Originally Posted by
wgscott
Have you tried dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire?
Be sure to take a selfie video as you confidently walk away and flip the lit match over your shoulder. Pics or it didn't happen.
1. No but I got yelled at pretty good yesterday -- a verbal attack, for being a bike on a road, from two teenagers in a car -- and I'm afraid I wasn't very nice in reply. (I earned my Honorary-Brooklynite merit badge.) I spent most of the return ride gaming out what I'd do if various things happened and feeling vulnerable to every passing vehicle.
2. Not since junior high school. Some punk decided it would be hilarious to put a lit firecracker on my books as I walked down the hall between classes. I don't remember how I knew who did it, but I knew. I went home, thought about it, and decided I had to do something, skinny science-fiction-reading geek though I was. The next day, walking between the same classes, the same guy was following me out of class, so I turned around, pushed him down the hall and punched him in the eye, then went on to my next class. The next day he was wearing aviator sunglasses all day to cover the HUGE bruise on his eye, looking the way bullies do when their victims refuse to be victimized: wounded, sullen, and cheated because things didn't work out as expected. I'm sure he had to explain to a parent why he had a black eye, and that didn't go like he wanted either.
How far would I go now, if attacked? As far as I had to to survive and GTFO of Dodge, hopefully so I could get back to my decent-enough life unharmed and not in trouble with the law.
3. Whether to avoid the MUP depends on how good your alternatives are. Of course you should be free to ride, but 3v1 are not good odds.