Road rage

[nothinghead]

So I'm riding my bike along through an intersection where this driver has come to a complete stop (in the middle of the intersection, no less) to wait for someone on the pedestrian crossing. I don't hold the guy up at all, or do anything I can think of as inconveniencing him (I'm through before the pedestrian is finished crossing) and yet he starts revving his engine at me as I go past! I turn around and give him the "what's going on" hand, and see that he's staring me down with this filthy expression on his face, still revving, so I throw him the forks. I keep riding and hear him revving it up more and beeping his horn. Then he changes direction, chases me down and hops out of his car.

I get off my bike and wait for him, and he comes down yelling at swearing at me, stops way too close to me and keeps screaming. I ask him in a calm voice what's going on, and he goes on screaming at me about making a "forbidden sign" at him. I say yeah I did that, and asked him why he revved his engine as I went by him. He doesn't answer but keeps yelling, saying this is his country and blah blah forbidden sign rah rah rah. By this time he's holding his finger up to my face. Had enough of being yelled at, I tell him to get his fucking finger away from me and the little shit jumps back and whips off his leather belt, doubles it over and starts brandishing it at me. Until now I've been calm, kept my voice down, kept my arms by my sides except for when I went to move his hand away from my face, but I lose my temper a bit and put my bike to the side and say "righto" and walk towards him. After having chased me down, screamed in my face and threatened me, he runs back towards his car instead of using that belt he took off, gets his phone out and says he's calling the police!

I say I haven't got time for this, try to leave, but he gets in my way. I realise I've either got to push him out of the way or wait. I'm pretty certain if the police show up it's going to be me and not him who gets into trouble, no matter what the facts of the situation are, so I decide to wait. He's still jabbering on about how he's calling the cops and I say "that's fine. We'll see what happens when they get here". He waits on the phone for about 10 seconds, then claims he can't get through to the cops and fucks back off to his car, still swearing at me and saying "this is your lucky day"!

What kind of coward goes actively after starting a fight, realises they aren't going to come out on top (by the way he was standing and how he was brandishing the belt he looked like he had no idea what he was doing, probably had only hit his kids with it is my guess), threatens to call the cops since he can't sort it out himself, and finally fucks off without doing any of the above. Absolute clown!

[planthelper]

you handled the situation well, good on you.

I was without a car for many years, but got one weeks ago, and it took me, only 5 min to get the finger out for the 1st time again, hehehe...

[IndianDreaming]

Wow - that dude must live a horrible life... nice work on the restraint, you'd probably feel terrible if you had to defend yourself and injured the sorry sod.

[C_T]

im thinking you didnt follow the road rules by going through the pedestrian crossing while the cars waited pissed him off, i dunno i would have totally ignored him or her

its like a troll, dont turn around and achnowledge them

[nothinghead]

Thanks for the support - I never know coming out of those kinds of situations whether I should've done more or whether being passive but holding my ground is a good approach.

lol planthelper! And Dreaming you're probably right that if it got violent I'd feel bad afterwards no matter what the outcome.

C_T, this is in a country where bike paths sort of merge with pedestrian crossings. I stayed on the correct part of the road, and according to the law he is obliged to stop for me anyway, which he didn't. Actually, he tried to race through the intersection which cut me off, so I came to a stop before entering the intersection. However, when he was already in the intersection he noticed the pedestrian already on the crossing in front of him, had to stop in the middle of the road, and that's when I went past (again, without holding him up at all - and having right of way). Anyway, point taken: ignore the trolls.

[C_T]

ah my mistake with the interpretation

well atleast it wasnt you having the horrible day

[Sallubrious]

I reckon you did the right thing by not kicking his arse, it must have been hard though.

It really sounds like he's got a major inferiority complex and he needed to exert his dominance to re-assure his fragile ego. The display with belt showed that. Seriously who pulls their belt off for a fight - you'd be better off with an empty hand unless you'd studied something like Krav Maga and even then you wouldn't need the belt.

If you had kicked his arse who knows what the clown might have done to regain his pride, he could have had a weapon in the car or used the car as a weapon itself.

It's wise to avoid a physical conflict given the choice.

[planthelper]

in german speaking countries, road rage is still quite mild compared to what can happen in oz...

and if everybody is a dick head, you have to be one as well, otherwise you are a loser, and after all it's all about who is the alpha.

my fav road rage story involves me on a push bike, the other guy in a car...

brighton sussex railwaystation, a right hand turn lane only, but cabs are allowed a left turn as well.

got almost run over by a cab a few days earlier doing his left turn, and he did cut me off, whilst I did alrady my right turn. I was placed in my lane as the first person, and placed 1/3 from the left in the lane (this allowes the faster cars to pass me in the bend.

I had to slam the breaks hard to avoid an impact, and writing this makes me angry I did not chase this fucking cab driver down.

next time, at the same turn I place my selve in the centre of the lane, so that no taxi can, cut me off/ over run me. I am entitled as a pushy rider to do so.

the guy behind me blows his horn and get's angry, because he cant over take me right away, and has to wait till I merge more left, after the bend has finished...

finger salut and yelling follows, and I do the same back to him.

now I was quite fit at that time, and it goes downhill, for a while there, and so I managed to chase that car driver down, when he had to stop.

I ask hi to park the car and talk it over what happened, after a while, he admits I was right, and he said, he was just about to finish a long hard delivering shift, and is sorry.

dispute was settled, and it did not spoil my day.

and if taxi drivers drive you mad remember:

a father and his son are taking a ride in a cab, through the red light district.

the son say's daddy, what's with all this woman, wearing hardly any clothes and swinging there hand bags? the father replies, those a house wives waiting for there husbands to come home.

the taxi driver turns around and says, don't tell fibs, tell your boy, those woman are prostitutes.

for a while there is silence in the car, than the boys exclaims, can prostitutes bear children?

yes for sure, dad replies, otherwise there would be no taxi drivers...

[Halcyon Daze]

As soon as he pulled that belt off you should have "gone in for the kill"!

-by that I mean "pulled his pants down"

[quarterflesh]

lol your not 13 years old or anything are you? and he was going to give you a crack on the bum. ha

[mr b.caapi]

I wish cars ( and bikes ) came standard with a garden hose to squirt dickheads like this.

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

As soon as he pulled that belt off you should have "gone in for the kill"!

-by that I mean "pulled his pants down"

its kinda unasutralian not to "dack" him

[C_T]

this has been all over the web last 2 days!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qk2LeimVOG0#t=41

[nothinghead]

^yeah that was a crazy one. lucky that the bikies who attacked the guy in the car couldn't have known their mate was paralysed at the time or the driver might not have made it out alive.

unaustralian not to "dack" him

lol if only i'd been quicker on my feet.

b.caapi: garden hose would be an ingenious attachment eh.

[MikeyMagic]

If I can remain emotionally detatched from the situation, I can understand the absurdity of the (percieved) reality.

It tends to make me smile in such situations.

This often seems to have an infectious affect!

I guess its hard to be angry when your smiling because it conflicts with emotional programing.

If they are not too detached from reality this tends too rapidly calm them down if their not too far gone..

or makes them angrier if they are a bit too emotionally removed from the reality!

Standing your ground was the right move in this case.

You put that emotionally retarded soul in its place! Go Raketemensch!

However if he started charging at you with a definite intent to knock you block off a distraction works well..

"Look over there! Cops!" Laughing as you say so will add convicement of this 'truth', and a moment of terror that may bring the emotionaly disfunctional person to question whats going on.

At the very least this distraction will buy time to run!

Edit:

Dacking him would of ended the fight quickly too!

No bully can put up with everyone laughing at them!