BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

It has always existed. It has just now happened a few times and been more thoroughly documented. Pissed off drivers getting out and challenging other drivers always happens. I have had it happen to me a few times in the past month even. On bike it happens about once a week for me. Cops don't care when it is just someone who got out and said mean things to me.

I think your hypothesis assumes facts not in evidence.

The stabbing was clearly an intentional act of a psychopath. Maybe the guy had it out for bikes, or maybe he would have done the same thing if a car had cut him off, there's certainly plenty of that going around. Either way, it's different than someone getting hit on the road, which is less clearly intentional. Assuming it's not, then there's some probability a car will hit a cyclist on any given day, and having a few such incidents clumped together in time doesn't necessarily imply that probability is increasing.

Hard economic times have caused a lot of stress on everyone and maybe people are just unable to deal with it in a productive manner? Poor testing and education involved in becoming a driver? An inefficient legal system that seems incapable of convicting criminals even with the most damning of evidence? Couple that with the fact that the police presence in the city is virtually non-existent and it's a recipe for disaster.

More realistically is the simple fact there are more cyclists On the road then ever before and therefore numbers of incidents will rise without any other real change in society.

Progressive change always triggers a backlash: look at what is going on for women, gays, blacks, and immigrants elsewhere in the culture right now.

Another common form of rage, domestic violence, always goes up with unemployment.

Also, our government and military sanction torture and extrajudicial assassination.

I do think backlash is reversible: that's pretty much what keeps me from going off the deep end.

Could some of this be... I don't know the word for it, maybe observation bias? We live in Pittsburgh, we're more likely to get tweets and read news and find out about things happening here than in other locations.

I do think part of it is likely we're in the transition state jamesk describes. As to whether the uptick in violence is proportional to the uptick in reporting AND the uptick in cyclists on the roads, I don't know. That's a lot of things to correlate, I have no data, and am not a statistician.

My inclination is to either write it off as extinction bursts, outliers that are getting more attention, or proportional incidents with an increase in cyclists. Because to think otherwise would force me to believe things about my neighbors and fellow road travelers that would cripple me psychologically.

I think that our own success is also a ‘cause’ for why this year.

With more infrastructure (bike lanes, sharrows, etc.) comes more visibility and more legitimacy. I imagine if I were a bigot, nothing would tic me off more than seeing my hated group gain legitimacy; same for those lawless bicyclist.

A quick Google search of "road rage pittsburgh" turned up these two results on the front page in addition to the recent Southside attack.

Women Rumble In Lawrence Co. Road Rage Incident

Shots Fired In Road Rage Incident

It's not unique to Pittsburgh. This summer Russ Roca from The Path Less Pedaled was attacked in New Zealand.

If you do a search for "road rage" on YouTube you will find 100s of results from all around the world.

Choose another town and sift through their papers and blogs. This stuff has always existed, just now we are noticing a few instances where the target has the appearance of being us. Pissed off drivers will always exist. Who they react to might change but I have no doubts the knife attacker would have also gone after an easy target in a car or a pedestrian.

Marko82 - I agree 100%. I started biking again this year because of all the awareness. All things bike have become much more popular. Unfortunately, that includes the accidents and road rage incidents as well.

I have a few close friends that think I am crazy for biking on the road. When I ask "why", they have no good reasoning. Slowly I am converting them....slowly....

What jamesk said is similar to what I said in the TV interview on Monday, that I think we're at a tipping point. Where once it was rare to see a cyclist, now it is rare not to. That includes at night, in bad weather, and in the suburbs. They *have to* deal with us.

Myself, I am seeing a lot more female cyclists. Women are the "indicator species", only coming out in significant numbers when some level of established-ness has been reached. And I think we've reached it. That in turn will increase our numbers further, putting us past that tipping point.

