My Bike Is My Car

Anyone who rides regularly for transportation knows what I’m talking about. After weeks of minor incidences with irresponsible, oblivious and aggressive drivers, a kind of cyclist’s “road rage” builds up. At some point during a ride the pot will inevitably boil over when a soccer mom cuts you off, pulls a u-turn without seeing you coming, or simply fails to look in your direction as she pulls out of the strip mall parking lot. That’s when you go balistic, stop your bike directly in front of her and start yelling and pointing like a maniac army sargeant.

Okay, gendering this scenario was unnecessary. The road rage I’m talking about is very general among bicycle commuters I know, men and women. Of course, I could have chosen a stereotyped male driver for this scenario, too.

I’ve noticed recently that this road rage is not a good thing. Moreover, it can be downright dangerous to let this anger build up in the first place. I began thinking about the dangers of bicyclist’s road rage when I exploded one day at a driver who honked impatiently simply because I took control of the lane (I had to take control of the lane in order to make the inappropriate left turn using a pedestrian cross walk ahead). I stopped my bike and placed it horizontally in the middle of the road, leaving her no option to pass and proceeded to give her a lecture on California bike law. She just stared in disbelief, gesturing “what’s up? Let’s go!”. But what if she had been more aggressive than that? What if she had decided to use her metal hulk to intimidate me?

The same day this occurred my wife told me about an incident of road rage on her part. I don’t recall the specifics, except that it was clear that she was venting an anger and tension that had been building over weeks of small incidents of inconsideration and worse on the same route. I’m sure that whatever it she did (I don’t recall) to vent her frustration likely put her at unnecessary further risk, as it did in my case to stop the bike in the middle of the road to give a fiery speech.

My concern with cyclist’s road rage extends beyond the moment of imprudent venting, however. After some consideration (in the saddle, of course), I’ve come to the conclusion that the anger and frustration alone poses a safety risk. When I allow a driver’s actions to disturb me, I become less focused on the next obstacle, the next driver, and the road ahead. Furthermore, I find them by becoming agitated, I’m less nimble and ready to react to whatever dangers may lie ahead. In other words, I’m still thinking about what that asshole just did to me back there instead of thinking about what lies ahead. And this is just the effect on my riding abilities without taking into consideration the highly imprudent acts of venting such as I described above. For this reason I’ve been experimenting with controlling my anger at drivers, staying calm and focused. A distinct advantage of staying calm is that I can continue to carefully observe egregious driver actions and learn from this how to ride more defensively, exposing myself less and less to driver foolishness.