Old man runs motorcyclist off road. Says "I don't care."

[P.J. Denyer]

I have had cars try to run me off or 'brake test' me.
Treat every car as a potential enemy. be aware of your situation. When you are going to pass, get past and leave plenty of space.
Plus wear protective gear. I have full leathers with kevlar panels, back brace and neck guard but I am riding a sorts bike,

This, this, so much this.

There's really good, reasonably priced summer gear avaliable now that is as cool to wear as a t shirt and jeans but will keep you in one piece. And always gloves, there's too many nerve endings in the first things that you'll put down......


Odd thing is that when I wore all my dayglow 'civilised motorcyclist' gear I got regularly cut up, when I wore my cut, open face and metal plate 'discusion' gloves and rode my chop the same things simply never happened..... Funny that.

 

[Andy_Ross]

When I am riding around town or short distances I wear a leather jacket with armour in it and kevlar lined jeans. Full Leathers and back brace are for faster work out of town. I always wear bike boots and gloves. It makes me cringe to see people in the summer wearing shorts and T Shirts, even 'just around town'
I would never wear any kind of 'Dayglow' anything at all.!

 

[rwguinn]

According to the local news, the car had slowed to like 40mph in a 55 MPH zone, which is why they were going around. Biker did get ticketed, car driver arrested...

 

[LTC8K6]

Everyone on the video is stupid. The driver is malicious.

Yes.

Car driver is dangerously crazy.

Bike rider is very irresponsible. No proper gear for passenger, passing in a no passing zone, no valid license.

So the car driver has two counts of aggravated assault.

Biker has two tickets.

 

[TragicMonkey]

According to the local news, the car had slowed to like 40mph in a 55 MPH zone

I'm rather surprised nobody shot the car's driver for that. I kind of wish they had. 40 in a 55 zone? Unless you're transporting dynamite or a wedding cake there's no reason for that.

 

[Travis]

Whew. Good thing it was just a motorcyclist. I was worried a human had been hurt.

 

[xjx388]

There is so much aggressive car and motorcycle driving that it's a wonder more people aren't hurt. The car driver deserves prosecution and jail time but I wouldn't let the biker off the hook either. He made a reckless move that endangered their lives. It was a busy two lane road. Passing made no sense in that instance given that there were other cars ahead that appeared to be going just as slow and he didn't have a clear view of oncoming traffic.

We need more patrols on these kinds of roads and tailgating, speeding and other aggressive driving needs to be ticketed way more often.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

When I am riding around town or short distances I wear a leather jacket with armour in it and kevlar lined jeans. Full Leathers and back brace are for faster work out of town. I always wear bike boots and gloves. It makes me cringe to see people in the summer wearing shorts and T Shirts, even 'just around town'
I would never wear any kind of 'Dayglow' anything at all.!

I commuted by bike for most of 25 years. By the end I wore dayglow gloves, jacket and crash helmet for the daily runs. My reasoning wasn't that it was safer (didn't look is still didn't see even if you are dressed up like a Xmas tree), but that if someone did hit you it took away one or two of the reasons that people assume the biker is always at fault. And yes I hated that I started to think that way and act on it, but when you've had a car lock up at 70mph, spin 90 degrees to block both lanes of a dual carriageway hitting you in the process and NOT ONE of the drivers that witnessed it so much as ask if you're injured before they drive off it gives you a pretty poor opinion of people.

 

[Andy_Ross]

All my crashes were my own fault and didn't involve anything other than going too fast round corners.

 

[NoahFence]

It happens more often than one would think, and now recommend the Gopro as a normal part of riding gear.

The sad part is that when these cases get into a criminal court, even in incidents of vehicular homicide, riders lives don't seem to have much worth:

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Road-Rage-Driver-Jailed-His-truck-killed-2951208.php

Julius was a riding buddy. As a human being, he deserved better. I know of many individuals (w/o prior convictions) that have received far longer sentences for non-violent crimes.

Just a thought - maybe the driver was fed up with idiot motorcyclists breaking the law. Hopefully everybody involved gets prosecuted.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Some people don't like being passed by a bike. I have had drivers try to block me when I was filtering through traffic perfectly legally also passing on a wide road without having to cross the center line.
A solid line in the UK doesn't mean no passing it means do not cross the line to pass unless there is a stationary obstruction or certain other exemptions for cyclists and agricultural vehicles. If the road is wide enough to pass without crossing the line then it is legal.
Filtering through stationary traffic is also allowed, you can go right up to a traffic light if there is room, car drivers don't seem to like it though

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Just a thought - maybe the driver was fed up with idiot motorcyclists breaking the law. Hopefully everybody involved gets prosecuted.

Just the attitude I was referring to, a bikes involved, they have to be at fault. And is this really the answer to traffic violations? That behaviour MIGHT cause an accident so I WILL make sure it does? FFS, been watching too much Mad Max? Even if it was an illegal overtake that doesn't even come close to justifying trying to injure, maim or kill someone.