Like TonyP i have friends who think i'm nuts for biking around the city, and in fact, can't seem to understand why i am so upset with car drivers' negative attitudes when "the road is for cars." btw i have been thinking that i need some new friends. Anyway, i also agree with Marko & ejwme: things are changing, and rather quickly in the 'burgh, and as "things" change people are generally (note, not universally) slow to change. It seems that many people will resist change even more dramatically than they may have in the past because they see that their own personal power is being effected. We live in a culture that generally (again not universally) condones violence in many forms (the most acceptable being emotional violence) against those with less power. So when those with less power start gaining more power, those who have generally perceived themselves with more power (even if in reality they really don't have more power) who are now feeling less powerful--react, often times with anger and rage. It's like infringing on someone's rights. Many Car drivers think they have the right to take up as much space on the road as they want, and go as fast as they want. It's their right to be there. We're guests, or pests, to them. One student said about people who think themselves superior to others: "it's like they're the ultimate fly swatters. They can swoosh the fly away with their hand only so many times before they have to go an get a plastic fly swatter and kill the thing." it's an interesting analogy.

I don't know. Maybe i'm writing out my a** right now. Come to my class when we talk about social stratification. Maybe then it will make more sense. Or get even more complicated.

Now that you mention it there are a lot more female cyclists.

Yahoo!

+100 to more ladies out there pedaling.

We can't freak out and lose all hope when it comes to driver/bicyclist interaction. The majority of drivers and their dealings with bicyclists are positive. Furthermore, the same jerks behind the wheel sometimes own bicycles, and when they ride, they act like jerks on the bike, so it is not always a clear dividing line. I have stopped riding with a guy because of his constant provocative and offensive behavior towards drivers. Violence towards bicyclists is terrible, but, for the most part, we are lucky in Pittsburgh. Things are going to get better too.

I feel terrible for the victim of the stabbing. I want to know additional information about the incident. I want to stress that I do not put any blame on the bicyclist in this incident;I do want to know if they catch the guy if he will accuse the victim of doing more than accidentally cutting him off. An allegation that the victiom was the agressor, (as crazy as it sounds), may not get the guy off of the charges, but it could reduce the charges and the corresponding sentence if convicted of a lesser charge. Juries do goofy things.

Maybe bit's because I look more and more like someone's dad, but durint this century, the hassle I've gotten from drivers has steadily decreased.

I've also gotten hassled less as I've grown older. I suspect its some white male privilege in effect.

Most people that commit road rage incidents are just people with anger issues. They are pissed off at the world for poor life choices or whatever. They are walking around like a powder keg waiting for some unsuspecting person to unload on. When people like this get behind the wheel of a car it becomes an extension of their personality. If you cut them off or pull out in front of them it’s somehow a form of disrespect so they loose a gasket.

I had a friend that went thru a bad divorce several years ago and during his separation he literally went nuts. He had 4 or 5 road rage incidents with complete strangers before he was arrested for assault. Anything would set him off.

Unfortunately there are a lot more cyclists on the road these days and we are the easy targets for meatheads.

Maybe it helps that I am a female, so an angry man may be less likely to confront or bully me, but 95% of my experiences with drivers (including passing at a safe speed and distance) have been very positive. Every once in a while someone passes too close or too fast, but I just assume that they're European and are having trouble with the metric conversion from feet to meters. But seriously, I think that's mostly out of ignorance to what is appropriate. I've had a couple people yell or mumble vague things, but I usually make eye contact, smile, and tell them 'thanks for your patience' or 'have a nice day', or something and that's it.

That said, there are obviously problems with driver violence, but I don't think it's anything special to Pittsburgh or especially new. Last summer there was a rash of assaults in east liberty with groups of kids knocking bicyclists over for fun and to rob them. I haven't heard much of that this year, so that's great, but I think the more bicyclists are out, the more chances there are for bad interaction, but also, cycling becomes more accepted and visible. We're fighting for our rights here, It's gonna be tough for a while, and there were always be a few angry people who won't recognize your right to exist, but WE are changing things, slowly and surely.

