FLCC> Another menace out there

[William Lodico]

Well, Bob, I guess we're all, in some respects, menaces to each  
other.  I've heard of more than one instance of a cyclist pulling a  
driver from his vehicle and administering a well-deserved beating;  
there's a menace for you.  Probably a good thing you weren't carrying  
your sidearm.

My expectation is that your interlocutor was probably satisfied with  
his implied threat, and that is the end of it.  There's a kind of  
psychological parasitism to his behavior, but it really comes down  
pretty much to the same old "sticks and stones may break my bones but  
words will never hurt me" story.  An old holler-dwelling farmer told  
me forty years ago that he never let someone's threatening to burn  
down his barn keep him from a good night's sleep.  "A feller's not  
going to tell you first if he's really going to burn it down," he  
explained.

In terms of legal options, attempting to pursue his "best legal  
option" would have secured our man an extended stay in one the  
Department of Correctional Services' grand hotels.  You didn't get a  
chance to remind him of that, but I expect that he knows it  
nonetheless.  Ride on, sleep well.  And let your liberal, Democratic,  
even Catholic soul take solace in the prospect that the devolution of  
political events in the oil-producing states of the middle east (a  
cloud that badly needs a silver lining, if ever there was one) may  
yet yield gasoline prices high enough to force the old hogs off the  
road, and maybe put our feller on the other end of the share the road  
conundrum.

Bill Lodico


On Jan 8, 2008, at 10:41 PM, Bob Talda wrote:

> Hate to have to post this after such a glorious day, but this is a  
> well-used cycling route, and, well...
>
>
> I was waiting on Ellis Hollow Creek Road, at the intersection with  
> Ellis Hollow Rd, with a couple of other cyclists for the rest of  
> the group to catch up.
>
> This guy was a classic: older (late 40s - mid 50s by my guess -  
> that is, he was about my age or a little older) white male in a  
> rusted out white vehicle (I'd call it an SUV, but it is too old for  
> that; more of the age of an International Scout, or the original  
> Suburban or Cherokee). I couldn't see the license plate as he had  
> pulled up next to me.
>
> General strain of the conversation:
> Him: "You know, you all are a menace"
> Me: "Excuse me?"
> Him: "I had a friend of mine who [had some kind of legal trouble]  
> because a cyclist rode into his vehicle.  Cyclist was riding no  
> hands and rode into his vehicle - and it was my buddy's fault.  New  
> York state law".
> Me: "Doesn't sound like the law as I know it."
> There was more of the conversation along these lines, and then very  
> calmly,
> Him: "My best legal option would be to kill you"  (and THAT is a  
> direct quote)
> Me, as he was driving off: "Well, I'm also a liberal and a Catholic  
> and I vote Democratic, so you can pick your reason to kill  
> me"  (okay, so I shouldn't have said this, but I was somewhat  
> shaken and irate; it was probably a good thing I didn't mention I  
> worked at Cornell)
>
> I don't know if this gentleman was having a bad day or what, but it  
> was his last remark, and the way he said, that concerned me.  This  
> time, he did nothing - to me or the two cyclists waiting just up  
> the road from me (young ladies in their twenties, so, call me a  
> chauvinistic pig, but I was a little concerned for their safety) -  
> but I don't know what he would do next time, particularly if the  
> cyclists were moving and he was coming up on them from behind.
>
> For the record, all the other drivers we encountered were decent.   
> Always has to be that one bad apple.
>