— This essay was written by Julian Day-Cooney, PhD, a researcher at Oregon Health & Sciences University.
“How would you like it if I shot you?”
The most traumatic interaction I’ve ever had with a motorist happened to me last week while biking south on Vancouver Ave just south of Alberta St. I haven’t been able to shake my thoughts surrounding this encounter — what I could have done differently and what could have happened to me if I responded with any less grace toward this driver.
As the light turned green at the Alberta intersection, I was approaching stopped cyclists in the bike lane so I signaled to the drivers behind me that I was passing them by coming into the car lane. After passing them and going farther down Vancouver, a motorist in I believe to be a maroon SUV (it was hard to see in the dark) came up alongside me and rolled down his window and berated me. Whether I was in the wrong or not, I always ignore this behavior since it’s dangerous for everyone involved, and I did so here. He screamed and cussed and followed alongside me for over a block.
My disposition turned from annoyance to bone-chilling terror once I heard him say the word “gun.”
Then, “How would you like it if I shot you?”
I was extremely scared and frozen: looking forward, not making eye contact, pedaling quickly. He persisted. Following alongside me, window down, yelling out variations on how he was going to shoot me. How I deserved to be shot. There was a red light coming up, forcing me to choose my move.
I threw on my brakes and pulled off to the side between parked cars, hoping that he would move on and drive off. My heart stopped as he also threw on his breaks and came to a stop next to me. I could only think to be as deferential as possible: putting my hands in a non-threatening, defensive position and repeating, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, OK?” I said it maybe four times while he just stared at me and sped off.
I was incredibly shaken up by this encounter — quite literally shaking — and cried the remainder of my ride as I thought about this man and if he actually wanted to kill me. Regardless of the intention of the action, I knew it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment feeling. Clearly, this hatred toward cyclists had been stewing in this man for a while before this direct outward aggression bubbled over.
Even though I’m a Portland transplant and generally having a positive view of how drivers treat cyclists here as compared to other cities, I know this isn’t an isolated incident. I’ve experienced this kind of rage before and I’ve spoken with drivers that confided in me how much they hate cyclists. I’m sure for many readers, this is a familiar type of demeanor as well. It was particularly surprising to me that it happened along Vancouver Ave, which is a single-car lane, wide-bike lane street that is a known bike highway.
At the same time, I also feel like this could be the source of rage for many of these drivers — they may feel that their car-centered infrastructure is being eroded by roads with more thought put toward other modes of transportation. A 2019 study found that aggressive attitudes towards cyclists was correlated with a driver’s perceived loss in what the authors called “automobility”, which is essentially their feeling of control over the spaces where they drive.
I will continue to bike everyday and be an advocate for biking, despite the dangers that come with it. However, as more bike infrastructure is built and more perceived automobility is taken away from drivers, I worry that more incidents like these could happen. This latent anti-cyclist rage in drivers needs to be addressed before more terrorizing of cyclists occurs and someone actually gets hurt*.
*Unfortunately, people have already been hurt.
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That’s horrible.
I’m reading this right after reading the skewed reporting about the Heathman drop-off. It’s not that the driver who confronted you read that Heathman article, and jumped in his car to look for someone on a bike to confront. But it couldn’t hurt to have some more positive press about bikes. What if the Heathman article had talked to some bike riders for their experiences with people leaving luggage in the bike lane, parking in it, etc. or how the lane encouraged them to bike instead of drive to work? Or what if we saw some articles showing that gas taxes and vehicle registration fees only cover a portion of road costs? What if some articles about new bike or transit lanes included talking to people that like them, instead of only to business owners who don’t?
The violence problem goes way beyond what people see in the media, but it would be nice if the media at least didn’t fan the flames.
This is an awful story. I’m so sorry it happened.
