Today (Road Rage Story)

[Benethi]

After a good morning climbing, I was heading home today when I encountered my first proper road rage incident. After however many miles and reading about a lot of it on here, I think I must be doing quite well.

Riding along here usually I stick to the centre of the left hand lane and stay behind any cars, as once the lights turn green the traffic moves at a fair pace so there rarely much point trying to filter past. I ride along there at anything between 20 and 30, the lane is narrow and there is a perfectly good second lane if anyone does feel the need to overtake and cut in front of me again as they get to the next set of lights. Anyway, today there was a fair bit of non-moving traffic all in the left hand lane, so I moved into the outer lane, shot up to this set of traffic lights, and went into a gap two cars from the front. In front of a gentleman who evidently does not like cyclists (from this point on I shall refer to him as Mr Tulip).

The lights went green, I stayed in the middle of the lane and kept right behind the car in front until the next set of lights (actually there's a set straight after which turn green at the same time making them somewhat pointless as far as I can tell; if anyone knows what they're there for please let me know - anyway, I don't count them, so I mean the next set). Half way Mr Tulip beeps his horn at me.

We stop at the lights (still one or two cars in front of us) and Mr Tulip gets out of his car and shouts "Will you get your -ing bike out of the middle of the road". Then comes over and pushes me towards the kerb. I look at him somewhat surprised, get about two words out ("But, err..."), vaguely trying to pointing towards the fact that there are cars in front regardless of where I was, he carries on "Get your -ing bike where it should be or I'll -ing run you over".

This goes on for about a minute, he pushes me and bike onto the pavement, keeps shouting at and threatening me (I'm not quite sure what I did as I mostly remained silent, not really getting a chance to get a word in, but after walking a few steps back towards his car he turned round again and shouted "You want to have a go do you?" and started again. Someone else pulls up in the next lane and shouts at him to 'Leave it' or something. The lights then turn green, Mr Tulip then gets back in his car and I get back into the road and cycle off with a bit of a head start, he passes me at some speed in the outer lane a bit further on.
I memorise his number plate and promptly forget it about 30 seconds later in my somewhat shaken state at this point.
The first time I've ever really wished I had a camera strapped to my head.

Anyway, I consoled myself by going and buying a new bike
(in case anyone's interested, Edinburgh Cycles have 15% off most bikes till closing time tomorrow)

[Tonyf33]

Glad you seem none the worse for the experiece (retail therapy is ace isn't it ) also well done on keeping your cool. You get gimps like Mr. Tulip all the time, clearly couldn't understand the fact that you weren't holding him up in any way shape or form so eejits like that will bully and vent their spleen no matter what.
You should however report it to the police as an assault, as that is what it is. Can you remember the colour/make & model of the vehicle and the approximate time? There may be CCTV along the route that may help identify them.

[jezer]

Yes, definitely report it. This can't be the first time he has done this sort of thing, and the police may have previous reports. It all builds up a picture.

[Claireysmurf]

+1
I hope it doesn't happen to you again. Can you imagine how many bikes you would end up with?!!

[Pugwash]

You have been assalted and received death threats, go to the police station immediately, insist they follow up on this, if not make it very clear you will escalate to their superiors.

This is very serious, if this person gets away with this he is likely to do it again.

[[XAP]Bob]

Yes, definitely report it. This can't be the first time he has done this sort of thing, and the police may have previous reports. It all builds up a picture.

+1

[meic]

I memorise his number plate and promptly forget it about 30 seconds later in my somewhat shaken state at this point.

I keep chanting the reg number until I get a chance to write it down. I think that without his reg number it is unlikely that there is much chance of the Police finding who it was and in fairness to them it would probably not be the best use of their time trying to find out through intensive investigation as if a murder had occurred.

Though I am not sure how much they would bother even if you did supply a registration number. However a very similar incident to this in Manchester, caught on helmet cam, did result in prosecutions for both of assault type offences and motoring offences.

[tatanab]

To all the people above saying "report it" I say "report what?". All that can be said is that the OP had a run in with an unidentifiable person (registration number forgotten). I agree it is a case of assault, but given such information just what do you expect the police to do?

[Pugwash]

I would expect the police to investigate it, speak to the council and local shop owners about CCTV footage, put out one of those signs urging members of the public to get in contact etc etc.

It is also important to report it for crime statistics.

[Si]

To all the people above saying "report it" I say "report what?". All that can be said is that the OP had a run in with an unidentifiable person (registration number forgotten). I agree it is a case of assault, but given such information just what do you expect the police to do?

I would not expect anything to come from reporting it but there is always a small chance so worth doing, and it may make the OP feel better just as reporting it on here might have.

They might check CCTV if any in area. Check against any witness accounts of the incident if 3rd parties reported it. Check description and location against similar events in that area. etc. As said above - if he's done it before then it will all build up and an extra report might encourage the police to at least have a word if they know who the chap is from past reports.

Apart from that it lets the police know that there is a problem, and hopefully gets it logged on their stats somewhere. After all if there are no reports of a problem then the police can happily claim that the problem does not exist.

[horizon]

This is grist for clairysmurf's thesis. Obviously he wasn't held up so it is out and out psychology - what gave him the idea that the cyclist "shouldn't" be there? And he's not the only one, as we all know.

[Tacascarow]

I memorise his number plate and promptly forget it about 30 seconds later in my somewhat shaken state at this point.

I take out my old (no camera) mobile phone & dial my landline number, leaving a message on my answer phone & making it sound like I'm talking to someone official on the other end.
I had a couple of lads stop & open their doors to have a go a few days ago when they passed me too fast & close & I hurled a few expletives.
As soon as they saw me talking on the phone they got back in & drove off post haste.

[snibgo]

Benethi committed the "crime" of overtaking a car on a bike. To a bike-hater who thinks we shouldn't be on the road at all, or at most we should be in the gutter, this is unforgivable. Mr Toad (sorry, I mean Mr Tulip) considers that the cyclist cost him an entire place in the queue, and thus a few precious seconds of his time.

But Mr Tulip isn't really bothered about the time. If he was, he would beat up motorists who delayed him. No, the problem is that an uppity cyclist doesn't acknowledge that his correct place in the food chain is somewhere below an earthworm, and has the bare-faced cheek to overtake a car -- not even in the gutter where he belonged, but actually in the road, as if he had every right to be there. If Mr Tulip had a horse-whip handy, we can be sure he would have used it. Instead, he needed to get up close and personal.

I don't suppose Mr Tulip would rationalise it in this way. But he needs to be told that his behaviour is unacceptable. I suspect he will, before much longer, in some way or another.

[alanesq]

I would highly recommend getting a camera - if anything happens like this it is just your word against the other persons (and likely a passenger) if you don't have any video. It is very unlikely anyone else will volunteer as a witness.

I never go anywhere without my camera running, it is also handy that you can just shout out a reg plate even if the camera doesn't catch it (this is something I often do)
You can get a camera for around £25 plus memory card so it doesn't have to be expensive - http://alanesq.com/cyclecam.htm

[thirdcrank]

The Cycling Lawyer blog makes sad reading. There can be few cyclists with a better understanding of the rules about the admissibility of evidence than his, but when he made a contemporaneous voice note of a car reg,. it was rejected by the Metropolitan Police.

http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... y-met.html