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.
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.
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 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
