Road Kill

Riding down the road, minding my own business. I hear a car coming up the road from the rear. Suddenly I hear the engine revving up and the car rapidly closing in. I move to the far right of the bike lane. The car is getting close now and it's moving fast. Sounds like it's directly behind. I feel the rush of the car before I see it. The car is in the bike lane and as it speeds past the distance from the 1800 pound vehicle and my 162 pound body is measured in inches. There is always a rush of wind as cars pass by but in this instance it was the small envelop of air that surrounds a speeding car that I felt. In that instant I knew that if I as much as twitched a muscle I could be dead. The car was traveling at about 80 miles per hour and by the time the shock of what had just happened wore off he was 100 yards up the road. I had no time to react. Fear and panic ruled the moment. No yell, no raised middle finger. I'm utterly stunned.

Seconds later anger rushed in. I knew that there was a small village about a half mile ahead. There was also a slow moving Buick up the road from the speeding, red, two-door hatchback with a distinctive sounding after-market exhaust system. I put the hammer down in hopes of catching him in the village. For what purpose? Who knows? Extreme anger does not allow for proper planning.

As I arrive in the village I see the Buick heading out of town on the other end. But no red two-door in sight. With three taverns and two dozen homes there are not too many places to hide. I rode by each tavern to spy out the parking lots. No luck. I traversed the town twice and then decided to head home. Just then I heard it. The distinctive sounding exhaust system. We were about to meet! I turned up a side street and found myself moving head-on with my prey. As soon as he saw me he accelerated to pass by. I turned to give chase. He made a quick left on the main road with me pedaling wildly just a few feet behind. Adrenaline fueled legs are no match for a combustion engine and he quickly pulled away. He turned up a side street two blocks up the road and I took a flyer and pulled up another street hoping to cut him off on some lonely one-way. The plan worked and it looked as if the meeting I so desperately wanted was about to happen. Still angry - still no plan. Come what may. I stopped in the middle of the road directly in front of him and was about to unclip when he reversed into a yard, pulled a rapid u-turn to head back down to the main road and hightail it out of town. I yelled that I wanted to speak to him and gave chase. I raised both of my arms in a come back here you useless piece of crap gesture as I saw him look in his rear view mirror just before he disappeared around a bend in the road. Gone.

The adrenaline and anger drained away as I turned to head home. But not before I did one important thing; I stopped, pulled out my cell phone and entered the time, a description of the car, a description of the driver and the coup de grace - the license plate number.

As I slowly rolled home I kept replaying the incident in my mind. Had he really been as close as I at first thought? Yes. Was he really traveling that fast? Yes. It was clear that this was not an accident or a simple case of inattentive driving. There were no other vehicles or darting animals nearby that would have caused him to swerve into the bike lane. No extenuating circumstances. When the driver saw me on the road he accelerated, entered the bike lane and intentionally did what he did. For what purpose? To scare me? Cause me to ride into the ditch? Cause me to wet myself? Give his otherwise useless life a momentary feeling of power? The driver himself probably doesn't even know.

And I'm left with a question; should I call the sheriffs' department? Not one to go looking for trouble I almost convinced myself to let the entire incident go. Be happy that he didn't twitch an inch. That I didn't twitch an inch. Be thankful that there wasn't a little pebble in my path that would have shifted my direction of travel at an inopportune time. I was alive, wasn't that enough?

But I couldn't let go of the fact that the whole episode was intentional. If you ride on roads long enough you'll see lots of drivers doing lots of stupid things. They pull in front of you, they cut you off, they fail to even see you at times. If cyclists were as inattentive as drivers, well, let's just say that it wouldn't be pretty. Sometimes young drivers like to stop in the gravel in front of you and kick stones at you by spinning the tires. Sometimes people throw stuff at you. And oftentimes people simply misjudge how close they should be driving next to a cyclist. They don't seem to understand that a stick or a stone or an animal could cause the cyclist to swerve a bit this way or that. Maybe they don't even care. But never, ever have I seen or heard of a driver accelerating and aiming at a cyclist in such a reckless manner.

I simply could not let this go. The driver needed to be confronted. I owed it to myself, my family and indeed, everyone who has ever ridden a bike on a public road. This type of behavior cannot be tolerated. My decision was made.

As soon as I arrived home I called the sheriffs' department and relayed my story in great detail to the dispatcher. She ran the plate to verify that it was valid and that it matched my description of the car. Shortly thereafter a deputy stopped by to take my statement and to ask for further details. His plan was to go the home of the registrant of the car and confront the driver. Pending the driver's explanation of the events a decision will be made to either ticket the driver for any number of moving violation offenses, or to charge him criminally. A criminal charge is a serious matter and would require my presence in court to assist the district attorney in securing a guilty verdict. I told the deputy that I was willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that the driver thinks twice (or three or four times) before repeating what he did.

The deputy did have one piece of advice. Next time call 911 immediately. He said that had I done that they may have been able to find him still out on the road and then they could have stopped him and given him a sobriety test (this is Wisconsin, after all). One more possible charge to add to the already long list. Lesson learned.


Whether this resolves itself quickly or over the course of many months, I will keep you, dear reader, up-to-date. It's important.