3rd time being hit by object tossed from car!

Over the past two years, I've been hit on my bicycle by an egg thrown from a passenger in a car, been hit on my bicycle by an open, nearly full coke can and tonight, I was hit by a tennis ball thrown by passenger in a car while walking. I realized after being hit tonight that in all 3 cases, I was traveling "with" the traffic flow. I have now changed that and walk against traffic - although I can't do that on the bike. Im also thinking that I'll get hit in the face walking in this direction. It happens so fast that I don't think fast enough to get a license plate number. Been thinking of carrying a good sized rock in my hand and trying to hit the car if I can think fast enough. Then it comes to mind, what if I do hit it and they stop and challenge me. I may lose in the end. I didn't have the cell phone with me tonight but usually do so I guess I could dial 911. But even if response time was 2 minutes, I may still be on the ground hurt or dead. What if I hit the car and as a result, the driver has an accident. Am I in big trouble. These incidents won't stop me from walking or riding but I'm starting to get a little miffed. I would appreciate suggestions and some input from LEO's on what trouble I would be in given possible responses I outlined above.

Maybe God is telling you to get a car

Get a lotto ticket! do you know how lucky you are to get hit by things thrown from a moving car?

I once was hit in the face by a half eaten apple while passing at 60+ mph on a highway, stopped at the next gas station and bought one of those scratch and win tickets, what do you know? I won $500!!!

AlexGT

retaliating might get you in trouble. I'd dial 911 and at least provide a description of the vehicle and direction of travel. Hope they catch the b@$#rds.

My first thought was that you should stay away from that car!


OK, back to reality. These things are almost never intentional. That assumes, of course that you are not doing something to upset the other drivers.

If you take action such as throwing a rock you will almost surely bring their wrath down upon yourself. That's not ever a good thing.

Keep a pencil and paper in your pocket instead. that way you can report them and the cops will handle the problem.

Daniel

BVH,
Since you live in CA I suggest you sue the tennis ball maker for building a product that's capable of being thrown from a moving car. The manufacture must have known, (they can search their e-mail database and memos) that a tennis ball could be propelled by more than just a tennis racket. If you could find the guy that threw it and have him arrested then he could join you in a class action suit against the tennis ball maker for mental anguish due to his arrest.

They will probably settle out of court for about $100,000. Once you pay the lawyer you should have just enough money left over to buy a $2,000 beater that when running will afford you some safety from further incidents.

Seriously,
I know you're not joking about the problem and it is indeed a serious issue. You could be seriously hurt or killed by one of those idiots. I don't see anything good that could come from any sort of retaliation. Get the plate number and call it in. At the min. wear a helmet when you ride your bike.

Man, sorry about that tennis ball! I didn't see you!

Nemul, you have a hellavan arm and aim - all the way from Georgia and a bullseye in my lower back! I hope you're a well paid pitcher in the major's! Hey, maybe I can sue you and get some money, what da ya think?

I've been hit plenty of times on my bike by various assholes, and the cops didn't do jack. All they said was that since they didn't see it happen, there is nothing they can do other than calling up the morons and, I quote, "inquire".

The devil in my says that if you are enough of a ******* to throw things at pedestrians/cyclists, then a bullet is well justified retaliation, then again I know I sound like a right-wing gun nut everytime I say this, but after being hit in the head/back mroe than 2 dozen times in my life and the LEO are too busy to deal with this, it **** the heck outta me.

Nick

I disagree that they are mostly unintentional occurences. Most of the time, they are youths who think it is funny. Occasionally it is an "accident".
If you want to possibly minimize the risk of this happening,
1) walk against traffic, so that you can see what is approaching(yes, it will hurt more getting hit in the face, but it will greatly reduce the likelyhood that you get hit at all),
2) walk during daylight when you could get a better description (they are less likely to try if there is a chance they will be caught),
3) look up at traffic and be aware of your surroundings
4) carry your cell phone
5) write down as much information about the car (make, model, color, number of doors, damage, number of occupants, tint, or any other unusual things) and about the people in the car, ideally the thrower.

And I agree with others, it is probably of sign of something. Me, I'd take it as a sign to buy another flashlight.

270winchester said:

I've been hit plenty of times on my bike by various assholes, and the cops didn't do jack. All they said was that since they didn't see it happen, there is nothing they can do other than calling up the morons and, I quote, "inquire".

