Nights and mornings are getting darker her in the northern hemi and weathers getting bad which makes it more frequent things will happen.
I totally let myself down this morning. Tesla pulled out on my after doing a u-turn in and out of a cul-de-sac and not giving way as I passed. Dudes windows were still misted up, he knew what he did because I got the usual hazard light thank-you, but I couldn’t help shout out “check next time mate”. This guy decided it would be a good idea to change direction and speed past a school to have a chat. No raised voices or any real aggro he asked if he impeded my travel I said I hit the brakes and if I had to do that then yeah mate you messed up. Informed him that we were now holding up traffic, to which they sped off.
It’s prob my worst habit on a bike, I think it stems from my time on motorbikes. It’s just never worth my time
Huh, rage in the UK is very different than rage in the USA.
If they end up doing anything actually illegal or malicious (like honking as they pass to intimidate you, blowing through a stop sign or red light, passing too close) , I’ll report them to the police. Not sure if it does anything or not, but I’d like to hope if the same person gets reported multiple times the police will have a chat with them.
Reporting them may do nothing but it at least has a chance. Doing nothing has no chance.
I do it too. It’s hard not to, even though I promise myself to keep my mouth shut and give people the benefit of the doubt. But considering a 3-ton box of metal and glass came close to hitting you, the adrenaline hits and you shout.
I try to reserve my anger for the most egregiously distracted drivers. Like the woman who casually drifted into the bike lane a few yards ahead of me last week and proceeded to park in it, without one iota of a thought for who might be in the bike lane behind her. I was more stunned than angry, but I did stop and ask her WTF she was doing.
Over time I’ve learned to let things go, like pedestrians not paying attention, or bus drivers that ignore bikes. I still enjoy yelling at delivery trucks though, that’s a good pastime for me. I think they enjoy it too.
I used to have some minor road rage. I’m sure this won’t work for everyone but I solved it with one decision:
I stopped verbalizing it. Both to myself and other people. I used to tell my coworkers about the asshole who cut me off or the idiot who almost hit me and after I decided to stop I just…stopped thinking about it beyond the initial “what the fuck!” too
I’ve found that when I stopped talking about it, I stopped remembering it. Not sure if that makes sense but it felt like the anger would float around in my head when I intended on venting about it later.
Great advice I
