To the people yelling at me on my bike from their cars

Jimmy Pierce

Jimmy Pierce

Well-known member
I can't f&$#ing hear you when I'm going 20mph out in the open. There's a gust of wind that blows through my ears and it's pretty loud so stop trying to be funny or express your frustrations. You don't actually get the satisfaction you think you do.

That is all.
 
The good: you don't hear the nasty stuff. The bad: not hearing is not good in traffic, especially when you're on a vulnerable bike going against tons of steel, and electric cars are very quiet... eyes are not enough, which is why there are laws against having headphones on while driving - if you can't hear, for whatever reason, music, wind, whatnot, it's bad news. I bike in the city, so I understand there are conflicts and issues, but please be safe :)
 
It's absolutely necessary to be vigilant on a bike. I hear and see traffic going past, approaching from in front and coming from behind. If the street doesn't have a bike lane, I don't ride on it or I take side streets. Sidewalk is dangerous, both for pedestrians that you don't see and cars pulling out of driveways. If you're on a bike wearing headphones, it's no different than wearing them in the drivers seat and just as dangerous. Wind is manageable. But it just annoys me when people yell at me out their window and expect that I can hear them through the wind and the roaring motors.

Just had to get it out. Haha

You be safe too.
 
On a different note, while we're on bikes... Not having a car or even a driver's license, my main method of getting around is a bike. Now, it's rather hard to get all your camera gear with you, so I'm dreaming of a cargo bike, anyone used those to transport yourself and your gear around?
 
With the exception of a light kit, I've transported DSLRs with lenses or handheld ENG cameras plus a smaller tripod and sound gear just using panniers with the tripod bag slung around my shoulder. Everything is well protected and well balanced. Whatever you get, make sure it has nice thick tires and a third wheel in the rear for stability. Often someone locally is making cargo bikes so maybe look into that and you'll be able to give design input. If you're on a bike, portability is key because it's unrealistic to tow something like a full size ARRI light kit and Red Epic with cinema lenses on a bike.
 
Looking to get something like this eventually. Could easily hold all my gear and then some... Problem is winter and rainy days (the do come with rain covers) making it useless for quite some time each year...
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Was thinking of those, but I think I'm too paranoid having the gear behind me where I can't see it... Things falling off, stopping at red light and somebody grabs something etc... Might be overly cautious but...
 
Back in the late-80's, I was in the passenger seat of a Camry, as my friend was driving eastward on Hollywood Blvd. somewhere around Ivar. A bike cut us off from behind. My friend had to slam on the breaks. He honked his horn at the rider. The rider yelled something back. The middle fingers came out of the pocket. On the next stop, the rider spit at the Camry and took a sharp left turn into the darkness on Las Palmas (IIRC) on a red light. My friend waited about 15 seconds, until he could make the same turn. To cut to the chase - in this case literally - we caught up with the bike even before Sunset. The rider must have assumed that no sane person would go after him. The problem with that calculation was that my friend wasn't quite sane. As we had gotten even with the bike, my friend turned his wheel to the right as if trying to sideswipe the rider/spitter into a crushed bag of bones. He came within about a foot of doing so. And I came within about a foot of being a witness to a homicide.
 
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DLD said:
Back in the late-80's, I was in the passenger seat of a Camry, as my friend was driving eastward on Hollywood Blvd. somewhere around Ivar. A bike cut us off from behind. My friend had to slam on the breaks. He honked his horn at the rider. The rider yelled something back. The middle fingers came out of the pocket. On the next stop, the rider spit at the Camry and took a sharp left turn into the darkness on Las Palmas (IIRC) on a red light. My friend waited about 15 seconds, until he took could make the same turn. To cut to the chase - in this case literally - we caught up with the bike even before Sunset. The rider must have assumed that no sane person would go after him. The problem with that calculation was that my friend wasn't quite sane. As we had gotten even with the bike, my friend turned his wheel to the right as if trying to sideswipe the rider/spitter into a crushed bag of bones. He came within about a foot of doing so. And I came within about a foot of being a witness to a homicide.
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Some bike riders want to be given the same courtesies as cars, without obeying the same laws like stop lights, stop signs, etc. that cars must obey.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Some bike riders want to be given the same courtesies as cars, without obeying the same laws like stop lights, stop signs, etc. that cars must obey.
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That has become the norm where I live and it really pisses me off.

I was big into biking when I lived in San Diego and Los Angeles many years back. And for the most part, everyone was hip to the rules of travel. It was a given.

But where I live now in Little Rock, it has just become a fledgling biking area, and everyone wants to get in on the action. While we have a great biking community with many great folks who promote safety and obey the rules. There is also a huge number of riders who embrace this "it's all about me" generation mentality and disregard safety and the basic rules of the road. In favor of doing anything they damn well please. Truly sad!
 
In what happened all those years ago, it was your basic combination of two hotheads. My friend - no longer someone I keep in touch with - indeed has had some mental problems, as well problems with the law. He thought that, once he passed the California bar, he was on easy street. After a couple of felony pleas/convictions, that bar went bye-bye. As did the Skybar and Diamond Bar.
 
