Defusing road rage.
- Thread starter BlackPanther
- Start date
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Archie_tect
De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
- Location
- Northumberland
Mind, the flashing lights and the siren might have something to do with it Drago!
Nigeyy
Legendary Member
- Location
- Massachusetts, USA
Cycled in the US for almost 25 years now.....
I think much depends on where you are -Boston, for example has notoriously bad driving. Much of bad driving isn't even intentional, it's more closely aligned to being clueless and an incapacity to think once you get behind a steering wheel, a cultural phenomenon and one that pervades over here because of the general individualistic approach to driving (e.g. I have the right to do what I want, rules are optional, and it's not that big of a deal driving something that may kill someone, and since I'm usually safe in my car, I don't have to pay that much attention). Motivation as to why bad driving occurs doesn't help of course if you are in an accident, but it helps me keep a bit cooler knowing that it's not personal and just a general result of attitudes, no malice intended (plus of course you can get loonies over here with guns). Inherently, I really don't think there are any more or less good or bad people proportionately in the USA vs UK, or in most other countries for that matter. Honestly, bigger and wider roads with generally slower speeds also help, combined with the fact you can cycle on roads with fewer cars over here as population density is so much less.
Anyway, defusing? I just usually shake my head and think of the above paragraph and try not to engage. I envy those people who can really control themselves though -in the last 24 years I can think of one time where I really lost it, and several other times where luckily for me I didn't catch up to the offending car driver because truthfully I know I would kicked their doors in (fortunate for me as they are in a killing machine, and I'm certainly not a fighter so presumably would come off far worse!). Fortunately, it's very rare for me and I think it's only when its a really really agregious piece of behaviour and shows a shocking level of lack of care and immediate life threatening danger to me that I've seen red. I try to keep calm, but sometimes you just react
.
I think much depends on where you are -Boston, for example has notoriously bad driving. Much of bad driving isn't even intentional, it's more closely aligned to being clueless and an incapacity to think once you get behind a steering wheel, a cultural phenomenon and one that pervades over here because of the general individualistic approach to driving (e.g. I have the right to do what I want, rules are optional, and it's not that big of a deal driving something that may kill someone, and since I'm usually safe in my car, I don't have to pay that much attention). Motivation as to why bad driving occurs doesn't help of course if you are in an accident, but it helps me keep a bit cooler knowing that it's not personal and just a general result of attitudes, no malice intended (plus of course you can get loonies over here with guns). Inherently, I really don't think there are any more or less good or bad people proportionately in the USA vs UK, or in most other countries for that matter. Honestly, bigger and wider roads with generally slower speeds also help, combined with the fact you can cycle on roads with fewer cars over here as population density is so much less.
Anyway, defusing? I just usually shake my head and think of the above paragraph and try not to engage. I envy those people who can really control themselves though -in the last 24 years I can think of one time where I really lost it, and several other times where luckily for me I didn't catch up to the offending car driver because truthfully I know I would kicked their doors in (fortunate for me as they are in a killing machine, and I'm certainly not a fighter so presumably would come off far worse!). Fortunately, it's very rare for me and I think it's only when its a really really agregious piece of behaviour and shows a shocking level of lack of care and immediate life threatening danger to me that I've seen red. I try to keep calm, but sometimes you just react
.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
George Melley had a story of being threatened by a group of ne'er do wells in a dark alley some time, and deciding to protect himself by reciting Kurt Schwitters' "Sonata in Urlaut". Faced with a stream of such gibberish, they left him alone.
Glim, grim, gnim bim bim!
I don't think he was on a bike at the time.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
I'm surprised that some of the keyboard warriors on here have the balls to go out in public and start fronting up to motorists. Some of them only talk tough then there's a lengthy fibre opting cable separating them from the person they're confronting.
On the rare occasions a 'rager starts I just ignore them. Violence is pointless, and you can be as big and hard as you like but It won't save you from a blade through a vital organ. Ignoring them and carrying on leaves them feeling psychologically impotent having set out to "dominate" you and failing, so is the most effective tactic if you want to get one over on them.
On the rare occasions a 'rager starts I just ignore them. Violence is pointless, and you can be as big and hard as you like but It won't save you from a blade through a vital organ. Ignoring them and carrying on leaves them feeling psychologically impotent having set out to "dominate" you and failing, so is the most effective tactic if you want to get one over on them.
Combine that with the OP's trick and you could try responding with "Yo no soy Marinaro, Yo no soy Marinaro, Soy Capitan, Soy Capitan", or one of my favourites "Na en la Nevera"
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Similar to the best tactic I've been told: start going on about how you really need to feed your hamster, how it's unhappy and so on. I'm not sure I could carry that one off with a straight face though.
Not sure that's the most effective, but clearly, always keep out of their reach if you can. The worst road-rager I've faced got out of his car in a deserted street, we shouted a few opinions at each other at a distance, then he moved towards me, so I did a U-turn and rode away just fast enough to maintain the distance between us (and let him do some jogging - he wasn't up to a full run). He shouted "why are you riding away?" "Because I can" was my reply. No way he could u-turn his large car in that narrow street quickly enough to catch me even if he tried. I did keep an eye out for the car for a while, just in case it was a local, but happily I never saw him again.
So if you do end up in a confrontation, make the most of your advantages: you're more manoeuvrable than motor vehicles if they stay in and can reach parts of the road that they can't, and faster than the drivers if they get out.
Had a rager try to intimidate me on the approach to a small roundabout very near home. We exchanged words, and I suggested we have a discussion in the car park which was off the second exit. He followed me into the car park, I carried on through the car park's pedestrian exit, rounding the next corner to my road. Left him to rage alone...
TwickenhamCyclist
Guest
Crankarm
Guru
- Location
- Nr Cambridge
Yebbut, you have a trump card - a Police Warrant Badge which if I am not wrong would make most road ragers sh!t themselves. I bet you have some good moments when you get it out for some scrote that has given you some abuse and threatened you whilst you are on your bike
.
glenn forger
Guest
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
Had one today. He raged because I shouted "too close". I got brake tested and an angry man waving a fist at me. Just re-iterated the same line "too close, too close mate". Looked like he might die of a coronary, so left him too it.
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jonny jeez
Legendary Member
- Location
- Chislehurst, Kent, UK
My father used to tell me to to always "deal with it, don't start it but be prepared to finish it". Which is an ethic I am now fully programmed to live to and carry out.Yebbut, you have a trump card - a Police Warrant Badge which if I am not wrong would make most road ragers sh!t themselves. I bet you have some good moments when you get it out for some scrote that has given you some abuse and threatened you whilst you are on your bike
Funny thing is though after an extended service in the Job, He had a proper fight with a chap at the top of his road...like a mile from his house because he went to"deal with it" the week after he retired...reached into his pocket and had no warrant card.
He has become a lot more timid in his retirement.
Clearly he had no idea just how fragile the average "nobody" is in the world and whether he chose to use it or not...always knew he had a fail safe backup.
And before we shout "proper thugs don't care about warrant cards"....yep, most likely they don't...but then proper thugs are one in a thousand and not many of them commute up the old Kent road every day or drive to the local tesco's.
I tend not to take advice on how to diffuse a row from a serving copper, they live in a separate world.