I just wanted to add an observation to some of the comments. Pittsburgh indeed has seen an up tic in the number of cyclists on the road, but it is not uniformly distributed. Here in the south hills I can go weeks without seeing another cyclist on the road; so not all drivers are seeing the same thing. This can be said of the prevalence of disrespectful cyclist too. I think they are more concentrated in high student areas like Oakland.

Re: the women riders thing, on the few Bikefest rides I was able to make, it did seem as though the M/F split was damn close to 50/50. Which is completely awesome, brava.

@Mick & Ken Kaminski - I think those things occur for me as well. Also when dressed for commuting I make a fair facsimile of a cop.

Oakland might be worse because of the constantly changing population. Every few months thousands of new people show up.

i think more cyclists on the road gives riders of bicycles more chances to be in the news. keep in mind that neither of the incidents this week were necessarily specific to biking. the stabbing may have been somewhat motivated by the victim's choice of transportation (we just don't know), but the car collision involved a completely out-of-control driver, and the victim in that case just happened to be someone who had just finished riding a bike.

that is to say, neither of the most recent incidents are necessarily evidence of violence of drivers against bicyclists. but having a larger portion of the population riding bikes means the things that do happen to people will happen in greater numbers to people on bikes as well.

I think a really awesome way to think about all of this is that in spite of the sadness, frustration, fear and sometimes, horror, that many of us have felt and experienced while pedaling along our fair city's streets over the years is that we are still out there, increasing in numbers, not allowing these events--from the merely frustrating to the absolutely horrific--to squash our enthusiasm and commitment to cycling in the city. We rock! (and, so do the MANY motorists who drive alongside us, content to share the public space we all have a right to use and enjoy).

Although I have no data to support this I am believe wholeheartedly that the increase in bicycle accidents that we have experienced this year is actually really simple. #1 there are more cyclists on the streets, this is definitely true. #2 since there are more people on the streets there are more people connected to each other through friends, the internet, and our cycling community. as a result every time someone gets hit we have people who see it in the news, see it as it happens, hear of it through a friend of a friend, and eventually the news makes it way here, which then trickles down to the whole community. this didn't used to be the case. there was a time in the bike community in pgh that you would recognize half the people you saw on bikes in a given week. during this same time if you were riding a couple miles on the roads to here or there you would maybe see one cyclist. now if you stop your bike during the daytime and do a 360 you'll probably see another bicycle 75% of the time.

the bottom line is there are way more cyclists, and we are far better connected. people are getting more and more used to us every year and we are getting more and more infrastructure every year.

don't stop riding because it seems like things are getting more dangerous, i can assure you that they aren't. the more people that ride, the safer and more enjoyable riding is going to be for everyone.

I have no doubt that cycling in the city this summer has been the safer than any summer in the cities history after the highway system was built. 10 years ago the stories that people on this board found outrageous happened on a weekly basis to people who were following all the rules and just trying to get around. the attitude towards cyclists in the city is undoubtedly getting more respectful and more understanding. I credit this almost entirely to BikePgh and all the hard work they've done to build a wonderful community and educate the masses about bicycles.

(and, so do the MANY motorists who drive alongside us, content to share the public space we all have a right to use and enjoy).

the overwhelming majority, in fact. someone said 95% earlier, and that number is crazy low. that would mean 1 in 20 cars gives me a hard time, but i go for months without incident. it makes me wonder how those people who claim to have weekly or even daily troubles find themselves in those situations; it never happens to me.

I would say I used to have a disturbingly close pass or some sort of harassment once a week... now i'd say it's once a month or less

Everyone knows someone who seems to have something attracted to them. Car accidents, bad relationships, etc. Some people just do things in a certain way enough that this happens to them all the time.

Once a month I am almost thrown off, 4 times a week I am tempted to kick a door, 2-3 times a week I am yelled at.

