Harassment

[tmac]

I just experienced a new form of harassment from a motorist while on a road ride yesterday. I was riding down the shoulder on 446 when this guy, driving one of those big diesel 4X4 pickups, drives up beside me revving the motor hard to get black smoke billowing out of the tailpipe. He pulls onto the shoulder in front of me and drives so I'm riding through the smoke. Anyone else ever experience this particular type of harassment?

[mhhigain]

Memorize his license plate then grab your cell and call 911 to report his actions. Bad person!!!

[beer_belly]

What a jackhole!

[bboehman]

Yeah Tim I had that happen one time out west of Danville on a county road in the middle of nowhere.  I was in between a hog farm and cattle farm so I chalked it up to them never seeing someone in spandex on a bike before!  Haven't quite ridden back out to that spot ever since. 
Bob

[holzhaus]

I agree calling 911 with license plate. I have had good success with this in two different incidents.

[deanarammalamma]

Typical ride up in norther Hamilton/Tipton county. 911 is where it's at.

[runyourdog]

Black smoke makes them horney.

[Inept_MTBer]

Thats a new one, most willful abuse I get on the roads is either verbal or light hurled projectile in nature. Everybody hit it on the head though, get the guys plates and call it in. Here's the addendum: check up on it at least once every week or two weeks, cyclists shouldn't have to absorb this kind of crap.

[gt ss]

hopefully it will never come to this.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0712/Tour-de-France-TV-car-crackup-brings-new-rules-investigation-VIDEO

And this from a "friendly" driver.

[mkubancsek]

Bring a gun on your ride and shoot his tires next time.
What an asshole.


I have carried on ride before... If I know I'll be in a rough neighborhood.

[Lindsay Rodkey]

Apparently, this is actually "a thing".  People have gone to the trouble of making You Tube videos of purposely puffing out clouds of smoke so that cyclists have to ride through them.  However, I don't feel like looking up any of these videos and boosting the jerkwads' egos with further pageviews.

[firefighter56]

I'll agree that these incidents were done on purpose.  I am one of those big diesel truck owners.  Everytime you get smoked doesn't mean it was on purpose.  My truck is tuned almost to 600hp so it smokes.  Some rednecks just do some cheap mods to make it smoke but some are legitimately tuned to a higher level.  When I roll into the throttle just enough to accelerate but not enough to make the transmission downshift it makes day turn to night.  So when I go to pass a group through town I'm not going to stomp the throttle to spool the turbo and clear up the smoke, and if I did it would be white smoke from tire spin not black smoke from exhaust.  I have my truck tuned this way for play, and for towing my 40' fifthwheel.  The only reason I'm saying this is to let guys know that it may not always be on purpose.  The examples given obviously were though.  Remember also, if they have a big redneck truck they probably have a big redneck gun too so before you pull yours out keep that in mind, is a cloud of black smoke really worth shooting someone or getting shot over?  By the way, I ride a road bike also and I get the lungs full of black smoke too.  I have never done it on purpose to anyone but it has happened on accident.  So if you have ridden through Fortville around 6am and I did it to you I aplogize, it was not on purpose.
 

[Fett]

That truck would be great for going out with 4 bikes on the roof and picking stoplight to stoplight races with Vette. I gotta imagine that about 70 or 80 aerodynamics start to take over, but I bet you have some fun with it.

[firefighter56]

Yea the wind isn't my friend, especially with the bikes loaded up.  It is a bit of a sleeper too, the only idea you'll get from looming g is the 5" exhaust.  Its fun playing with sports cars and beating them badly.  But on the rare occasion I find one of those modified sports cars thaw hands me my a$$ I have no shame, I mean who would ever expect a 4X4 Megacab diesel ram to wax a Vette!

[gt ss]

Yea the wind isn't my friend, especially with the bikes loaded up.  It is a bit of a sleeper too, the only idea you'll get from looming g is the 5" exhaust.  Its fun playing with sports cars and beating them badly.  But on the rare occasion I find one of those modified sports cars thaw hands me my a$$ I have no shame, I mean who would ever expect a 4X4 Megacab diesel ram to wax a Vette!

why don't you just put the bikes in the bed?