Bike rage

Bike rage refers to acts of verbal or gestural anger or physical aggression between cyclists and other users of bike paths or roadways, including pedestrians, other cyclists, motorcyclists, or drivers. Bike rage can consist of shouting at other road users, making obscene gestures or threats, hitting or punching, or in rare cases, even more violent acts. The term can refer either to acts committed by cyclists or by drivers. Bike rage is related to other explosive outbursts of anger such as road rage.

A bike rage incident can start because a cyclist, driver, or pedestrian believes that another road user was being discourteous, breaking traffic rules, or in many cases because someone felt that their safety was being compromised by the actions of another road user. According to University of Hawaii professor of psychology Leon James, "bike rage is a common occurrence, and quite predictable", because urban commuting causes "tension, anxiety, and anger – in drivers as well as cyclists". Montogomery claims some cyclists hit cars using a "classic U-lock bash-and-run" tactic. He argues that "some cyclists consider such attacks acts of driver education". Montogomery claims the "...problem is that city planners have mixed bikes and cars together in ways that offer little certainty about how each should operate, and lots of chances for conflict". As such, "cyclists feel threatened in traffic" and "...hard done by and under attack."

An article in Toronto Life magazine argues that the "...source of the problem [bike and road rage] is neither the arrogance of drivers nor the militancy of cyclists, but the environment in which they interact." The article claims that the "...urban grid, already congested with cars, is being flooded with cyclists...intensifying competition for road space." One issue is that "[d]rivers are not sufficiently alert to the presence and the quickness of cyclists". A possible explanation for all of the aggression that occurs between cyclists and drivers is the anonymity of the big city: "...they know they will never run into that person again."

A member of the S.F. Bicycle Coalition argues that "Road rage is a symptom of a contradiction between the image and promise of cars and the reality," because "You never see a car ad showing someone stuck in traffic." After an altercation between cyclists and police, an observer noted that "The sheep -- like the man who was just riding to the gym and decided to join and have a little fun -- were bewildered, angry, defiant. Turned into wolves."

A 2008 New York Times article stated that "...overwhelmingly, on blogs and Web sites nationwide, drivers and cyclists routinely describe shouted epithets, flung water bottles, sprays of spit and harrowing near-misses of the intentional kind." The article noted that there is "a whiff of class warfare in the simmering hostility, too. During morning rush, the teeth-gritting of drivers is almost audible, as superbly fit cyclists, wearing Sharpie-toned spandex and riding $3,000 bikes, cockily dart through the swampy, stolid traffic to offices with bike racks and showers."

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Wikipedia