Ok, guys. This is totally self-promotion, but also totally relevant. . .I am in a band with a buddy and we have a song about this very topic. I wrote it after the experiences trying to drive through my old neighborhood and having these cyclists constantly running stop signs etc. Obviously not everyone is guilty of this stuff but some of them certainly are.

This is an older version of the song:
 
mcgeedigital said:
Some bike riders want to be given the same courtesies as cars, without obeying the same laws like stop lights, stop signs, etc. that cars must obey.
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That's true. Unfortunately for some bike riders that obey the laws and expect the same courtesy (like myself) don't get it from drivers. I can't stress how many times I'm 50 feet or less from a stop sign on a residential street and the car approaching from behind rides up my tail or drives beside me within a few inches because they don't expect me to stop. No soft shoulder to pull off to the side and let them pass, can't slow down because the car could potentially hit me from behind.

Oh and there's the drivers that are at a stop light, stop sign or a driveway waiting to turn and and pull out before I've passed, when technically the road is not clear. I end up slowing down and letting them pull out. Also the pedestrians walking across the street with bikes coming and because it's not a car and therefore not a threat, it's not a big deal. Getting hit by a bike at 20MPH will knock you down as quickly as a car. Haha.

It's a two way street (pun intended).

Hopefully I don't sound like a cyclist jerk. It would just be nice to obey the laws and be seen as doing so sometimes. A lot of the laws of the road apply to cars AND bikes AND pedetrians.

Anybody going to blast Josh Bass' song while riding their bike?
 
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I've been filming surfing on the North Shore of Oahu for 10 years - normally for about 3-4 weeks a year - and pushbike is usually my main mode of transport over there. It's not easy with ~20kg of camera gear (heavy tripod and 500mm lens + rails, full days worth of batteries, etc) hanging off your back, especially when it is 32 degrees celcius and incredibly humid. One year they added new speed bumps to the bumpy, country road and, riding home in the dark after shooting the sunset one night, I hit one of these bumps at full pace and managed to do a full front flip over the handlebars before landing perfectly upright on my bare feet.

To this day I still believe that the weight of all that camera gear on my back is possibly what saved my life - raising my centre of gravity and allowing me to actually flip in the air, rather than launching headfirst in to the pavement.
 
I wonder why cyclists and motorcyclists (and where I live) tractor drivers don't actually wonder why people yell at them. Fair enough, perhaps they shouldn't, and could have more patience and politeness, but if a car driver yells at you - what did you actually do. I've seen lots of these altercations and usually somebody really is to blame, and they get cross because the other party just reacted rather than accepted and shrugged, perhaps thinking the words so many now say aloud.

Car drivers do stupid things, but so many near misses with motorcycles makes me wonder if they believe they are much more visible than they really are. In two rows of traffic on a motorway a bike rider somehow squeezes down the middle and just as I am changing lanes, I see the little spec in the mirror getting bigger and bigger and I swerve back. He yells at me, and waves his fist. I didn't see him. Very sorry. Did he not wonder if perhaps anyone in the lanes he was squeezing past might move out and swap lanes? If he did, maybe he should have not been going so fast, and aware people like me could suddenly get in the way? If I was at risk, being squashable, I'd have taken more care. Why do bike riders always blame everyone else? I see very few who stick to speed limits, accelerate moderately and sit in a queue of traffic doing 50mph when the speed limit is 70 - that isn't what bike riders do. They take chances based on their own beliefs in their own skill - ignoring the fact that everyone else might not be up to avoiding motorcycles that change direction suddenly and appear just as they whizz past!

Even my bike riding friends do this - drive 100% on the edge, as if every mile is a challenge, and waiting optional. I'll continue to shout, especially now I know they can't even hear me. Presumably I don't need to honk either, as they won't hear that?
 
deltoidjohn said:
I've been filming surfing on the North Shore of Oahu for 10 years - normally for about 3-4 weeks a year - and pushbike is usually my main mode of transport over there. It's not easy with ~20kg of camera gear (heavy tripod and 500mm lens + rails, full days worth of batteries, etc) hanging off your back, especially when it is 32 degrees celcius and incredibly humid. One year they added new speed bumps to the bumpy, country road and, riding home in the dark after shooting the sunset one night, I hit one of these bumps at full pace and managed to do a full front flip over the handlebars before landing perfectly upright on my bare feet.

To this day I still believe that the weight of all that camera gear on my back is possibly what saved my life - raising my centre of gravity and allowing me to actually flip in the air, rather than launching headfirst in to the pavement.
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Hahahaha that is a great story. I don't think I could recreate that in a thousand tries.

Side note, if you are driving too slowly and impeding traffic you can get a ticket. But it is ok to ride a bike on the road well under speed limit and impede traffic. That makes absolutely no sense to me. They need to fix the law or apply it to all vehicles.

There aren't a lot of cyclists where I live so when I see one do something really dumb (particularly running reds and stop signs) it makes a strong impression. Same for motorcyclists. I encounter a lot of motorcycles on the highway that blow past me and I'm going at least the limit.

I'm fine with sharing the roads as long as we're all playing by the same rules. I get the sense that some people think they're "special".
 
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