Truck driver tries to press Anita Valen off the road

[Duck on Wheels]

That's a headline in one of the Norwegian daily papers this morning. Apparently this guy kept pulling up along side her, pointing angrily towards the bike path, and then edging his truck over to push her off the road. She tailed him when he turned off, then confronted him. "Were you trying to kill me back there?!" To which the guy replied "Yeah! And you should only know how many cyclists I've pushed off the road and left lying in a pool of blood." So she called the cops on him.

She explains to the public that she avoids bike paths because it would be dangerous to other cyclists to have her there at the speeds she rides. What she doesn't explain, or the journalist doesn't report, is that cyclists have the same rights to be on the road as other vehicles, except on minimum speed highways.

http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2006/05/30/467597.html

[mimitabby]

i don't read norwegian, thanks for translating. Are the laws in Norway the same as ours pertaining to right of way?

[Trek420]

I'm sure someone will write a letter to the editor to remind them to put that in :cool: While upsetting that it happens in a way it's so cool that the trucker tried to do that to one woman who can chase down the truck :p

From cyclingnews, here she wins the 2nd Holland Hills Classic - NE, Netherlands, August 14, 2005

[Duck on Wheels]

i don't read norwegian, thanks for translating. Are the laws in Norway the same as ours pertaining to right of way?

Pretty much. No turning on red, and the "rule of the right" is not "trumped" by size of the road -- if it's coming from the right, unless there's a sign to the contrary, it has the right of way. But otherwise, yeah, pretty much. Bikes are vehicles and have the same rights as anybody else. Bike lanes are not obligatory (and also often not swept, so dangerous crud from the road gets blown off onto the bike lane and you can be better off riding in the road). The truck driver is definitely in trouble. According to the story, he is being questioned by the police.

I didn't really expect anybody to understand the Norwegian, but thought they might recognize the rider from her picture. Or name.