It saddens me to hear your story, Julian. I have commuted for decades in rush hour and it is only a matter of time before any of us have contact with someone who has let their anger self talk get out of control. No one in this interaction came out better. Even the hateful driver could be feeling embarrassment or at some point in the future his actions will end up putting him in the criminal justice system or costing him a great deal of money. These people exist and we will randomly encounter them. It is the best policy to not make eye contact, and avoid them with however means possible. A U-Turn is something I have employed, of which I have had a high level of success. One driver after driving around the block to get back at me, had some time to realize how BAD it looks to pursue, and disengaged. Atanyrate, it is always best to disengage, there is NO reasoning with an angry child.
Yes – use the bike to make evasive maneuvers that a car can’t make. I have even gone up on the sidewalk and cut across lawns to get away from angry drivers.
Thank you for sharing your experience, I cannot imagine this was easy to write.
Having drivers confide their antisocial feelings regarding cyclists may very well be a universal experience for us, and how we decide to respond to them may be our foot in the door to changing the anti-cycling culture that appears to be so pervasive. I share your concerns that things will get worse before they are able to get better.
At what point do threats to shoot someone rise to the level to allow that person to employ deadly force to defend themselves? It sounds like Julian did what was possible to defuse the situation, by not engaging with the driver, and then attempting to pull aside out of the way to escape. Does the driver need to display a weapon, or are the verbal threats and blocking behavior enough to establish a credible threat?
I’ve heard several anecdotal stories, some with the rider having video proof, where the PPB told them to kick rocks (“we can’t do anything about it” – which is a lie). I certainly wouldn’t have confidence in the PPB to help me without all kinds positive ID, photo/video evidence, witnesses, and probably a lawyer all in tow.
I commuted by bike just about every day from 2020 to the present. It’s my experience that there has been a huge increase in aggressive behavior directed at people cycling during the pandemic era. For example, during the winter of 2021 a driver started cussing at me for legally exiting the bike lane and repeatedly tried to run me down (even did a u-turn to make another pass at me). I have had other encounters where drivers screamed at me and menacingly followed me for several blocks. Close “punishing” passes have become a frequent occurrence. Prior to the pandemic these kinds of encounters were rare so it’s my guess this increase in driver rage is a result of mental health breakdowns associated with the stresses of the pandemic. Pedestrians on my commute route have also been attacked, brutalized, and killed* so I don’t think this increase in aggressive behavior is limited to people cycling.
*I ride past Holladay park and several pedestrians have been shot and killed on my commute route. In one case, I rode by the emergency vehicle response.
It’s also my experience that aggressive behavior has increased — though it seems directed at everyone rather than just cyclists.
Logically, we all occasionally encounter people with rage related mental health issues. But one thing that doesn’t help has been the growing normalization of violence as an expression of displeasure and people generally acting like complete turds to each other.
I think it depends a lot on where you ride in Portland. I hardly ever ride on the East side anymore – I’ve encountered too many CRAZY drivers there. The West side of the river is calmer generally, but you’ll meet some nut cases here also.
Ughh, so sorry that happened. And that it sounds so remarkably familiar… Whether it is a gun, or someone gunning their engine, there are people that have pointless anger issues and get off from directing it towards anybody vaguely vulnerable.
So what to do about it? I’m all about mindset. I know I’m right. Taking the lane when I need to? Yeah, I know I’m right. Biking to a store a mile away rather than hopping in car? Yeah, I know that’s best.
In my lesser moments I make a big deal about being right. I know, this is probably really off-putting and performative, but I do things like lock my bike to the absolute best thing I can find close to a front door. Trader Joes put the big racks around the corner or 100 ft. down the way? Forget it. I am locking to cart thing directly in front of door. Because I know I’m right.
I’m truly sorry this happened. That driver is a seriously miserable person.