The devil in my says that if you are enough of a ******* to throw things at pedestrians/cyclists, then a bullet is well justified retaliation, then again I know I sound like a right-wing gun nut everytime I say this, but after being hit in the head/back mroe than 2 dozen times in my life and the LEO are too busy to deal with this, it **** the heck outta me.

Nick

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What does it take to get hit that many times? I rode motorcycles for more than 15 years and never had anything thrown at me. There was that one time when I kicked an empty milk carton at 35 MPH only to find that it was full, but that was my fault.

So what provokes people to atatck bike riders in your part of the country?

EDIT: Ahhh. Stupid kids. Nuff said.

Daniel?

Ride on the sidewalk, although since you were hit with an object there also while walking that might still not completely solve your problem. Idiots throwing garbage from moving vehicles (or stopped vehicles for that matter) is one of my pet peeves, especially things like food that make a mess. In fact, using a public street as a litter receptable for trash from your car drives me nuts. The public that complains about messy streets is the same public that makes them that way.

Only thing you can do is try to get the license plate number and report it. At the very least, the thrower can be fined for littering. I'd like to see throwing objects, including flicking cigarette ashes, from a moving vehicle made into a felony similar to reckless endangerment where the person can get a nice fine plus serious jail time. This is really a societal problem of selfish bozos not caring about the consequences of their actions plus being too lazy to carry their trash to a garbage can. While I've never had anything intentionally thrown at me while cycling, I have seen idiots cleaning out their cars while parked and just throwing the junk on someone's lawn. Needless to say, they get a piece of my mind each time I see it, plus the local precinct gets a call along with the offender's license number. I might even start taking pictures soon so I have evidence backing me up in case I make a citizen's arrest. I have zero tolerance for people who endanger or inconvenience others with their garbage.

Regardless of whether the cops take action, complain to the local precinct every time things like this happen. Encourage others to do likewise. Generally police give the highest priority to the things they get the most complaints about. Sooner or later they'll start actively ticketing people for throwing things out of their vehicles if enough people complain. It's really a sad commentary on the state of our society that something like this should even be a problem.

gadget_lover said:

What does it take to get hit that many times? I rode motorcycles for more than 15 years and never had anything thrown at me. There was that one time when I kicked an empty milk carton at 35 MPH only to find that it was full, but that was my fault.

So what provokes people to atatck bike riders in your part of the country?

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This is generally a cyclist and to a lesser extent pedestrian only problem. Most motorists seem to respect motorcyclists, even if grudgingly. However, many of those same motorists and their non-cycling passengers hate cyclists with a passion for whatever reason. Maybe it bothers them to have to share the road with them, or that they don't have to pay for insurance, fuel, registration, etc. It may even simply bother them that the cyclist is having a good time and they aren't. To a lesser extent they feel they same about pedestrians, most of whom they see simply as another obstacle to slow them down. Regardless of the reasons, motorist hatred of cyclists is well documented and very real. I've actually had drivers try to run me off the road for no other reason than I happened to be there. "Dooring" passing cyclists is another favorite pastime of motorists. These problems are much more prevalent in suburban and rural areas where almost everyone drives but they also exist in cities.

One way to indirectly combat the problem is to encourage cycling. The more drivers who are also cyclists, the less this hatred will exist. In Europe were cycling is much more common cyclists have much more respect. In China it's the cars which are the outcasts, not the bikes. I'm personally hoping gas prices get high enough to get lots of people on bikes. That might result in the best solution-bike routes physically separated from autos so everyone can be safe and happy.

From reading here and my experiences, there's not much you can do. I'm betting you cannot legally retaliate the way you stated, though if I were king for a day...

I used to walk my dog several times a night. On a busy street, we had kids chunk beer bottles at us, though none ever hit, we were showered in glass and my dog of course did not have shoes. I had to carry him (85lbs) out of the area. Had fireworks thrown or set off near us twice. That freaked him out, I saw it coming. I never did anything about it, it was all over so fast. And I was worried about the dog. Several cars would honk for no apparent reason. We were on the sidewalk, and the dog was nowhere near the street. Always seemed to be youngsters out cruising.

I thank my lucky stars we were not crossing the street one foggy night when a car of punks was going down it quite fast, and mostly in the left turn lane but weaving, on purpose I think, back and forth through all five lanes. Fog so thick one couldn't see fifteen feet, even with sodium lamps everywhere. And they had no lights on, but the brake lights did show once.

