Have any of you Allegroids experienced Road Rage or been a victim of it? In Britain it is supposed to be on the increase, I have not experienced any myself to date but know a lot of people who have experienced it in some form or the other.

Asam

Do you mean people screaming and honking their horns? Nope. Bad drivers doing stupid mistakes due to frustration/rage, definitely.

Yes.

I once saw a driver exchange obscenities with another driver in the evening rush-hour and they got out of their vehicles and had a right good scrap!!!

A lot of car drivers are complete knackers, I think twice about hurling abuse now in case they come and stab me.

I've played Road Rash. Does that count?

You do right,

I myself refrain from responding to other drivers stupidity but am prepared to use my 'STOP-LOCK' steering lock (which is solid metal) as a weapon if the need arises!!

I have a knife in the car in case I hit an animal and have to kill it. But that's not supposed to be used on human beings. I've never seen people fight. I meant people running a red light, doing crazy overtakings and such.

Definitely!:D

Nope, but boy that game was so cool!! I had it on the amiga 1200 and my pc and loved both versions.

Yeah kill it and then take it home for supper

You must live in a safer country than mine if you have never seen anyone have a fight, Us British are unfortunately losing our rags far too often for my liking

I witnessed it sometimes. Last time some wacko wanted to start at my father because we were driving through a monitored tunnel at 70kph which was speedlimit and he wanted to overtake us. He did it throught the right lane and suddenly hitted brakes and then pulled off. When we arrived at the lights on the end of the tunnel, he was waiting there for green. My father just smiled at him and waved his hand at him to greet him. That wacko got out of a car and wanted to come up. But just in that time green light came on and we pulled off. I just heard a horn behind us, when the drivers behind this wacko wanted to go.

Oh by the way, that Stop Lock is not a bad idea.

If anyone comes to Greece and get an open-hand gesture from other drivers, it is not that we love you and we say 'hello'; it is an offensive gesture...that happens quite often, due to 'road rage'...that's how we got the highest accident percentage in Europe...

Yeah I found your driving quite interesting. When we were in Greece, we rented a car. That man from car rental showed us maybe more thant three times where the horn is

Also I found out, that in most case the one who horns first goes first throught the crossroad.

Yeah, it's something I hope that I won't have to do. But I would rather do it than let the animal suffer for several hours before a hunter arrives.

I've seen people have fights. But I've never seen people have one due to road rage. And I probably live in a safer country than you, but I don't have any statistics to look at.

I don't know if this counts as road rage, but it was certainly violence. This happened to me about 90 minutes ago (1:30 am).

I was on my way home from work, which is a petrol station in the city. I was riding my motorbike down a main road, when I spotted two dark green rubbish bins (the kind with wheels on them) pushed out onto the road about 100m apart from each other. Since they are dark and can be easily missed... er... hit, I thought I'd do the right thing and take them off the road. So I pulled over and started putting the rubbish back into the first bin. Next thing I know, from around the corner, a male and female in their early 20s appeared, both yelling and carrying on at me, trying to pick a fight. He was holding an empty beer bottle by the neck. They were closer to my bike than I was, but i managed to get on it and start it up. As I tried to get away, he pushed me off the bike. He was still carrying on, pushing himself and the bottle against me, before I told him that a hit from my gloves would hurt quite a bit. If you've ever seen proper motorbike gloves, you would have noticed the conveniently integrated knuckle dusters. This just made him more agressive, so I gave him a carbon-fibre knuckle sandwich in an attempt to neutralise him. This only flared him up even more. He must have been drunk. As I ran to the traffic island (his girlfriend in pursuit), he went around the corner and broke the bottle and headed in my direction. I managed to flag down a helpful motorist who called the police emergency number and allowed me to sit in his car. Next thing the cops are there and all these spectators come out from nowhere. I gave a quick statement, got on the bike (minus a broken helmet visor) and rode home.

There was this other time at work when two cars collided and I tried to mediate, but then one of them suddenly came at me with a wheel brace that happened to be located between the driver's seat and driver's side door. I wonder what that was doing there? Fùcking hot-head Italian Godfather wannabe.

