I’m with Garth on this one. Most folks are good, and the ones who are cruel are best ignored and avoided.
When I was learning some self-defense, I found time and time again that the best advice is to avoid. Don’t engage. Get away if you can. If you can’t, then become the nastiest, meanest, loudest, foulest version of yourself and fight like your life depends on it - because it does. My kids used to attend an elementary school that had no valet car loop. It was pandemonium with cars parking and trying to get their kids to school. We biked and were in the minority for sure; and those cars would block our way any way we tried to go. As the weeks went by I went from annoyed, to ticked, to angry, to furious and finally, to vengeful. I wrote notes and stuck them to car windows when cars blocked the sidewalks. I snapped photos of drivers illegally parked while they looked on, raging at me through their closed windows. I called the non-emergency line for the police when I saw folks endangering pedestrians with their cars. I called the school and complained. I called again and asked to be granted permission to don a yellow vest and move cars along who parked illegally. You guys, when I started imagining screwdrivers duct-taped to my handlebars so I could leave an impression on the cars who got in my way, I knew I was the one who needed to change. I had tried to solve the problem, but it couldn’t be solved. I could only change me. That’s not unlike your situation. You can’t stop folks from being horrible to you on your bike. But you can choose not to escalate the situation. You can wear a go-pro so you have a camera on drivers. You can try to respectfully chat with them. But in my experience, eye contact and a friendly wave is the best defense I have. I reinvented myself when we switched to a charter school a couple miles down the road. This time I made sure to call out good morning greetings to those we met and to wave when I could and folks know and adore me now. When a drunk driver drove up onto the sidewalk and nearly killed my son and me, a driver pursued him and called 911. I credit that to good repertoire between me and the drivers in my neck of the woods. Hang in there. Most folks aren’t so bad. And the more they see you, the more they will like you. It’s a psychological fact! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
