Rudeness on the train ride home

[pegkerr]

What dreadful hot weather we have. It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”

Jane Austen: Letters, September 18, 1796

It was quite hot and humid this afternoon, and I somewhat regretted that I had decided to resume bike riding today. Following my plan, I rode to the LRT station, paid my fare, and then took my bike on the train.

It was really quite crowded, which made me rather tense. I wasn't able to get near the racks for hanging up the bike, so until the second station, I stood awkwardly in the middle of the row, with my bike raised up on the hind wheel, trying to keep it out of everyone's way. Eventually, I got it into the rack and waited until my stop. I eased it out and walked it up on the rear wheel toward the door, taking pains, as I always do to avoid brushing against anyone (and, say, getting bicycle grease on anyone's clothing).

Just as I was rolling out the door, a man standing there said with heavy sarcasm, "Next time, try riding that bike all the way."

I was initially speechless, and then furious. I wanted to fly back onto the train and have it out with the jerk, but the door was already closing. All I could manage, in that split second, was to call back to him, "I just had surgery, you ____," adding there at the last, to my regret, something truly unprintable.

I brooded angrily about it all the way home, and I'm still a little upset about it. Unexpected rudeness from a total stranger always does that to me, I guess. Mostly I regretted how I responded. Not just the unladylike language, I mean, but the fact that I offered him some kind of excuse for being on the train, as if I somehow owed him an explanation for my presence. There was no reason for me to have to justify my presence to him. Metro Transit has made it clear that bikes are welcome: that's why they put in the bike racks on the trains in the first place. I was taking the train so that I wouldn't be another car on the road. I paid the same damn fare he did. I know that I didn't brush against him, I didn't do anything to him. How dare he imply that I didn't belong there? I am primarily surprised to encounter the attitude, I suppose. You may find me absurdly naive, but it had never occurred to me that my fellow passengers might resent me for taking my bike on the train. Eventually, I had to turn my attention from rudeness on the LRT to my lousy physical condition (I had to stop for a spell, gasping for breath, at a stop sign a block from my home).

Altogether, it was a very sour welcome back to biking.

Comments

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Meh, people are idiots, and some think it's great fun to twist your tail. The only good response is to smile and wave. Last year, last time someone flipped me the bird while passing, I smiled and waved. He flipped me off again. This repeated FOUR TIMES, he got more demonstrative each time despite him being about 1/4 mile in front of me by the end. By the last time, I was laughing, and he was so angry he was starting to drive erratically. I stopped before either I fell off the bike or he drove into a post.

The drivers around here are actually wonderful, I get only a minor thing like this happening maybe once a year, and it's always some phallus-brained 19-year-old.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Hey, if somebody *can* be annoyed into driving into a post by smiling and waving at them, they *should* be, I say. I suppose they might have hit another car, pedestrian, or something, though.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Ick, that's nasty. Ugly. He can't possibly have missed that the train is equipped to handle bicycles. He might also have noticed the facilities for parking bikes at stations. And it doesn't seem like you caused very much (any significant) trouble with your bicycle, even on a fairly crowded train.

I probably wouldn't feel guilty for using the word you particularly regret, whichever one it is (doesn't much matter, unless you know any I need to learn). But in fact it'd probably be more *effective* to just tell him that Metro Transit supports carrying bikes on their vehicles and he should take his problem up with them. Which I wouldn't have thought of in time either.

(In fact you're getting a bargain by paying the same ticket price -- MTC isn't charging extra for carrying the bike.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

"Harlot". HTH.

When there's just a dash with no letter at all, it always means "Harlot". It says so quite clearly and with no room for ambiguity in the footnotes to Trollope's He Knew He Was Right. And this post starts off quoting Austen, so we know Peg was in a nineteenth century mood!

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I agree with johnridley : the best way to deal with unwarranted rudeness like that is to smile and be extra-effusively nice. It throws them completely off. They're either being a bully or taking out their bad day on you. I get hassled on my bike sometimes, and find waving and smiling does work best -- if only because it doesn't escalate the situation and you don't feel a victim.

I had a situation like that last week when a man crowded me on the sidewalk riding his bike there and wouldn't get off when I politely asked him to ride on the road. I pointed out it was illegal and unsafe to ride on the sidewalk -- besides bugging pedestrians -- and then he got all self-righteous and assured me he was teaching his kid (behind him) to ride on the sidewalk. I pointed out several local cases of kids being killed from doing this and he just tried to talk through me. I got so angry that he was deliberately risking his kid that I finally told him he was an idiot. Which was stupid of me, but I don't think he would listen regardless. Heck, I didn't even mention the gruesome story...