Everyone seems to be sharing their stories so I’ll share one:
A few weeks ago I was biking around inner SE on a greenway when a driver blew a stop sign on a cross street. I hit the brakes and gave a “yo what” palm toward the sky. The driver stopped about a quarter of the way into the intersection and waved me past, but then rolled down his window and started hurling insults at me. At that point, I just kept my pace and my eyes forward. He initially went through the intersection, but then pulled a u-turn to follow me and honk at me. He was yelling too but I couldn’t really tell what he was saying. When it was safe, I pulled to the right hoping that he would just pass and get it over with. Instead, he pulled up right beside me and kept screaming, red face, veins popping and all. Had I not been terrified it would’ve been hilarious. He did this for about a block and a half before I just dipped into someone’s driveway onto the sidewalk and out on a side street. He sped off – the irony is that the back of his car was covered in typical performative liberal bumperstickers “Choose Love”, “Got Empathy?” and all that.
It’s absolutely stunning to me that full-grown adults let themselves throw temper tantrums in public.
I was once cycling up Barbur and had to leave the bike lane to avoid a large fallen tree limb. A silver Prius with a Sasquatch sticker pulled up next to me, rolled down the window, and the driver – a smallish man – yelled “How DARE YOU use my lane??!!”
I’ve been yelled at by drivers since I learned to bike in the 70s. There are simply a lot of angry people out there, and since they get around chiefly by car, they take their anger out on other users, including other car drivers. I’ve done my best over the years to not take it personally – and in most cases I’ve succeeded – but yeah, just today I got a bit shook up when an SUV driver gunned their engine at me at a dangerous interchange, flipped them off instinctively, probably not a good idea if I had stopped to think about it.
In my experience, the period from Thanksgiving to New Years brings out the worst in everyone, every year – people are more stressed than usual. I’d tell you to bike more cautiously, ride safe, etc, but why bother? If you aren’t doing that already, you probably wouldn’t be here to tell your tale, would you?
You did the right thing. The driver was an asshole.
Motorists hate us just because we exist. We are on THEIR road. We are somehow less than human because we ride a bike. It’s sad that I constantly think that a driver will inevitability kill me someday, intentionally or not. When that does happen, the police will issue a victim blaming statement before the investigation is even complete. They won’t bother to collect surveillance footage from the area. There will be no accountability to the person that ends my life, probably not even a citation. Co-workers will shake their head how stubborn and foolish I was to ride a bike to work. All the comments on social media about my death will be about how cyclists don’t follow the rules of the road, how we don’t pay taxes, or have licenses.
Possibly comment of the week. You hit all of the stereotypes about cycling and how crazy it is.
So a few years ago I went XC skiing along Ainsworth in one of those rare, mid-week snowstorms. I was skiing east down the grassy park median, when an east-bound new Suburban with rims and a bumping system slow rolled up. I got a little scared as the driver’s window was right next to me. Window rolled down, music turns down, the guy says “How you doing?” I said something about just going for a ski. Guy cracks up and says, “Damn…that looks fun! I’ve never seen that before. You have a good night.” SUV rolls off, tunes go back up.
I went to Alberta park and did a loop, and was headed back westbound and a beat up old Camry goes past with a teenage kid hanging out the side yelling “F— YOU!”. They _almost_ got stuck in the snow at the stop sign up ahead, would’ve been perfect.
I guess when you are different/draw attention you get all the responses. Sometimes it doesn’t go how you expect it to. Sadly, bikes are the “different” thing on streets in most people’s minds.
Glad you’re ok.
Can we get a dual comment of the week? Put both this one and the one immediately above this one in the CotW article?
Hi Squareman, I’m out of the country, and working off the phone, which is why there haven’t been any cotws. I’ll have access to computer this weekend, I’ll see if I can write something up.
America is a decaying country where dangerous people have free and easy access to guns and the majority of the population is okay with it.
That dude probably rages a lot in his life, not just about bikes. Id guess he’s a prime suspect for lots of bad things, and he probably does have a gun. Scary times in a scary country.
All true, but the car enables his bad behavior. Let’s face it: if he had to ride a bike and keep up with Julian, he couldn’t. In his SUV, he is high and mighty.
Every time some a**hole guns his engine and does a close pass, I say to myself, “You could never even keep up with me on a bike.”
