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I'm a New Hampshire cyclist, and if you been here you know that
southern New Hampshire can be as bad as Boston sometimes. I have
had similar problems with traffic in the more urban areas. I am
not sure what is in the minds of those folks who seem to come as
close as they can on purpose. Maybe they are incensed at the fact
that during rush hours I can obey traffic laws and still get to
destinations in 5 minutes when it takes the auto crowd 30.
I recently saw a documentary on the New York and Boston bicycle courier
groups (who ignore all traffic laws) and saw on film how drivers
who have not been hampered by the couriers would go out of the way
to hassle them. One of the girl riders used a common trick on a
taxi when he attempted to side swipe her twice at a fairly good
rate of speed. She layed some serious harm on the guys passenger
windows and doors with the lock dangling from her bike cable. A
nasty weapon. While I certainly don't recommend this behavior, it
seemed nearly life and death at some times with these people.
I was once trashed at about 11pm while riding on the little island
of Martha's Vineyard (MA.) by a pickup truck load of crazies. I was riding
on a bike path which was paralleling the road, but sepearet. They
stayed along side of me matching my speed and trying to stop me.
They hurled cases of beer bottles at me, smashing the bottles of
my bike and finally smashed one of my head (my pre-helmet says).
I blacked out as went over the handle bars and woke up later sitting
up to my chin in a tidepool under a bridge with my bike frame around
my waist. My bike was trashed (bent forks,bent rim, twisted frame).
A cop saw me dragging myself and my gear up the embankment the next
morning and threatened to arrest me for sleeping on the side of
the road. When I described the out of state truck in detail, the
cop said the island was probably full of them and it would be a
waste of time to try to find them. Besides, he said, I was okay.
(I still ride Martha's and Nantucket though, they make for terrific
biking.)
Any more biking horror stories???
* MAC *
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| re: .0
~motorcycle harassment
>...mentioned in the 'box much flaming resulted.
>...just my problem...
I just found the "pet peeves" topic in soapbox
that you were refering to. Its pretty impressive
emotional flaming. Those guys need to get some
excercise and work off some of that hostility:-)
I just shot a flaming arrow and left in disgust.
Why somebody as vulnerable as a *motorcyclist*
would harass cyclist I will especially never figure
out.(Too dumb to figure we might own big cars too?:-)
It is not "just your problem". The situation seems
only slightly better here in the Northwest than
I remember from all my years of riding in Northern
California. It was the San Francisco Bay Area where
a gang piled out of their black Camaro with chains
canes etc after our lead rider gave them the proper
hand signal for trying to run our single file group
off the road. We finally got through their alchohol
haze to convince them that someone in the stream
of cars going by might just act as a witness against
them.
Is it also universal that "State Patrols" everywhere
hate cyclists? I know from first hand discussions
with California (CHP) and Washington state police
that they want all cyclists off the roads. Harassment
stories are plentiful. A classic of mine was a
time when a car load of drunken teenagers, with
people literally hanging out the windows tried
to run me off the road(also in the Bay Area). A
CHP was behind them and gave *me* a citation for
"not riding as far to the right as possible". I
would have had to literally dive into a ditch to
get further over.
Why are people so psychologically intimidated by
cyclists ? Does the All American myth of the cyclist
as a "sissy" force people to prove that they are
more macho(macha?) than that guy/gal on that bike
that is doing something that they *think* they can't
do?
(Why couldn't fate have thrown me some normal,
boring interests;-)
Thom
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