying to turn my attention to writing plate numbers down. I guess a camera would help here, but I am just not going to live an Orwellian life. Besides all that, my city is short somewhere between 100 and 200 officers right now and traffic is taking a serious backseat to homicides and other things. I'm almost positive that, unless it was an impaired driver report, they would likely not even send a car.

Choose routes that have less traffic, and/or choose a better time to ride.

I'll often take longer less traveled routes, just to avoid hostile motorists.

Motorists often take the most congested routes, because GPS told them to, one block over, its crickets.

You can't fix careless motorists, so its best to avoid them if possible.

​​​​​​In some places, there are no other routes/roads.

This is a very common situation out west, where there may not be a "grid," or the "only other road" is an interstate freeway.

Not everyone can or wants to do so, but I start my usual ride at 0430 every day. I usually get back home at around 6ish. There is not very much traffic, even though this particular ride is all with the city. It is nuts any time after about 0620ish or so.

How to deal with harassment from people driving cars?+10 to above, especially to t@bpcyclist. I have posted, in particular about urban cycling,Indeed at about 6AM there is a noticeable increase in traffic. I fortunately travel in the reverse commuter direction. outbound from Downtown to a suburb, but that holds true on my side of the road.

I estimate that on Saturdays, the uptick starts at about 7 AM. and on Sundays about 8 AM. On a long weekend ride I can be out in exurbia by that time. but I will encounter the traffic homeward bound.

To try to herd cats ... I know how to avoid conflict, and now that I work from a home office, I ride at times and routes that avoid being harassed. But (to repeat) that's not always an option and not the point of this thread.

When I was a bike commuter, the last mile into/out of my office was a nightmare ever.single.time. We will never build a bike lane for the last mile to every single destination.

We need to advocate ways to co-exist on the existing infrastructure. That is the point of this thread, finding ways to work with city staff and PD to create a community where using a bike on the road isn't an invite to have a person driving an SUV to punish pass, honk, yell, and generally intimidate people biking. When people that ride bikes 'hide' from the conflict, the harassers have won.

Couple ideas I will work with:

I will create a group ride with local PD to ride some of the common routes, talk about the conflict we experience while riding, and brainstorm with them about ways they can help educate people driving cars.

I have already and will continue to push for updated signs in our town:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a9604a9791.jpg

Reference: https://road.cc/content/news/203414-...full-lane-ones

Two comments... in somewhat reverse order. That "Cyclists may use full lane" sign should be much larger... maybe even flashing... with a horn. ;)

Regarding bike lanes in and around tech complexes/campuses/adjacent shopping areas...

the irony of these vast paved areas is that they have the potential to be well protected and well connected bike paths... When I worked in the Sorrento Valley area of San Diego, it was well known that one could easily walk from one business to another by simply walking at the back of various parking lots, crossing curbs and narrow garden strips. I did this with my MTB bike too. I was well out of the main traffic flow, and had easy access to numerous businesses. I did have to jump curbs.

However, a forward thinking city could annex tiny strips of land and make a complete MUP/bike path at these same locations. This is what the bicycle network in Davis is like... in some areas, and is, at a much higher quality, what Oulo, Finland is like.

Cars enter these vast commercial areas from one side, and park in that area. Cyclists enter from a different side, don't interact with cars, and have their own parking and entrance.

We almost have that in our vastly paved commercial areas now... it just takes tying it all together, and removing the minor obstacles... and a commitment to cycling as transportation and supporting the infrastructure to make it work.

The pavement and space are there... the policy is not.

I'm at a loss, and have given up trying to "educate" malicious drivers, its a lost cause in my opinion.

Call it a defeatist attitude, I remain convinced that you can't fix stupid, some people will NEVER change their ways, and good luck fixing that.

I'd move, or pack up my bike and ride elsewhere.

How much is your life worth?

The problem is, you are all pretty much sheepish in your responses. Thats may sound derogative but it isnt, it is simply that, for instance - if I am going around minding my own bussiness without attacking or harrasing anyone - I expect the same from others.

Now, if someone is stupid enough to attack me just out of nowhere, I will react violently back - I do not know are they armed or not - so I will proceed with maximum force available to me - in order to break their attack as much as possible in shortest amount of time - so not to give them an opportunity to harm me. I think that is an measured response to someone not knowing me, attacking me on the street. I do not know you, and you attack me, I am going to assume that you want to kill me - and I am going to respond accordingly. That means that the assailant at a minimum wont walk for a long long time, at worst - he is probably going to be dead.

People get hurt or even killed because in most instances they react meekly and inadequate. I, however, think that if somebody is brazen enough to be attacking someone they do not know, putting their health and life under attack, an similar answer is in order. Since I do not know what I am dealing with, I must assume the worst - that they are trying to kill me - and in response I will deal maximum available force back.

I really cannot fathom what is wrong with people to attack cyclists. What, they do not think that some of us also drive cars? So when I am driving my car, they will be all normal, and when I sit on my bike, they will attack me? What is wrong with their brains? Too stupid to think I might sit in my car and then flatten them?

Note that the OP's example of "harassment" was an individual "blasting" his horn at him as well a lot of assumptions about the so-called harasser's evil intentions. The "problem" may be that some individuals seem to have an unusually low threshold for feeling that they are victims of motorists, law officers, or even the general public's harassment. An even bigger problem is if the offended party feels provoked by such alleged harassment into an over reaction that serves no useful purpose.