EDIT: As far as carrying weapons is concerned, don't do it. They don't give you an advantage. They can be turned against you. Don't let your pride kill you. The best thing you can do is make your best attempt to get away from the scene.

It's time for me to take up martial arts of some kind. I feel kind of silly not being able to defend myself properly. I've always avoided fights. This is the first time I've punched anyone.

A funny thing happened to me once. I was driving along a country road when I got stuck behind an old man (the kind that wears a hat when driving, you know what these people are like) and his wife who were doing 30 km/h. I'm not very patient when it comes to having to drive 30 km/h behind another car, so I overtook them. It was a very narrow country road, barely two car widths wide, so I had to put two wheels off road and on to the gravel to be able to do it. Later this man came up to me at the store where I stopped and started shouting things like: "You sprayed my car with gravel! I'll call the police! I'll take you to court!" His face was glowing red and I swear steam was coming out of his ears. With the hat still on of course. I didn't know whether to just laugh out loud or to roll on the floor as well.

miran: if I were you, I'd not know what to do also.
Steve: so basically don't play a goodman again next time, just pass away and ride straight home.

I've seen it once, some guy got out of his car in a traffic jam and started banging on the drivers window in front of him and yelling.. that was a few years back.

Other than that I have not seen anyone get out of their vehicle and fight the other driver.

Steve++, don't worry about martial arts - just learn how to bust someone's knees with a quick kick - that'll stop them in their tracks, and their screaming will put doubt in anyone else's mind

Yes, violent, but someone's after you with a broken bottle, then tough shit to them.

For the record, I've never been in a brawl either, and don't intend to.

There's something about getting into the driver's seat of a car that turns a seemingly ordinary person into a right psycho. Me? I prefer riding my bicycle. Cyclepaths are better than psychopaths

AE.

And the boot moved to the other foot. Rather than there being idiot cyclists, there are now moronic drivers

Except that bike manufacturers are evil, incompetent bastards.

Eh? Please expand on that - I'm genuinely curious

They couldn't design a cheap, reliable vehicle if their lives depended on it?
I'm currently this ->| |<- close to taking an angle grinder to my goddamn piece of shit bike because I'm SICK. AND. FUCKING. TIRED. of fixing it AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. So while you don't get road rage, you definitely get bicycle rage.
I'm starting to think that bicycle and lawn mower manufacturers are actually КГБ puppets in some kind of plot to break our will to live and resist...

Are all your experience with bikes has been bad ones? I've got a RockHopper for mountain biking and a 10 year old GT timberline for commuting, and no problems.

Yes. They ALL break. All the time. They're designed that way. I hate them!

Well, all except the LTGAC, but those are ridiculously hard to find, and in this town I wouldn't get to keep one anyway. And even their tires are of the idiotic pneumatic kind.

Gnolam, you must be hard on your bikes for them to break. I've fallen down a 3 metre retaining wall with my bike, but still it functions. I've run into the back of cars with my bike (they travel so slow here ), but still it works.

Tell you what - if you're ever in my neck of the woods, we'll go bike shopping, and get you something that'll last.

Even if it actually exists, "something that'll last" will, with 100% certainty, violate the "cheap" in "cheap, reliable vehicle" (yes, I can afford a new bike - but I can't afford a new one every 6 months). And, of course, I don't believe they do exist. Their chains will slip. Their tires will go flat. Everything that's not actually welded to the frame will, over time, jump loose and need tightening.
I don't need gears. I don't need pneumatic tires (I hate the sons of bitches! ). All I want something that'll get me to point A to point B faster and with less work than walking, without having to spend 8 goddamn hours of work a week doing maintenance. Now tell me with a straight face that such a bicycle exists...

They do.

The bike that I took my username from (long story) I had for many years, and it took a hell of a lot of punishment. I'm apparantly invisible once I'm on a bike, and LL and I managed to get rear-ended by cars on four seperate occasions. Plus there were drunken-riding mishaps and I frequently left it out in the rain. And this was an already old 10-speed that I bought for just $20.

