Forget “share the road” – let’s share the road rage.
Motorists may currently have a monopoly on road rage, but cyclists are gaining ground because road rage transcends transportation type and crosses lane designations.
Although I see this trend, most times I am still accustomed to seeing the cyclist-motorist interface as being passive-aggressive. That is, the cyclist passively resists or crumbles under an aggressive honk or shout of a motorist.
But then bikes aren’t equipped like their petro-powered relatives. There’s little in the world quite as pathetic as the cheery “ding-ding” of a bike bell as a retort to a five second blast from an auto horn – unless it’s the “eeerh-eerh” of one of those clown horns some cyclists put on their bikes. Bikes just don’t exude the aggression that cars do naturally.
But sometimes the meeting of steering wheels and handlebars is one of aggression on aggression, pedal-power to horsepower – a virtual fisticuffs of transportation righteousness. In these cases it is not the machine under the operator, but the operators themselves who become the center of gravity in a critical mass of mobile angst.
As an anecdote to illustrate the former circumstance of cycling pacifism, about two weeks ago I was driving south on Olive Street, off of 5th Avenue, when the driver of the car ahead of me started losing his cool.
This is a stretch of road without bike lanes, but it is a designated bike route and has a stop sign or light at each intersection.
A woman was cruising along in the southbound lane, displaying all the signs of just being released from a bike rodeo – helmet, reflectors, taking her turn at the stops and even signaling with her left arm each time she slowed for a stop. She could have been filmed for a road sharing training video.
However, just behind her was this 20-foot-long 1970s Oldsmobile boat-mobile. This thing probably came in just shy of 4000 pounds, likely had a V8 built for leaded gasoline and was certainly belching enough light blue exhaust to smoke a horse.
The driver of this dream machine shared the modern sensibility of his auto and began honking his horn at the cyclist, lurching the car menacingly, and swerving as if to dart around her and gain half a car length before the next stop.
Even given the 19-to-1 weight ratio, the woman kept her cool and proceeded to each stop with the flow of traffic in front of her. The most she did to acknowledge the obnoxious auto behind her was to deliver a curt cyclists “stop” arm signal at each stop.
This continued until 11th Avenue, where the cyclist continued straight ahead and the auto roared off to the west.
Such a display of restraint, what some may mistake as timidity, actually takes big balls, brass, huge, massive. But at the same time, a pacifist approach may not actually change the attitude or behavior of an aggressive motorist.
The driver of that Olds probably just looked at the exchange as an annoyance and an anomalous challenge to auto dominance. A display of more open aggression may sometimes have a more productive effect on how people share the roadways.
I witnessed just such an even only a couple days after the Olive incident. I was riding my bike westbound on 17th Avenue and a woman in her mid-20s was about a block ahead of me.
I heard a car, similar to the Olive Street Olds, approaching from behind and moved far right to let it pass. Oftentimes on residential roads I will ride within inches of parked cars’ mirrors or swerve in between them to let a motorist pass, and I’ve seen many other riders use this technique as well.
When the car approached the rider ahead of me, however, she only moved to the right edge of lane, not to the curb.
The driver sped past, shouting, and the cyclist shouted back. The driver slammed on his brakes and made to get out of his car, but the cyclist unflinchingly made forward to meet him.
I saw him glance in his mirror, hesitate, and if a 3000 pound auto can be made to slink off humiliated, he made it so.
Of course these are two isolated incidents and cannot speak to the whole of the roadway sharing experience here in Eugene.
First of all, Eugene is one of the top cyclist-friendly towns I have ever lived in, definitely on par with Missoula, Mont. And for that I salute Eugene.
Secondly, no matter how much some people advocate perfect harmony between bikes and autos, it shall never be. There will always be stereotypical “bad” cyclists who flout the rules of the road just as there are “raging” motorists who would rid bikes from auto roads altogether – one fender bump at a time if need be.
But the bulk of traffic will move courteously and safely on all sides, and that’s what we really need. So if motorists and cyclists are to truly share the road, cyclists need to share everything, including a demeanor appropriate to each biking situation.
While each individual responds differently to frustration and confrontation, just as calling out “on your left,” is appropriate on a bike-pedestrian trail, in some situations, nonviolently of course, a very courteous “up yours” may be appropriate on bike-auto roads.
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