If you can get a license number and vehicle/perp description, that would be the best thing. Do report it. Probably nothing will come of it but you never know.

Beer bottles and full coke cans, fireworks, rocks, etc., all these (as you well know) can do serious bodily harm.

As far as bicycles go, there's a human on them and it's easy to cause harm and it can't be undone. They are entitled to the road, and here in town we have some bicycle only lanes, though I would be too chicken to ride in them. I do wish more cyclists would quit blowing through stop signs and traffic lights like they don't apply to them though.

going against traffic might stop them as they know you can see them throwing it, and know it's coming so you could possibly duck/jump out of the way. That might be enough to take the fun out of it for them.

Resist throwing something back, as you never know how many people are in the car, what weapons they might have, etc.

Perhaps walk with a mean gait and frown, perhaps they'll think don't mess with him, he looks crazy.

Seriously all things I've learned/done before to stop would be a$$holes from screwing with me. I try to avoid people that might do things to me now as I don't have the paitence anymore and would rather just take them down and teach them a lesson, but thigns can alwasy go bad....

TorchMan said:

I do wish more cyclists would quit blowing through stop signs and traffic lights like they don't apply to them though.

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Yep, I agree that part of the problem is cyclists who blow through lights and almost cause accidents. That still doesn't give motorists a right to treat cyclists the way they do, nor does it explain their intense hatred of cyclists. After all, I see more cars blowing through lights/stop signs here than I do cyclists. The only times I generally pass red lights is to make a right turn. Once in a blue moon I go through an intersection after slowing enough to stop if there's absolutely no cross traffic. With stop signs I slow enough to stop for cross traffic if necessary. I never fly through intersections and force cross traffic to stop to avoid me. That's plain stupid and also suicidal. I just don't understand why some cyclists do that.

I'm willing to bet even if all cyclists followed every traffic law to the letter they would still not be highly respected. Many drivers don't even respect 80,000 pound 18-wheelers so you can hardly expect them to yield to something 5% of their weight.

Hey wait a minute...I'm not a LEO or a lawyer, but isn't this assault and battery? If you were just walking down the street and someone WALKS up to you and throws a coke can at you, isn't that assault? What's the difference if you are on a bike and the other person is in a car?

By all means file a police report. If enough people come forward and report the same vehicle, maybe the cops will do something about it. If you have one of those cell phones with a camera, take a pic of the vehicle. Hopefully, you can get the license plate in the shot too.

You have enough things to worry about while you're riding your bike on the street to have to worry about idiots throwing stuff at you.

Thank you everybody for your responses. There are a lot of great thoughts here on why it occurs and ways to try to prevent it from happening. I think the fact that we cyclists do occaisionally blow through stop signs does tend to tick off motorists and the fact that we sometimes have to veer out to pass a parked car and this requires the motorist to slow down or to have to veer left doesn't help the relationship. However, all three of my incidences have been "kids" out for a joy ride so I don't think the above applies - at least in my cases. I just need to think faster on my feet to get licence numbers, vehicle and people descriptions. I don't think I can get my phone out and camera fired up quick enough to grab a pic, though. I will definitely continue walking against traffic.

When I rode a bicycle or Moped , I got harassed. My brother in law, looking professorial on a bicycle, got harassed.

When I rode a BMW R90 motorcycle, I did not get harassed. When I ride aggressively on a road bicycle @ 25-30 mph, I do not get harassed, even wearing Flourescent yellow spandex.

Basically the people doing this are all cowards. If they think you are a potential threat or a serious customer, they're not going to screw with you.

These days, If someone did throw something at me , I would try to get their license and file a hit and run accident report. This is fully justified as something hit you and they were responsible.

You definitely need to take down their description and any part of the license plate as you can see as they speed away and call the police about it.

Though the cops wont engage in a high speed chase to catch someone who threw a tennis ball out the window, when they pick up the jerk in the next county for running a red light he'll get 2 tickets instead of one and pay more of a fine. Plus the cops love to have a description of problem cars just to have an excuse to pull them over and look for drugs or whatever, your description of the car of jerks may well let the police officer that does see them pull them over with probable cause and find a lot worse than a bucket of tennis balls.

What town did this happen in? Street?