Also: Huzzah, NATO alphabet. Seriously, it’s something we all really should learn in this world where letter names differ all over (and also for signal-to-noise reasons.) A career spent with Japanese, Korean, Indian, Dutch, French, Italian, Chinese, German, British, Canadian, Aussie, Mexican, and probably some other colleagues that I’ve forgotten using NATO spelling has saved a lot of time and grief.
Also: props to USAA and several other companies whose call center staff have apparently been trained to use it. USAA I can understand with all of their veteran members, but the others? Pleasant surprise.
US National Ski Patrol came out last year making NATO part of the routine training, because we really don’t have time to mess with alphabet games on radio calls – or in busy aid stations. Seriously, sometimes it reminds me of MASH.
I’ll have to ask the next cop I see writing the tickets if the perp gets points on their driver’s licence. That raises their insurance for about 5 years.
You could be describing my Maine “city.” It’s insane. I love this video. This activist is a minor superhero, in my eyes.
On a side note, I’ve been dreaming for years of making some of those balls with spikes on them to drop in front of offending autos and cause tire punctures, but am too worried about collateral damage.
Many drivers treat cyclists like an annoyance. I learned early on, if you wanted to ride a bicycle on the roads:
you needed to be comfortable with a percentage of drivers not even understanding you belong there, a percentage not seeing you, a percentage being angry at you because some other cyclist yelled at them at any given time, etc. Lets keep in mind a car can get dented, but a bicyclist is going to lose, and likely be dead.
One of the better ways to not be dead, is to be a bit militant about it at times.
Thank you for the clarification. Something in me knew it was the wrong move, even though it would/could be oh so gratifying. At least in the imagination. Ah, a gal can dream.
In England the seriousness of an assault is determined by how seriously the victim is hurt, not by whether a weapon is used- there is no such thing as “assault with a deadly weapon”. Fortunately, in this case the cyclist doesn’t seem to have been injured. So on the violence side, this is common assault (maximum prison sentence 6 months, first offenders usually get away with a fine).
On the traffic-offence side, I would hope they go after him for dangerous driving. That carries the same prison sentence (and again, for this sort of offence he would be unlikely to actually go to prison), but also a mandatory driving ban of at least a year requiring the driver to take an extended re-test to get their licence back.