This exact thing happened to me also, Julian. But when I went to the Portland Police and asked them to charge the driver with menacing (I got his license-plate number, which is a must for any police action), the answer I got was “Sorry – that’s free speech.”
I’d love to hear what some of the attorneys who frequent this site would say about this line of reasoning by the PoPo. It wasn’t like the driver said, “Cut it out or I’ll hurt you.” He said, “I have a gun in the car and I’m going to shoot you.”
The bottom line here is that some drivers feel incredibly empowered by their vehicular privilege to menace cyclists with impunity. I’ve had stuff thrown at me, been spat at, honked at, yelled at more times than I can count – not for hitting or hurting anyone but simply for riding my bike, as I’m legally allowed to do. Many drivers interpret a situation where they have to slow down for a cyclist as some kind of mortal injury to themselves, and it really needs to stop. We need MUCH higher standards for licensing drivers and operating motor vehicles.
Adding your comment to my anecdotal list of stories to which I’ve not heard an exception.
“when I went to the Portland Police and asked them to charge the driver with menacing… ”
Take bikes out of it Say your neighbor threatens to shoot you because of some dispute. It’s hard for me to imagine the police taking your word for it and charging them with menacing. Would any DA, much less our current one, prosecute? I would think that if it only happened once, it would be hard even to get a restraining order.
I don’t think this is a “vehicle privilege” kind of thing, but more of an anger management issue. It sucks that it happened, and the guy may well be a legitimate danger, but it just doesn’t sound like the kind of thing the police can do much about.
But I agree, it would be good to have a lawyer chime in.
No, Watts, it’s TOTALLY a “vehicular privilege” thing. Your neighbor doesn’t threaten to shoot you b/c he has to live next door to you 24/7 and is therefore ACCOUNTABLE for his actions. The car driver (or passenger) whisks past you and slows down just long enough to menace (yell, throw, or spit) and then whisks away again. The entire encounter is anonymous with the driver’s identity hidden behind glass and a steel cage, and only a license-plate number for ID – and that ID is unknowable to you and knowable only to the police. Plus more and more cars now have dark-tinted windows so you can’t even see the person in the car and whether he’s pointing a gun at you.
We who continue to ride bikes b/c we love to ride have to realize that many people will NEVER ride until society does something to address the egregious power imbalance between people who drive cars and people who don’t. Drivers quite literally have our lives in their hands.
I’ll just say that I feel a lot safer and freer and happier riding on Clinton than driving on Powell.
Road rage incidents and fatal crashes happen to drivers as well, and when I ride I simply don’t feel the same sense of persecution that you seem to.
I am truly sorry about that.
If my daily commute only involved upgraded neighborhood greenways in wealthy neighborhoods, I would likely have avoided most interactions with raging motorists. However, my commute involves riding on crappy bike lanes close to freeway on ramps and in areas where person-on-person violence* is far more common than twee Richmond.
*I’m in no way arguing that the police are any kind of solution (or social benefit).
I was using Clinton and Powell as a point of comparison.
I frequently ride all over Portland, though rarely out past 82nd, and have been doing so since the last time bike mode share was this low.
Your mileage may vary, and yours apparently does.
This is worse behavior than I’ve ever experienced sorry you had to go through it. I’d say I encounter a road rager / dangerous driver once or twice a year. Lately I’ve done much better at just letting it go but sometimes their actions are so abrupt and startling I instinctively yell or flip them off.
For what it’s worth I’ve found wheel lights improve my experience with everyone on my commute. I’m just guessing of course but I think they allow people to disassociate me from the version of the “typical cyclist” they have in their mind that they hate so much. Plus they help with visibility, are fun and people seem to enjoy them.
An acura SUV without a license plate shot me repeatedly with an airsoft gun in the face last year completely unprovoked without saying anything to me before or after as I was in the bike lane riding normally down Vancouver. They did not break any laws as they were driving, including stopping at the stoplight immediately afterwards and not speeding, which I thought was curious.