I am reminded of when a van driver pulled out without looking straight into me and managed to persuade witnesses to claim I was speeding, until video evidence proved I was at slightly less than half the speed limit.

 

[luchog]

Some people don't like being passed

FTFY

I drive a small car, and I can't count the number of times I've narrowly avoided accidents because of drivers suddenly speeding up to prevent me or someone else merging into the lane in front of them. Especially problematic with long merge lanes. Instead of alternating vehicles, I'll typically see to lines of cars tightly packed tailgating each other, to prevent anyone from getting on front of them, well after the merge lane ends. Blocks traffic and slow everyone down. I've had a few drivers, almost invariably driving monster SUVs, deliberate try to run me off the road or out of the lane so that they could squeeze in front of me, even though there was no one else behind me keeping them from merging (where they legally should have been merging anyway). I've even seen people use merge lanes as passing lanes just to get one or two cars farther ahead.

It's like some sort of personal insult or failure to allow someone else to merge into a lane in front of them. And it's not just guys, it's the same for women as well.

Was in an accident recently for this very reason. I was changing lanes, and the driver a couple car lengths behind me in the lane I was changing to sped up to prevent me merging in front of her. I was about halfway into the lane when she swerved around me on the shoulder, then cut back hard in front of me and lost control of her vehicle, going sideways about 3 feet in front of me, and I hit her before I had a chance to react.

 

[tsig]

If he'd been using Robocar this wouldn't have happened.

True, they make sure of their kills.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

All my crashes were my own fault and didn't involve anything other than going too fast round corners.

All of mine (bar one) were being hit by someone else while commuting. SMIDSYs for the most part except for what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to cause an accident to game the welfare system.


The one time no-one else was involved was due to attempting to tell the Police about bricks and oil on a roundabout, I was coming off a national speed limit dual carriageway into a layby and realised at the last moment the feeder Lane didn't go straight in but curved round in a 'p' shape around a two foot deep hole (caused by all the cars that had obviously made the same mistake) when I hit the brakes my front wheel locked on a poor surface patch and me and the bike went tumbling along the verge to wind up in front of the coppers I was stopping to speak to. They helped me up, helped me pick up the bike and checked I was alright, looked at me, looked at the corner I'd come off and didn't even bother to breathalyse me, that corner is a death trap. When I was fixing the bike I also discovered that the previous owner had removed a serious brace from under the front mudguard that didn't help, but ultimately it was my own fault.

 

[Andy_Ross]

My last crash on a bike was 4 years ago, I was taking a lovely fast line through a left hander and got the apex perfectly, I was right over with knee on the ground trying to keep ahead of a friend on his R1 and my front wheel went over a slippery patch of muck left by a tractor and the bike just slid out from under me.
Most of mine are like that, sometimes I bounced and broke bones, usually I slid out OK.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Tractor dirt nd horse manure, the banes of a country bikers life.....

 

[NoahFence]

Just the attitude I was referring to, a bikes involved, they have to be at fault. And is this really the answer to traffic violations? That behaviour MIGHT cause an accident so I WILL make sure it does? FFS, been watching too much Mad Max? Even if it was an illegal overtake that doesn't even come close to justifying trying to injure, maim or kill someone.

I am reminded of when a van driver pulled out without looking straight into me and managed to persuade witnesses to claim I was speeding, until video evidence proved I was at slightly less than half the speed limit.

Most of them ask for it. At least in my experience. If I had a nickle for every time some idiot split lanes, passed on the right on a 1 lane road, tailgated me, etc.. I'd be able to afford one of those crotch rockets I love so much.

 

[BStrong]

Just a thought - maybe the driver was fed up with idiot motorcyclists breaking the law. Hopefully everybody involved gets prosecuted.

Could very well be the case - the California Highway Patrol did a study on Motorcycle "lane splitting"

http://www.ots.ca.gov/pdf/Publications/Motorcycle-Lane-Splitting-and-Safety-2015.pdf

From survey questions to passenger vehicle drivers:

On the whole, drivers who believe lane-splitting is illegal are more likely to disapprove of it. Of 722, 7.3 percent said they have tried to prevent a lane-splitting motorcycle from passing them. The three primary reasons given for doing so were "It is unsafe" (43.6), "Might cause me to have an accident" (33.3), and "It is unfair they get ahead of me (23.1).


It takes a special kind of stupid to use a passenger vehicle as a weapon against someone on two wheels for the crime of passing them, but I don't know many motorcyclists or bicyclists that don't have a story of an encounter with an angry cage driver.

I've had more than a few. Julius Long paid with his life in his last encounter, but according to the judge it wasn't so bad because the driver and Julius exchanged **** you's.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I drive a small car

Me, too. A lot of people see a small, cute car in a candy-like color and think "I must pass this, rarrrrr!" regardless of how fast it's actually going. I tend to drive somewhat conservatively, never going more than 25 mph over the speed limit, and a lot of people see my adorable car, pass me, then immediately slow down once they get in front of me. Just because I drive a small, cute car doesn't mean I'm not a speed demon sociopath. It just means that when I force both our vehicles over the gorge into the river, mine will float.