I've driven around 4000km with my bike this year and I've only had to change tubes about four times. Broken glass on streets is bad.
Also I literally lost my front fender so that I even didn't notice it. I'm still not sure if it was stolen or it just fell off.

Of course last year I drove around 3000km and besides lots of tubes had to change entire front wheel and shocks since I drove into a car at high speed

Generally I don't spare my bike from anything. I literally jump around quite a lot with it. Drops from 1m are not that uncommon. 0.5m ones I do daily when I go to work.

On the average I spend around 1h a month on my bike. Most of that time goes to lubricating and setting up gear shifting. I should probably spend more time since lately it has started to squeak.

[edit]
the bike cost around €380/$490 and is about three years old if you are interested
[/edit]

And to not go totally offtopic, my answer to the original question is "no".

I'm very calm driver. I experienced road rage only once. This was once when I was on the road with a borrowed GSX-R750W, like the one in the picture.
http://www.tt-systemer.dk/gfx/Suzuki%20GSXR750-92.jpg
I caught up an old man driving a vintage 80's rustbucket (aka. Nissan Sunny) and the old geezer signaled the road is clear ahead for overtaking, however it was a curve to the right and a non-overtaking zone. As I made the decision to not overtake, a brand new Audi A6 zoomed past from the oncoming direction. Had I been too quick on the trigger, I would've died then as a direct result of the old man giving the all clear signal, so I was obviously pretty mad. After the bend the road opened as a 2+1 and I did what I had to do: Kicked down to third gear, opened the throttle, and while passing him safely on the overtaking lane at 170km/h gave him the bird.

(170km/h because if I hadn't caught him by surprise, the fucker would've probably tried to ram me.)

I'm overconfident enough to not get "road rage", I feel I'm in control of their petty displays of displeasure. But I do rage (stressed I guess), last night I fought with Blender again for some Pixelate demo prog data, got so p'o'ed I cussed it so loud I made the dishes ring.

I've experienced road rash ...

I've also seen people try to yell at bus drivers for various things.

I've been yelled at by bus drivers for various things.

Diana: Well, you know - woman in car equals car without driver
(of course there are some exceptions)

and I thought women were safe drivers...

Wahhhaaa ha ha ha!!!

Wow! what a sight!

sense of humor!

Back when I had a car, I often got annoyed by people who didn't kow where the throttle was. But I've never experienced road rage...

About bicycles, my old BMX without gears was awesome. I can't remember it ever even loosing air in the tires and I mistreated that thing a lot. I could really trust that thing with my life. It has degraded a lot now that it's not used anymore though.

If you want a bike that holds, get something really old, I'm talking 20 years old or something like that. Newer bikes are not built to last.

Maybe you should get one of these?
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Although at £199.99, it might fall outside your definition of 'cheap', but this mountain-bike can handle some serious heavy-duty commuting. I've got a variation of one with a front-suspension fork that cost roughly £250.00. Back when I used to live in the 'Kebab of West Yorkshire', I would cycle every day to work over about 3km of steep hills and bad roads. In fact, I even once rode my bike from Ossett to Amsterdam over the course of four days (and one overnight boat-trip). Now that I'm in Amsterdam, the bike seems a bit overkill, but it's accelleration is just awesome, and I can go on really long cyclerides. Before I got my current bike, I had a similar one which got stolen (but fared pretty well after 1.5 years of what West-Yorkshire had to offer). While waiting for my new bike, I borrowed a velocipede of lesser quality, but alas, the poor thing could not handle my daily commute and was never the same again.

Just out of interest, how hilly is your commute, and what is the quality of roads like where you cycle?

AE.

Yes. Yes it does. 3 kkr/6-12 months is way too much.

That I've seldom (never?) encountered any comfortable mountainbikes doesn't help things.

Hardly at all. Östergötland is flat, flat, flat.

Regular (poorly maintained) asphalt.

There's a reason expensive bikes are more expensive than cheap bikes.

In a flat environment, a 24-speed bike is a bit overkill, but having suspension does ease the journey in a road infested with potholes.

I've had mine 5 years and counting, and it's a joy to own.

Here are some piccys of my bundle of joy.

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AE.