Nigeyy
Legendary Member
- Location
- Massachusetts, USA
@winjim, I agree with the point of shouty cyclists; I think everyone has had a car driver do something incredibly stupid, you get a bit of red mist and you want to give them a go verbally. That's anger, and most rational sane people realize it doesn't do any good whatsoever. But at least from the video (again not the whole context), it was her who started the confrontation, and it's not exactly like he was shouting, swearing, threatening and being out of control. It was her who chose to stop ahead and confront again. To be honest, I thought what he said was incredibly mild (that was, mind you, in reaction to her calling him ignorant) and not worthy of her stopping, but just my opinion.
FWIW, I also wouldn't have done what he did, and I'd have let things go as soon as she slowed down beside him (first thing that would have gone through my mind is "here's a driver in charge of a very heavy dangerous vehicle who is too wound up, give them space"), the aggravation isn't worth it. But I'll still say there's no way the blame is equal here. However, I really do wonder whether some posters would react similarly after someone took the time to slow down their car to call you ignorant, particularly if you hadn't done anything wrong (that's an assumption here of the situation based on the video, like I said, we don't have the full context).
I don't know whether as cyclists we have become so used to aggressive or threatening behaviour that we have become ingrained to be cowed and we think answering back is equally as bad and makes as just as guilty, but judging from the posts, I'll put that forward as a possibility. While I certainly don't try to confront motorists (I can only think of doing so once or twice in my entire 45 years of cycling) nor do I think it's
something any of us should do(!), I can't necessarily assign blame to those who do after an egregious incident, particularly if they are calm and as non-threatening as the cyclist in this video.
FWIW, I also wouldn't have done what he did, and I'd have let things go as soon as she slowed down beside him (first thing that would have gone through my mind is "here's a driver in charge of a very heavy dangerous vehicle who is too wound up, give them space"), the aggravation isn't worth it. But I'll still say there's no way the blame is equal here. However, I really do wonder whether some posters would react similarly after someone took the time to slow down their car to call you ignorant, particularly if you hadn't done anything wrong (that's an assumption here of the situation based on the video, like I said, we don't have the full context).
I don't know whether as cyclists we have become so used to aggressive or threatening behaviour that we have become ingrained to be cowed and we think answering back is equally as bad and makes as just as guilty, but judging from the posts, I'll put that forward as a possibility. While I certainly don't try to confront motorists (I can only think of doing so once or twice in my entire 45 years of cycling) nor do I think it's
something any of us should do(!), I can't necessarily assign blame to those who do after an egregious incident, particularly if they are calm and as non-threatening as the cyclist in this video.