@Orionz06

Where do you ride? I live in Oakland and travel around the east end and I get yelled at less than 2 or 3 times a months.

Last century, if I rode out to, say, South Park and back, I could expect to be yelled at 2 or 3 times in the day.

From Shaler into Millvale through the park, onto River Avenue and then to Carson St. Most of it occurs on River Avenue or on Carson heading towards 24th and Sidney. Apparently they dislike my ability to ride 25 for short stretches.

+1 for the location one bikes in affecting one's perception of Traffic Friendliness Levels.

It also matters time of day. I've found remarkably different road conditions and driver behavior in the shift from 2PM to 5PM to 8PM. At 2PM it seems like everybody is lost and can't read. At 5PM it seems like everybody is rushing from the job they hate and just lost to go home to continue drinking and beating their wives. At 8PM it seems like nothing much happens.

Before 7:15 the crowd is decent. People are likely happy because they are getting there early. After that I note an increase in people being miserable. Likewise with leaving before 4. I will also note that people who are working, drivers and such, do not fit in here, they are always miserable and are most engaging.

I did get hassled a lot less when I had long hair (they could guess from the back that I'm female. Though, I did once have a very large man brake check me, then get out of his car and tell me he was going to "knock my fucking teeth in" because I wouldn't let him squeeze me against a brick wall on spring way (I waited till the road widened to let him pass)

I've started going in to work at 930 or 10 to let the people rushing to get to their hated desks get off the road so I don't have to deal with them. I've also found things are a lot calmer after 6pm than before, for pretty much the same reason. I'm incredibly thankful for my very flexible office.

I've rarely been hassled in the city or the suburbs. Quite a few of us who ride west (McDonald, Cecil, Oakdale, Avella, etc.) encounter a level of harassment that belies the light traffic on rural roads. There's an unhealthy mixture of testosterone, anger and hostility to "city folks" present in a few drivers out there, although most are decent enough.

When I first started riding seriously, it was in the Finger Lakes in 1985, and I recall a similar mix of scanty traffic and overt hostility toward cyclists. There were few of us riding in that area at the time, and many of the attitudes toward and complaints against us mirrored those we see on the road and in the editorials today.

When I visit my parents, I'm struck by the sheer number of cyclists on the roads on any given day, and how tolerant most motorists seem to be. This is partially due to drivers becoming accustomed to cyclists being on the road with them; changes in the region's demographics could also account for the thawing relationships between cyclists and drivers, although the continue to be some conflicts.

I'm optimistic that we'll see similar trends in the Pittsburgh region as more people take to the roads.

Hm, I don't even remember this year I been yelled or hassled. But I ride most with groups and trying to be very visible and assertive.

PS And I am 6'00" and 255 pounds. Probably it has something to do with desire to yell at me.

Wish I'd seen this thread yesterday... to be clear, I don't think that the 'phase change' thing explains psychopath stabber dudes.

I don't think it does, directly. But for those who are already unstable, the 'phase change' thing may be what it takes to light whatever fuse is needed.

Jared Loughner, in the Gabby Giffords shooting, was another case of instability waiting for a chance to go off. Maybe Sarah Palin's "reload" ad and "targets" map might not have a direct relationship to the shooting, but contributed to some bizarre thinking in his head, then something else caused him to act.

My inclination is to either write it off as extinction bursts, ... (ejwme)

excellent, I never heard of extinction bursts before and I was very pleased to learn about it. Thank you.

dog trainer taught me that one, "always darkest before the dawn" in a comfortingly scientific-sounding phrase. Giving exhausted optimists semi-reasonable hope since 1979 (or thereabouts?).

unfortunately "Despite the name, however, not every explosive reaction to adverse stimuli subsides to extinction. Indeed a small minority of individuals persist in their reaction indefinitely."

those are the ones i worry about. the ones we have to just hunker down and outlast.