When a driver endangers my life while I am riding my bicycle by driving especially aggressively, recklessly or just plain old badly, like many cyclists I tend to make a note of that vehicle, if not to the point of taking a plate number, and make sure I get a good look at the driver if possible. Sometimes I report them to the Seattle Police Department if they are a repeat offender via this handy tool. Sometimes though, I don’t report them. But I remember them. In my neighborhood, which is fairly small and does not suffer from much through traffic, oftentimes I see these people again in a non-driving situation. Recently, a woman drove her vehicle quite aggressively and dangerously around me as I was waiting at a stop sign for oncoming traffic to clear. She was completely in a rage that she had to wait behind me on my bicycle; even though had I been in a car she would have been in the same predicament. Both she and her vehicle were highly identifiable. The other day I saw her in the grocery store talking with someone she hadn’t seen for some time. I was wearing regular street clothes at the time and there’s no way she would have recognized me. I debated for a few good moments about approaching her and introducing myself, but then what? What do you say to someone who would have much rather run you over a month before? How do you talk with them in the grocery store about their driving “problem?” Or should you take a different approach and explain to them how the incident affected you and why you were doing what you were doing at the time of your last encounter? Would it matter? After finding her vehicle in the parking lot, I regretted not having a few flyers on me to leave under her wiper blade. But would that have been enough?
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Of course, we can’t force anyone to change. All we can do is work on our own patience, and provide open information to make it easier for people to change when they’re ready to put in the effort. The best compromise I’ve come up with is yellow cards.
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