What! That is awful!
Julian, good to hear you were not harmed and can tell us about it.
Did you file a post incident police report with any description of this operator & vehicle and the interaction? Given how brazen they were verbally threatening you, they will continue to do so and very likely cross the threshold to physical violence on a vulnerable roadway user. If you have not, you should still consider filing one.
I am beginning to wonder if we all will have to ‘cycle with an open carry permit’ by the time Bike Portland reaches its 25th anniversary given the state of things. Sadness.
I wish I could say this is an unfamiliar story. While I haven’t seen a gun brandished, I’ve had the threat hurled that they would shoot me. I have also had to ditch or lose a handful of aggressive, belligerent drivers, but have only had to do that downtown where the blocks are smaller and the “wrong way” opportunities are easier to use to thwart the threatening driver. Like you, I don’t look or engage, but when they start matching your speed and shouting obscenities and threats, it’s time to take their demeanor as very real and very dangerous.
One other observation about cage-ragers such as this guy:
These are the very same people that will grope and whine all day about how cyclists flaunt the laws that “we all have to observe,” tipping their hand to their ignorance that the Venn diagram of traffic laws between bicycles and motor vehicles is not a circle. It’s not even a perfect circle between personal motor vehicles and commercial motor vehicles, nor between a passenger vehicle and a motorcycle. I’m fairly confident when I say the following about drivers who don’t bike that also crow “all cyclists break the laws!”:
They almost assuredly break the basic speed law and posted statutory speed – nearly all the time.They would fail the most rudimentary quiz of how the laws and privileges are different for a bicycle vs. a motor vehicle.
Got to have some thick skin and thick tires for biking in this city these day..
my 2 cents
always ignore as long as possible
never stop moving
and maybe start voting differently, if you voted for dems…
Huh? How would a non-Dem politician help in this situation? Do you mean at the state or federal level (our city elections are nonpartisan)?
Yeah- definitely need some clarification on this one. Which political party would have prevented this from happening, and how?
I live in San Francisco but have spent some time cycling in Portland. I found most folks, either cyclists or motorists, to be reasonably friendly and polite. Cycling in Portland seemed pretty pleasant to me. I used to have troubles with motorists but no more. If I meet an unfriendly one I just ignore them. Driving a car really sucks so its understandable that sometimes people lose it.
This is terrifying! I had to come to the conclusion a few decades ago that it is accepted that we are hated and openly harassed and it won’t change anytime soon because the majority of Americans hate people who ride bikes. Even people I’ve known that were otherwise seemingly decent people had a strong dislike for people that ride bikes and they’ve told me about it, not realizing I was one of them.
Having had encounters like this, even a gun fired over my head while riding in Missouri, I still bike because I love it. Riding a bike is one of the best feelings in the world and most of the best memories of my life have been on a bike. I think a lot of us know we are at risk every time we go out but I would rather face that risk and ride than avoid it and never ride again.
Sorry to hear of your incident. I live in Corvallis, and I must say that drivers here are generally courteous, sometimes overly so. I think it has to do with Corvallis being a college town with lots of cyclists. In the end, we need more cyclists so that motorist will get used to our presence. Sadly, I think there is a general mean spiritedness creeping into our society these days that is baffling to me. Why all the anger? Where is it coming from?
Adieu,
Ken
I’m so sorry, that is terrifying. I have also had my life threatened by a driver, also on Vancouver Ave. In my case, the driver stopped his car and GOT OUT, started walking towards me and was yelling that he wanted to kill me. I had my then 3 year old with me on my bike, and I was shaking with fear and adrenaline as I pedaled away as fast as I could (which wasn’t very fast bc I was riding a heavy, non-electric bakfiet). Thankfully he didn’t pursue me. Oh, the kicker was this murderous jerk had a Lyft sign on his car!!
