A new one for me this evening. Actually happened on my Eldovert but may be of interest.
Riding in north London, on a residential street going along at the same speed as the traffic in front of me, totally normal road position, completely focused on the ride. A guy driving a VW car appears behind me, very close, overtakes me very close, then either attempts to kill me by driving into me or at least threaten that he's going to do that maybe a couple of times in succession. (The details are somewhat vague in my mind as everything became a blur very quickly. I'm fairly sure I maintained defensive proper riding technique at all points.) He then pulls alongside me in an enraged state and yells out the window, 'don't drive in the middle of the road you f---ing c--t.' He then drives off at about double the speed limit.
Just to restate, I was absolutely riding faultlessly, I was on my way home and was really focused on my ride in a relaxed way on the eldo-vert, keeping to the speed limits and making all blind spot checks etc.
In 20 years of London riding I've seen all manner of bad driving but never anything like this. What do I know but it seemed like a sort of homicidal aggression.
I think I'm writing this as a form of therapy for me but also just to remind everyone to be safe out there and take nothing for granted.
I have resorted recently to the removing of offenders side mirrors as at my age kickicking doors isnt as easy . Florida is a constitutional carry state so caution needs to be heeded but the satisfaction overrules plus my 1911has my back should it escalate. It was safer in Afganistan than I-95
Glad to hear that he didn’t knock you off your bike at least! Riding in London in the ‘80’s was tense enough avoiding the potholes, pedestrians, bicycles & self absorbed homicidal drivers. Can’t imagine how much more traffic there is now.
Hopefully you won’t encounter them again. If you’re both on the same commute that’s when you can get his number.
Thinking about it statistically... riding for twenty years with maybe half of the year in London means what 170 days X 20 years = 2400 days of london riding? probably pass what 500 cars each day?? reach for calculator... that makes around 1.2 million people. It probably does check out to run into a genuine homicidal psychopath once every twenty years.
Scary though. When a car's being deliberately aimed at you, you do appreciate just how vulnerable you are.
I seriously doubt he's still on the road, some major shit will have happened with someone else by now, he really was that unhinged.
Watch Moto Madness or Moto Stars om youtube they always have some sort of raging on both cage and bikes seems to be a global pandemic even when I lived in the Carribbesn the Island perception of laid back chill was a crock of shit prompting me to learn and use local cuss words it was interesting to see how mad Rastafarians can get they hate the word Scunt in reference to their mommas and their shitty driving skills but then again they did like Ganga. St Croix being a 82 sq mile island I was not hard to find with my Triumph side car rig having a phycho ex military contractor reputation was handy[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
lcjohnny GRiSO Capo
Posts : 1449 Join date : 2016-01-25 Age : 69
Subject: Re: extreme road rage Sat Jul 22, 2023 6:17 am
I hate/fear British drivers Nasty mixture of competion and incompetence only worse ones i have met were the Swiss
Subject: extreme road rage 
Thu Jul 20, 2023 3:05 pm
