uga8589

Last saturday, I had a truck throw a 2 litter bottle of soda at me. Here is how I responded.

https://www.theblacksheartimes.com/ar...e719772749.txt

uke

Well written piece.

garysol1 

Looking foward to reading some of the readers comments. Good job uga

mattm

sorry to hear! good response tho.

boy do i miss the south..

JoelS

Good for you!

Sprocket Man

I thought your letter was very good. Glad that the bottle missed.

One question, though - what does the "#8221" mean?

"If you had hit me …#8221; and I survived …#8221; my injuries would have taken me out of work for a significant period of time. "

Daytrip

Very well done. I bet it makes people think.

I thought this was going to be another one of those "I chased him down and kicked in his mirror then pissed in his gas tank at the next traffic light" threads. Thanks for taking an honest, constructive approach to a serious problem.

uga8589

I have no idea. That did not show up in the print version of the article. I thought it might be some typo from the paper.

Tequila Joe

Nice article and I’m glad you’re OK.

mattm

the HTML code for curly double-quotes i think

uga8589

When the bottle went by and crashed, I had an entirely different mindset. I thought about screaming, obscene gestures, etc. The road that I was on is very desolate and what was I going to do to three idiots?

This was the only thing that I could think of. I called the cops and their reaction was only slightly better than "uh, really?"

urbanknight

I would only call the cops if there was actually an injury (hit and run) or if I got the plate number, in which case I would say I wish to file charges for assault.

And +1 to waiting to see the responses, because you just know some a-hole is going to come on there and say that you deserved to have something thrown at you unprovoked just for having the audacity to ride a bike on the road.

Galoot

Great article, Clay, and way to keep your cool. I'm not so sure I'd have been able to avoid flipping them off, and like you said, that would have been a very bad idea.

timmhaan

yep. and all the stupid anecdodal stories about how they saw a cyclist run a red light once and almost hit their car.

Vireo

We are kinfolk. We have been the "victim" of unprovoked violence just because I was riding my bike.

Well thought out and well written response. As they say the pen is mightier than the sword.

cedricbosch

Good article but seriously, let it go. Stuff like this happens to me, and most cyclists, all the time. If you think this is going to stop them, think again- these people probably aren't intelligent enough to understand what you're trying to say. There is an assumed risk that comes with riding a bicycle. Good article, but the best it can do is raise attention to the risks we as cyclists face.

Gluteus

Wow! Excellent article (and the police report). Much more effective and constructive that flipping, cursing etc.

deadly downtube

except that... he's a motorist and you're a cyclist, so no he would not have spent any time in jail, nor would the occupants... i've been hit by bottles of water... 180lbs of man spandex does a good job stopping a pound of liquid.

uga8589

I don't understand what the allure of harming another individual holds for some people. I don't know if I would have fared any better, but I would have been happier if they had just stopped and told me that they wanted to kick my butt. I would have at least seen it coming. I guess throwing something at a person's back is more exciting that trying to hit a road sign.

Beaker

Nicely done, sir

prendrefeu

Good piece. What is it like to work/live in a town with a name that sounds so bad-ass?
Blackshear? Sounds bad-ass to me. Chuck Norris would approve.

waterrockets 

Well played. Still gets me fuming though.

uga8589

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. I was hoping that I could raise awareness of the rest of the community. For the size of the community, we have a lot of cyclists and if I can make a few drivers aware of our plight and somewhat sympathetic, maybe life will get a little better.

I get buzzed and yelled at all the time. I've been bumped from behind at a red light and I have been called all types of names. I spent over 10 months off of the bike because I had a truck run me completely off of the road. This time, it just didn't sit as well with me. I tried to find a constructive way to address the situation and hope that it maybe I did a little good. Who knows, I may see these guys again and they could stop and beat me up. However, I doubt that they actually pick up a paper and read the editorial section. This paper doesn't have a comics section.

uga8589

I love Blackshear. I had never thought about the name(named for a General who cut the road). It is a community off about 4000 people in the city and about 14,000 in the county. Crime is extremely low and the people are extraordinarily friendly and very caring. I lived for almost 20 years in Atlanta and you couldn't get me to move back there.

I think Chuck could be the mayor.

orcanova

Nice job. Of course the perps probably won't see the article, unless someone else points it out to them and reads it out loud for them. But the article serves an even better purpose of articulating to the community at large that cyclists are human too, have families to go home to, are vulnerable, are cooperative, and are deserving of respect for their safety. It humanizes cyclists in a nice way.