Comment by pmiller2
5 years ago
Yeah, I agree. In his place, I either would have done nothing, or, maybe made a police report (not that I'd expect the police to actually do anything at this stage). Generally speaking, the less you antagonize someone whose first exchange with you is "I will slaughter you," the better, IMO.
I once tried to have a conversation with a women who tried to drive me and my bicycle off the bus lane (where she shouldn't be driving in the first place); and shouted "fuck off you pissy little cunt" to me. For some reason I thought that if I explained my perspective, she would understand.
It ended up with a broken back wheel (she kicked it) and a damaged phone (she took it out of my hand when I wanted to take a picture of the license plate and threw it on the ground).
She was clearly unhinged, but I was stupid as well. I should of just let it go; no one who starts a social interaction with "pissy little cunt" is likely to be calmed down by reason. You have nothing to gain from trying, and much to potentially lose.
> ...and shouted "fuck off you pissy little cunt" to me.
There's a name for this incident - "road rage". Very real and dangerous indeed.
People get completely irrational and agitated. Probably due to effect of being locked up, in a way, non-free inside their cars.
When I'm biking, at times I too get mad at some careless and obnoxious drivers encroaching my freedom, I guess they may be finding me just as annoying for simply missing the fatter wheels and a comparable scale on the shared road. Irrational!
As cyclists we are literally more exposed on the road. So whenever such inevitable bout of irrational fury pops, I find the safest option for myself is to steam-off using similar vocabulary. It's more efficient than reasoning with the unreasonable.
Just to be even safer, I'd let the offending four-wheeled furia be gone before naming the whole piece of that motorized content in precisely spoken choice of words...
It takes practice though. Be safe!
A sad sentiment of giving up, but I think it is premature to abandon your approach. I think it may be worth trying for that small-ish fraction (call it 10%?) of people who can be talked back from their anger. Those are good conversations to have for both parties, and worth trying to have, even if it results in failure 90% of the time.
That said, I think the real lesson for you is: don't make yourself more vulnerable (e.g. letting her touch you or your stuff) if you decide to try to start a conversation!
It also points to a theory I've been considering about personhood, and how people like your driver lady is in a mindstate where, in her mind, you're not a person. It's a very, very dangerous situation, because if they don't think you're a person, then there is nothing immoral about saying or doing anything to you, including violence.
> I think the real lesson for you is: don't make yourself more vulnerable (e.g. letting her touch you or your stuff) if you decide to try to start a conversation!
I didn't "let" her, she just did it.
I know you mean well and that you probably didn't intend it like this, but this comment comes off as victim blaming quite a bit.
As for the rest: thus far I've never managed to talk random strangers down from these kind of rages; but maybe I just don't have the charm shrug Last time I tried was with my neighbour and he ended up calling the police three times over a four-day period on me. My crime? I kindly asked him to not play his music so loudly all day long at the start of the lockdown (especially at 7am) and not backing down when he tried to shout me away. I had "invaded his home" by knocking on his front door... This isn't a fit of anger, some people are just like this.
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It's tautologically true that for any X, if you don't try to do X, you won't succeed. But, you also have to weigh whatever good may come of success against the probability and potential consequences of failure. In cases like these, you're by definition dealing with someone who is a little off mentally, whether that's just a temporary condition (e.g. having a bad day), or serious mental illness. Such people can tend to be unpredictable as a result, which is dangerous in its own way.
So, yes, I agree with you somewhat, but I think the balance of consequences tends to favor not acting in cases like this rather than attempting to do anything.
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>A sad sentiment of giving up, but I think it is premature to abandon your approach. I think it may be worth trying for that small-ish fraction (call it 10%?) of people who can be talked back from their anger. Those are good conversations to have for both parties, and worth trying to have, even if it results in failure 90% of the time.
Please do not give terrible advice that will kill people.
Moving to NYC couple of years ago I learned the best way to deal with those type of people is to let go and move on. It really isn't worth wasting your time and energy on those people, because they will just ruin your day. Best case scenario you feel better for couple of minutes and then you forget about it. Worst case you end up dead, in jail or worse.
> maybe made a police report (not that I'd expect the police to actually do anything at this stage).
Indeed. But one shouldn't underestimate the chance that this wouldn't be the first report about this person. Lots of similar reports like this may actually cause them to do something.
I agree, in the sense that someone who has done something of this nature is more likely to have done such a thing in the past. However, in this case, the victim is someone who is being targeted through his email address, which is embedded in open source software that's contained in gazillions of systems worldwide. That makes it significantly less likely that whomever he would report this to would have gotten another report about this particular individual.