The article below, from an NBC affiliate in Asheville, N.C., is a reminder that some drivers (a minority of them, I believe) have bike rage issues. There is no possible version of this incident where a reasonable person would have considered violence against a cyclist, much less pulling a gun on one. Thankfully, most motorists want to (and do) co-exist peacefully with cyclists.

When people are predisposed to anger at cyclists, often it’s because they perceive cyclists as a group as being unsafe or breaking the same traffic laws that motorists are expected to obey. The thing is, I’m not a “cyclist” or a “motorist”, I’m a person. If we’re going to combat the hate out there, we have to do it on a human level.

One way we can do this, and help protect ourselves in the process, is by following the traffic laws (whether we agree with all of them or not) and being as courteous and respectful to motorists as we hope they’ll be to us. I know that a great many of us are already doing this. I’m just saying that consciously and conspicuously being a friendly, law-abiding cyclist goes a long way towards changing a bike-negative person’s perception of those who bike. Can you imagine what it would do to a “hater” if you stopped at a stop sign they expected you to run and then flashed them a smile and waved them on? It might just blow their mind.

I’m not saying that doing this will completely prevent people with issues from acting out (because crazy is as crazy does), but the more we can use our example to change the minds of people who think cyclists are bad, rude or dangerous, the better it is for all of us. When we’re out on the road, we’re helping create the culture of the road, which means we’re also able to change it.

Gandhi put it well: “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” You don’t attack the haters with hate, you confront them with love… bike love.

As for the hows of riding safely, you can get the skinny on urban riding (and some solid practice doing it) with one of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition’s great FREE bicycle safety classes. Who doesn’t like free?

Be safe out there. Here’s the article [NOTE: I did a little digging to see if the "child seat" was a bike seat or not, and according to this article it was a child's bike seat.]:

Charles Alexander Diez

The shooting happened Sunday morning on Tunnel Road. Officers said the victim was riding with his wife and had his 3-year-old son in a child seat attached to his bicycle when a driver approached him. Police said the driver, Charles Diez, claimed he was upset that the victim was bike riding with his child on the heavily traveled Tunnel Road. Diez pulled a gun and opened fire, hitting the victim in his bicycle helmet, according to police. They said the bullet penetrated the outer lining of the helmet but did not actually hit the victim’s head. Police arrested Diez and charged him with attempted first degree murder. His bond was set at $500,000. Diez has been a firefighter with the Asheville Fire Department since 1992, according to officials. On Monday, they confirmed he has been placed on paid investigative leave pending the outcome of this investigation. For the source article, click here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 5:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.