The edge of the road is too often a battle zone for space.
Hugging the white line, I navigated my way around a busy downtown intersection. Head on a swivel, I checked the parking lot exit of a nearby business — one of the local bike stores — all clear. Then I made my way toward the 4-lane bridge. That’s when I heard the engine roaring, the horn blasting.
A huge, hulking man in a blue Chevy Trailblazer had pulled up to a stop sign at the exit out of a riverfront parking lot at the exact moment I was riding past. This caused the driver to actually stop instead of rolling through the sign. This action cost the man approximately five seconds of his life, and so infuriated him, he pulled up behind me as I crossed the bridge, revving his engine and laying on the horn the entire way.
Road rage. When it’s directed at you, the road cyclist, it’s pretty scary.
Driver-on-cyclist aggression has been in the news more and more often. I’m not sure if tempers are running shorter these days, or if it’s a matter of better reporting and enforcement, or the fact there are more cyclists out on the roads. Probably a combination of all three. In any case, driver-on-cyclist aggression is one of the tarsnakes of riding––or even running––on the roads.
Even pros can become victims of road rage
Take this road rage incident from last week. The Jamis bike company’s cycling team, Jamis-Hagens Berman (presented by Sutter Home), was out for a training ride. Having weaved their way through Tucson’s suburbs, the team was just reaching the quiet roads at the edge of town and was preparing to drop the hammer. They were riding to the right of the white line, completely off the highway on a very wide shoulder in two parallel pace lines when a driver pulled up next to them and began shouting obsenities. The driver then swerved his car into the riders, crashing into Tyler Wren and Todd Harriot. They both went down hard, and there was a bit of a pile-up behind. Wren and Harriot (the team’s longest tenured rider and fitness coach, respectively) suffered some nasty bruises and road rash and their bikes were trashed, but neither suffered broken bones or other serious injury. Thank goodness.
Luckily the Jamis-Hagens Berman team car was not far ahead and managed to catch up to the enraged driver and a team photographer got a shot of his license plate. Tucson police found the man a few hours later and took him into custody.
If you’d like an in-depth report, check out Wren’s first-hand account of the attack…
Keep camera rolling
So what’s the take away here?I guess the best advice I’ve got is Stay Calm and Pedal On. Don’t escalate the situation. As tempting as it is, don’t curse back. Don’t wave a one-fingered response. Remember, you’re flesh and bones and on a bike, and the road rager is emotionally out of control and inside two tons of steel. Get a license plate number. If you can get a photo or shoot some video with your cell phone without putting yourself in greater danger, do it. It’ll help law enforcement and the courts – if it comes to that. If you have to, find a place to pull off the road and stop, let the rager go on ahead. Yeah, it may screw up your Strava or Map My Ride, but it’s a better option than ending up crashed.
How have you dealt with road rage?
I’d like to hear from readers of this blog — have you ever been the victim of a road rage incident while running or riding? Or has one of your training friends? If so, what happened? How did you deal with it? And how do you keep an ugly incident like this from ruining the rest of your run or ride?
We Run and Ride 
The first line of your essay speaks volumes. “Hugging the white line” is a horrible place to be, and is likely a large part of why you had such a bad experience. Such motorist encounters are quite rare for me, now that I take the lane by default. I am more visible from greater distance, and I am more “front of consciousness” so that I’m not a shock to a driver who wants to roll through a stop sign and only realizes he can’t at the last moment. I am more predictable, so less of a scare.
I strongly encourage you to find a Cycling Savvy course (cyclingsavvy.org) near you and take it.
I was once “taking the lane” a year and a half ago, as you suggest. Big and bold, my space, my rights, and all that. Got creamed by a speeding, tire squealing, hit-and-running F-150 and broke my spine in the crash. So I ride as conservatively as possible now. It may not be the latest riding trend, but I haven’t had another near death experience. I will check out the website. Sounds interesting.