Seriously though, the unprotected, door-zone bike lanes on Vancouver and Williams are disgraceful excuses for “infrastructure,” and I’m generally too uncomfortable to ride on them with my kids. Being a parent who primarily transports my young children around the city via bike means that I’m generally in a state of heightened alert, often fearful, and periodically full of rage that PBOT seems incapable of making the bold decisions necessary to create an actually protected cycling network for all ages and abilities. Instead they just keep painting sharrows, creating door-zone bike gutters, installing plastic wands instead of bollards, and calling it a day.
A month or so ago I was riding north on 34th between Clinton and Hawthorne, and a driver pulled a fast and risky move to get around me and other cyclists on the narrow, parked-car-laden street.
I shouted “Slow down!” and the driver, a young man with other people in the car, slowed down to yell back as he drove slowly in front of the cyclists. (Funny how now he’s not in such a hurry.) He threatened to kill me, I don’t remember if he mentioned a gun.
I kept yelling back at him, saying “Don’t get mad at me after YOU did something wrong, sir,” etc.
I considered that it could become more dangerous, but I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. He finally sped up and drove off, probably to threaten others.
I’m not saying I did the smart thing. But just wanted to share that the opposite approach (aggressively engaging instead of ignoring) doesn’t always lead to disaster. I don’t know that it did any good either, though.
It’s about time for a ODOT/PBOT billboard campaign.
And somehow it will still be a campaign aimed at cyclists to protect themselves.
Yikes! That sounds terrifying!
New Oregon law for drivers: “Prior to issuance of any new/renewed Oregon driver license, each license applicant shall show proof of having three full months of city street cycling and motorcycling experience; exceptions for disabled only.” I often read your stories of riding PDX and I feel for you. I cycle here in Grants Pass 330 days/year whether it’s my commute or workout (both?). Yelling drivers here get my finger and a challenge to pull over for a discussion – never happens. I’m 5’8″, lift weights but not a body-builder, and obviously in better shape than most drivers. Nobody ever wants a discussion with me, they only want to bark like chihuahuas from the driver’s seat. In my seven years of riding here, I’ve had to flip off less than seven drivers. Riding PDX? We used to for one long weekend each year and injected nearly $1000 into your local economy those weekends. Our last ride in PDX was over ten years ago when we were threatened and spit upon by the homeless for ‘riding on their home’, the nice bike lane south of OMSI. No more of our tourist dollars spent in PDX…
I didn’t have time to read through all the comments yet so forgive me if I am repeating anything but I find it helpful to have an obvious camera mounted on my helmet. People are less likely to misbehave when they think they are being recorded. It doesn’t even have to be a real camera though a real one certainly helps if you wind up in a legal battle. In any case drivers always seem to notice it. Try it and see. Also I’m not sure what the law is there but here and in many places involving a gun and a motor vehicle can get your license permanently revoked. As in shooting from a car or at a car is not legal for a citizen. Not that angry irrational people care but I just thought it was worth mentioning.
I’ve decided again to not touch a car because (unless they’ve already started a war themselves) mv operators think it’s now a license to kill.
So, it’s turn out whenever that can be safely done, get over the curb and go the other way.
Portland 911 doesn’t love me on a bike, so if I’m able to harvest a license number and DRIVER DESCRIPTION I might call *677 (Oregon State Police) and report a suspected drinking driver. An aggressive person is a very reasonable DUI suspect. OSP may hand you off to 911, who knows?
Squealing tires, swerving out of lane, threats, shouting and persistent honking are all important information. I’m a person on the sidewalk who saw this thing. It’s not relevant when I last rode a bike and they don’t need to know.
I had a unnerving road rage case from another cyclist a little while ago. It was nothing like this. But I was on a busy street approaching a college campus, where there are a lot of pedestrians, parked cars, so I was going about 10-15 miles per hour. Approaching the main entrance to campus, some guy who maybe wanted to go 20-25mph started barking at me that if i am going so slow I need to get off the road – and then he took off at high speed on the pedestrian path through campus. He easily could have passed.