Article: Ride Angry

[rcannon100]

Taking lessons from other walks of life – civil rights leaders used to role play violent confrontations – so that the trained participants would stick to the non-violent resistance script. They would role play getting kicked, punched, abused….. and not fight back.

While I am not suggesting practicing getting punched….. still, maybe role play confrontations and the response you want. If you had a bad confrontation, role play it in you mind the response that you wish you had. How could you have done it better?

I have been in a position to practice that lately. People asking personal questions that they think they are entitled to know or just are oblivious to how personal some questions can be. Role playing polite answers.

Like everything in life, in the moment, we resort to what we have practiced and what we meditate on.

[Crickey7]

Totally agree. The goal should be to be able to control the situation, not have it control you.

[cvcalhoun]

I would agree that cultivating Zen is a good thing when people are merely yelling at you. But anger–in the form of pounding on their car–can be useful in the event of a near miss. It at least gets them thinking about the fact that if they aren’t careful, the next time they could hit someone.

[reji]

I’ve developed a tactic that works pretty well for me (a quinquennial woman) that may not be as effective for some. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been able to predict the vast majority of my “near misses”. When I see that a driver is about to do something “unfriendly” because they didn’t see me (aka, look), I first adjust my path/trajectory so I don’t become a victim while getting as close to the car as possible. Then I scream loudly like a little girl.

If my objective is to get people to think twice (aka, look), I figure I’ll have a bigger impact if they realize they nearly hit a scared old lady on a bike than if I put them on the defensive by yelling obscenities. Sadly, I get the opportunity to employ this tactic multiple times each week. It almost always gets a pretty good reaction, mostly because people aren’t trying to hit me… they just don’t look. Most often the driver and/or passenger are scared out their wits too. My favorite reaction happened when I caught up to the offender at the next traffic light. After apologizing profusely (she was way more scared than I) she continued to hold up traffic as she gave the sign of the cross before finally continuing on. I actually felt a little bad for her, but hopefully she’ll start to change her behavior and look for cyclists.

[Author]

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