…and so am I, apparently. The wife and I got out on a ride today for the first time in what seems like forever. On the way home, we decided to descend down a fun, twisty little street called Broadway Terrace that winds its way down from Skyline Blvd through the Oakland Hills. It’s a really pretty neighborhood and it’s a relatively quick way back down to the main part of Oakland.
Usually, we keep our speeds down to about 15mph on this descent because it’s hard to see around the curves, of which there are many, and so many drivers are simply used to their neighborhood and drive without the caution they should use. Today, we encountered one of those drivers.
We had just rounded a 90 degree turn when we saw a man backing out of his driveway right in front of us (red arrow area). We yelled, we hit the brakes, we yelled some more, he continued backing up. Both of us went into a short skid and came to a stop, but the angle of this man’s driveway meant that he was backing up directly at us. Even after we stopped, the man continued coming at us as if nothing were unusual. I veered to the center of the road and he backed past me. He stopped short of my wife’s front tire by a couple of feet. When he stopped rolling backwards, I was right at his driver’s side window. I looked into the car as he turned back around, and after giving me just a quick glance, he gunned the gas and headed down the hill. No apology. No wave. No acknowledgement that he’d almost had a collision.
I. was. PISSED.
As his car bolted down the hill, I stood up and sprinted down, following on his bumper. We rounded a sweeping left turn at about 20mph, after which he accelerated on a short straight before an s-curve. I followed him through the s-curve, noticing that he’d not applied the brakes at all. This is the kind of road where you’d normally drive about 15mph and he was moving close to 30mph. The road straightened out and he got ahead of me a little. I was moving 30mph-ish so I’m guessing he was moving 40. The speed limit in Oakland Hills is 25mph.
The road wiggled a bit more and I caught up with him again. We entered a hairpin turn to the right and I noticed he accelerated through it. That made me angrier. I was like a wolf on the chase… hungry to get this guy. I cranked hard and then dove into the turn behind him. I’ve never leaned so much in a turn in my life. I was right on his bumper.
After a few more wiggles, there was another hairpin to the left. Once again, no brake lights. Once again, I leaned and chased. At some point in the chase, I noted that he’d blown off a stop sign, and I followed him right through it.
After a few more wiggles, the road straightened out and he gunned the gas. I was going 34.8mph (I know ’cause that’s the max speed my computer registered and the whole ride had been a climb before that) and he left me like I was standing still, but he had a stop sign coming up… one he couldn’t blow off. At the intersection, I caught him and got right on his rear bumper. I thought about riding around to his side window and pounding on it. I thought about pounding on his trunk. I thought about a cyclist coworker who’d once told me he throws his water bottle at people like this. I didn’t do any of that. Cooler heads prevailed. I simply stared at him via his rear view mirror and flipped both middle fingers into his aftward view.
This, my friends, has been an example of extreme stupidity. Why? Because in reality, I’d probably frightened the guy by chasing him down the hill. After all, what kind of psychopath chases a car down a hill on a road bike, right? To avoid a physical confrontation with said psychopath, this guy risked going down a hill at twice the practical speed in a generic sedan that wasn’t designed for such driving. He could have crashed. He could have hit another cyclist. He could have hit a kid. Stupid.
The lesson? People screw up. People don’t always apologize for, or even acknowledge, their screwups. Let it go.
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Road sign illustration purchased from 123RF Stock Photo
