Shaking My Confidence

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Originally Posted by northstar

I got buzzed by a honking Suburban yesterday on a residential street with virtually NO traffic, and I was riding about three feet from the right curb. (They started laying on the horn about a block back, buzzed within two feet of me, then layed on the horn again and sped away.)

I think I am going to start playing a game with myself on the bike where I read plates of vehicles that pass me and chant/repeat them to myself for a block or so every once in a while. I was TOTALLY shaken up by what happened and now that I know MN has a website where you can submit reports of aggressive driving (and apparently they send the owner of the vehicle a letter) I want to be sure I can start feeding in the reports when needed.

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I kind of do this already. Taking a visual "snapshot" and then a few quick recitations finding patterns in the numbers, chunking them into pairs and threes if necessary, and I can have it in short term memory pretty quickly. Okay, I do it enough so that I know at least ten of my friends' license plates - when I wave at them driving by, it's 'cause the license plate jumped at me, not their faces.

HOWEVER... priorities, please! Three of us were resting off the road once... but not quite far enough off the road... when this car careens around a corner at us. Yours Truly thinks "A-hole! Let me get your license number!" - fortunately, my friends were hauling their bikes and butts out of the way when the driver clipped off a wheel, went across the street and mowed down a mailbox, veered back, stopped and then started backing up ... *then*, (having seen one too many Rockford Files episodes) I started across the cornfield, sure he/she/it was coming back to finish us off. (She wasn't.)

I realized I should have MOVED first... then gotten license plates:o :o .

Fortunately, a week later when a truck started coming right at me making a left hand turn and cutting the corner across my position in *my* left hand lane, I MOVED and he only clipped my basket. (Oddly, before or since, I have not been struck.)

aw that sucks...

people can be so disrespectful..dont worry about it, not everyone is like that

Punks r everywhere. we ride because we must. it is freedom, light, breath. do not let fear be your captor, make it ur coach to push u to the next level. u will be my inspiration for "rehab day 3" in the commuters board, invsblwmn crash thread. thank you for ur strength, we girls gotta hang together!;)

why not--if you won't take a notebook-- carry a piece of paper and a golf pencil...so you can write it down? And a cell phone.

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Originally Posted by elk

why not--if you won't take a notebook-- carry a piece of paper and a golf pencil...so you can write it down? And a cell phone.

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The guy I chatted with at REI says he keeps a pen in his pocket and if something happens, he writes it right on his arm, as soon as he gets the chance.

I think that's a great idea. Easy enough to keep it in a pocket.

Also, many cell phones have the capability to store memos or to send text messages...is there someone you can send the plate# to?

This came in useful for me a little over a week ago. My sister and I were taking the bike path home from the store after dark. It's mostly a very safe path b/c it is bike-only (peds, etc. have a separate path) and it has few intersections. The cars at the intersections are generally very bike aware... however, we always have good lights and slow way down and prepare for anything. This night we slowed, looked, no cars. We had a green light. My sister started across the intersection when suddenly I saw a black truck making a left turn *very fast* from the major road running parallel right into her. He had no headlights but taillights on, it looked like he had smashed headlights. I yelled !!!!CAR!!!! She sprinted and luckily she's quick. He missed her by maybe an inch, didn't ever hit his brakes. My instinct was to look at the plate, I said it aloud and kept repeating it under my breath. The driver apparently heard this, pulled out from the street he'd been on and in front of us, slowed, not sure if he was being aggressive, dumb, or just drunk, but he waited a moment, peeled out onto a residential street and parked. My sis was white and trembling, so we pulled to the side of the road and called the police (they normally file a dangerous driver report, but they said they'd send an officer out to contact the driver due to the circumstances). I hope they got the guy, but I was glad I'd trained myself to immediately notice and remember the plate.

My strategy is probably unique, but here we have a combination of three letters followed by three numbers. I try to remember them separately. Since I work in tech, I can usually relate the letters to an acronym, or failing that, I sound it out and come up with a word that it makes me think of. Last resort, I make it into an acronym myself, usually something snarky about the driver. LWA = Late for Work Again, etc. The numbers, I try to notice a pattern. 642, I think 6 minus 4 is 2. Or I tie them to an address or phone #, an age, a year. I've found that this helps me remember better. It is easy to remember a plate # up until the point when you're on the phone with police and then ... um ... ??? It's something I practice every day though.

Stay safe everyone...

Anne