The sight of a cyclist led to a fit of road rage — and a call to the cops.
The incident took place at 10:35 a.m. Monday on Orange Street near Wall, across from the phone company.
A woman was driving her car in the northbound lane and looking to pull into a street parking space. She had to wait an extra second because a bicyclist was riding in the road.
She wasn’t pleased about that. So she honked and yelled at the cyclist.
After she pulled in, she was asked why she was yelling. She kept up her profanity-laced tirade.
Click on the play arrow to watch, er, highlights.
“Get on the fucking sidewalk!” she exclaimed.
The bicyclist happened to be this reporter — i.e., me.
I asked her why she was honking and yelling at me.
“I’m pregnant, and you’re sitting here driving in the fucking street man!” the woman responded. “Get on the fucking sidewalk!”
I told her what police have repeatedly told me, as a reporter: That it’s against the law to ride on the sidewalk. The law says we have to ride in the street. In fact, one district manager, Lt. Ray Hassett, has gone so far as to stop cyclists en route to inform them of the law.
The woman was unconvinced. “It’s not against the law to drive on the sidewalk!” she said.
I asked why she was yelling at me.
“You were going in the road, in the middle of the street. That’s how fucking accidents happen. That’s how people get killed.”
To prove her point about the law, the woman pulled out a cell phone. She called the police. She told the dispatcher about how this cyclist had been riding on the street and then claiming it was against the law to ride on the sidewalk. She asked what the law said.
The response (according to her): Cyclists must ride on the sidewalk, not the street, unless it’s an “emergency.” (Because the woman, uh, requested that the camera be turned off, the phone call wasn’t filmed or eavesdropped on.)
The woman closed up her phone and walked away in triumph, leaving the know-it-all reporter tongue-tied.
Drivers regularly honk and yell at cyclists (at least at this cyclist) on city streets, stating that cyclists belong on the sidewalk. As tension mounts between cyclists and drivers on the street — and in the discussion threads to Independent articles about drivers hitting riders — all sides appear sometimes to lack information about the law.
Monday afternoon, this reporter called Officer Joe Avery, the police spokesman.
Cyclists “are supposed to be on the road,” Avery confirmed. “Bicyclists have to maintain the same rules as a car does.”
Maybe, as top brass promise to help make streets safer, that message can be transmitted to the department’s dispatchers — as a first step to communicating it to drivers on the road?
Nice one Paul. Don't you still have the right to continue filming as this happened on a public street?
I just thank God she was not black.
(the above statement was not meant to offend. Other black Americans know the root of this joke)