[ironymaiden]

riding on the sidewalk is legal in my city as long as pedestrians are given the right of way.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Legal, but generally not a good idea, except in a few rare situations. If there are any pedestrians around at all, riding at faster than walking speed is pretty dangerous. And the vast majority of car/bike accidents happen at intersections, and a lot (maybe most) of them are people who were riding on sidewalks proceeding into the crosswalk; car drivers are not expecting to have to deal with things on the sidewalks moving at more than about 5 MPH, so they look and there's nothing within 10 feet of the corner, they proceed, crunch.

You couldn't pay me to ride on a sidewalk. Far too dangerous.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I will say that small children are one exception. Generally they're riding at close to walking speed, and they're not stable enough to ride in traffic and they don't know the rules.

Most municipalities that ban cycling on sidewalks make exceptions for small children in residential areas.

[ironymaiden]

not my point. well-behaved bike riders here are routinely yelled at by pedestrians who don't know the law. my favorite story is of the bossy ped who called a cop over...

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I used to loathe bike riders over the age of twelve who rode on the sidewalks, because they all assumed I could hear them coming. When I didn't get out of their way as they rode up swiftly behind them, they sometimes resorted to various forms of verbal abuse. In the first moment of reflex I still think anybody who rides on the sidewalk is an [unprintable], but I don't think I am necessarily right about that. But it's what I think, based on how they've acted to me, and how they've threatened me. They almost knocked Mike over a few times too, and my protective reaction about that... well, let's just say I have strong ones.

Their version of "giving pedestrians the right of way" was firmly entrenched in believing that none of us pedestrians have disabilities.

P.S. I am married to someone who was a bicycle commuter for decades, and he's not got a high opinion of bike riders on sidewalks either.

And now I will stop ranting about this in poor Peg's LJ.

[jeanineers.livejournal.com]

I completely understand. My husband has no hearing in his right ear and very poor hearing in is left ear. He has received very angry gestures from bicyclists who are mad because he doesn't quickly move when they call out "on your right!". They seem to assume that he's deliberately remaining in their path.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Not legal in our fair town. Exception for small children, I believe. Although that may be a police-look-the-other-way thing.

[eal.livejournal.com]

There's got to be something in the water.

You're the third person I've heard about *today* who has encountered someone who was just randomly rude to them.

I hate that.

[mereilin.livejournal.com]

Heat and humidity seems to bring out the ugliest in people, I've noticed.

I'm bad

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

and fortunately most of the time my car window is closed because I have a potty mouth, especially when someone is being ignorant/stupid/dangerous and endangering my life and that of others.

I had my window down AND she heard it when I was waiting to go straight at an intersection, the woman beside me had crowded the motorcycle into the pedestrian crossing with her fscking SUV and she had the gall to honk at him to make him move into the interesction. He could see the car coming from the south over the hill, she couldn't.

I yelled, 'don't blow your f..... horn at a motorcyclist, you c...., if you scared him you'd have killed him!!" She heard me. I'm actually glad. She really hauled ass out of the intersection when she had a chance though.

I also try to give bicyclists the benefit of the doubt, and extra space if I can. Even though the racer who dived between vehicles at a stoplight today was asking to have an accident.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

That completely sucks. I'm really sorry. Nobody needs to have J. Random Jerk be mean to them, and you need it even less.

I hope you can shake it off and get back to enjoying biking and to comfortably use the train whenever it fits your plans and needs.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Blech. A cyclist in Des Moines was injured fairly badly earlier this week. It's believed he was run off the road by a car- run off, not just knocked over.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Wow, Peg. Your mere presence obviously has great effect on your fellow commuters. He was obviously blinded with jealousy of your environmentally-friendly, health-conscious brilliance. ;)

[vass]

I bet he wouldn't have done that to a male bicyclist. *is angry lesbian feminist*

[lauzeta.livejournal.com]

Some people have this weird idea that public transit is going to function as their own private vehicle. Bah to them, I say.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

What a distressing way to end the day. I hope a cool bath was in the offing once you got home and that your unfortunate encounter does not dissuade you from making the trip again tomorrow.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You didn't kill him on the spot. As far as I'm concerned, that's positive karma points.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Ha. True.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

What a jerk.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, this is where you need the all-purpose rejoinder, "what's it to you?" That way you don't need to quickly come up with The Clever Retort, and it puts them on the defensive, because they then have to justify, if even to themselves, why they should be cranked enough about a random person going on with your little life to make an uncalled for snarky comment.

I like to say it with puzzled expression, to drill in bizarreness of making such a comment. It leaves the rude person spluttering every time.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Excellent suggestion. I will remember that. Thanks!

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

"I BEG your pardon?", channeling your inner grand dame or most intimidating aunt, can work too.

[pazlazuli.livejournal.com]

.....!!!!!....!!!!!!

yeah, that's me - speechless with astonishment at the random rudeness people sometimes display...

hope today goes better for you...