Shared Commute
I’m a creature of habit, I take the same route to work every day along with many others. I recognize many people on my commute. There’s the girl with the gold helmet, her guy friend who wears plaid shirts exclusively. There’s the middle-aged woman with the very large panniers who always dresses for rain. There’s the girl with a straw-basket-bag rigged as a back pack. There’s the girl with the old rust-orange bike who always insists in biking faster than me no matter what. Of course these are all bicyclists.
I’ve always suspected I’m biking alongside the same drivers everyday too. But it’s hard to tell since cars are pretty anonymous looking. Only the unusual cars ones stand out. Or the dangerous ones.
One day last May I was riding home in the rain. Because of the weather, the crazy traffic, the door zone, and the collective mood of the street I didn’t feel comfortable filtering and wanted to stay as visible as possible. Even if it was slower. So I took the lane.
I ignored it. They always honk. But then:
I tried to ignore her. Yelling is just honking but with words.
But she was wrong and I couldn’t hold back. I started to give a well-researched explanation about road rules. She rolled up her window fast and…
…used her car to forcibly pass my in the left half of the lane.
I was pretty shaken. The light changed immediately after and she wove through the dense traffic. I never got a plate and I regretted it. Even if I had, I didn’t know if I could do anything with it since I was not physically injured.
But like me, she apparently is a creature of habit. Because 10 months later…
…which gives me a small bit of satisfaction. There may not be anything I can do but now I’m even more researched and know that I have a right to file a police report for aggressive driving if something like this happens again.
I guess I’m just lucky commuting to LMA – the gridlock and huge number of bikes have beaten drivers into submission. Though the odd one will do extremely odd things – I usually just assume that they’re suburban people who are driving in to visit someone in a hospital (probably a child) and just don’t know how things work around here. Strangely enough, though, I got my first honk in months today! I was in a left turn lane and the oncoming van stopped at its green, and I didn’t OMG GO IMMEDIATELY because I didn’t want to die when their text message was finished, and HONK! Super dumb
Also! Glad to hear that I’m not the only one who won’t filter in heavy rain! Makes me feel less crazy waiting in line with the cars while all the bikes whiz by.
I commute to the LMA area too and 98% of the time I don’t have problems. When I do it’s usually raining/snowing or right before a holiday of some sort. Also on weekends it’s a bit of a free for all. And I don’t always filter in good weather either, I hate being in blind spots and I’m perfectly happy to take my time at lights. Then I pedal like crazy on green. Going fast is fun.
I’m so glad it’s not just me! For some reason the only poeple who have ever harassed me have been overweight women (this is not me trying to say I am better then them, I am just stating an observation). So strange.
I’m glad you posted this. It happened to me a few weeks ago, and he nearly ran me off the road in his rage. I was honestly frightened and scared, all shook up. In Chicago it seems to be middle-aged white men in expensive cars, from my experience. I’ve learned to just pull over and wait for the crazies to pass, it isn’t worth risking being hurt. I do wish I had the chance to get that guy’s license plate number, though. I’ll have to remember I can file a report.
A woman with a penis is just the worst possible man, no offense to hermaphrodites.
The preferred term is intersex!
I will update my PC glossary.
Heh, in my experience, I find more men going unreasonably fast on small streets (like the one right in front of my apartment), and more women doing crazy things like putting on makeup or reading while driving.
The worst incident I’ve had so far, though, was a man. He was driving behind me on a small 2-lane road (with no lane markings), honking and yelling at me to get out of the way. He then finally gunned it and passed me, just to stop at a stop light about 10 feet ahead. As he was passing, I gave him a shrug, like “what are you doing?”, but didn’t say anything. After he stopped, he got out of the car, came back, and shouted at me “You got a problem? I can sure give you one!” I simply replied that I was just trying to get home. He got back in the car and sped off when the light turned, then took a left through a red light at the next intersection. Real winner, that guy.
Thankfully in the last 4 years or so, I’ve only had a few incidents like that.
I often see a lot of the same people walking, more than people riding bikes. In a sense, I think the same thing tends to happen to me with people on bikes as people in cars – many of them are wearing homogenous “cycling” clothes (neon colors with black), and so they all kind of blend together to me. I sometimes even don’t recognize people I know at first when they’re on a bike because they look nothing like what they look like off the bike. That’s not to knock them, just an observation.
There was an elderly English couple I used to see a lot on my rides in to work, and sometimes I’d stop and talk with them for a while. Last I’d heard, their dog died, and I haven’t seen them much since then. I often think about them and hope they’re doing alright. There’s this pair of guys I also always see walking and chatting on my way to work, and sometimes on my way home. I also often see one of my neighbors walking her dog in the morning just when I’m leaving home. It’s nice having those sort of routine interactions – it makes it feel a bit more like you inhabit a place, like you’re a part of a group of people.