Video Cameras - the cure to reluctant biking
I switched to bike commuting about 7 months ago. I live in LA (dry all the time! mostly flat!), work is only 7 miles away, and most of those miles are on a bike lane.
The last 2 weeks, I’ve been almost reluctant to get on my bike in the morning. It’s because of one flat out asshole in a van.
I was coming up to an intersection, during the brief part my ride that doesn’t have a bike lane. The intersection has a left turn lane, 2 lanes that go straight, and a right hand turn lane. I looked around, and there were no cars behind or beside me. I moved out of the lane that was about to become a right hand turn lane, and in to the right-most straight forward lane.
I had a red light, and came to a stop behind one car. The lane I’m in wasn’t wide enough for a car to pass me safely, so I took the middle. It widens out across the intersection, so as soon as the light turns green, and I pass the right turn lane, I can move over to the right again.
Anyway, while I’m waiting at the red light, a white van comes up behind me. As soon as the light turns green, the very fucking second I can go, this asshole starts laying on the horn. Not a quick honk, just leaning right on the damned horn the whole time. I haven’t had a chance to pedal forward at all, and he’s blaring in my ear. He keeps this up the entire time it takes me to cross the intersection and pull over to the right (all of 20 seconds, but when you’ve got an angry driver who’s going insane behind you, that seems like a much longer time).
As soon as he’s not behind me, I go from being terrified to crazy angry. I pour everything I’ve got in to the pedals, and catch up to this guy at the next red light. He starts yelling at me, about always needing to be on the right side at the road. I start yelling back, about how that’s not actually true in California. I start in on “… as far to the right as practicable, there was a right turn lane beside me, and the lane wasn’t wide enough for you to pass safely…” and he… he actually *puts his fingers in his ears and starts going “blah blah blah blah”*.
I yell a bit longer, then just give up and bike away.
Ever since then, I’ve been growing more and more reluctant to ride. I didn’t realize until this morning, just how fucking scared and angry this guy made me. There was absolutely no reason for him to do what he did. We’re at a red light - he can’t go anywhere anyway. If he’d waited 20 seconds, he’d have been past me. He fucking saw me waiting at the red, and came up behind me - he could have switched in to the other lane, and not been behind me at all. But instead, he chose to deliberately terrify me.
I’ve had people shout at me, people try and block the bike lane, but this is the only one that really truly disturbed me. There was so much forethought and malice in what he did - a full red light of thinking “as soon as this light is green, I’m going to scare the shit out of you”. And that’s what’s been bothering me - there are people on the road who will take the time, think things through, and decide that the right thing to do is to threaten somebody.
I dug out my old Flip Cam, and strapped in to my bike this morning. And it made me feel a lot better. Because the next time some asshole does anything like this, I’ll have him on tape, and the anti-harassment law on my side.
Actually, writing this post made me feel a lot better.
Also, sorry the swearing. But, man, I really am angry at this guy.
TL;DR - Dude thoughtfully and deliberately threatened me while I was on a bike. It took me 2 weeks to figure out why it bothered me so much. I’m riding with a camera now, so I can fight back.
