Which is a level of impatience that makes him an asshole on any road, without a cellphone. This is my criteria: If the other driver didn’t have a cellphone, is this guy being an asshole? The answer is yes. Is the other driver’s actions rational without a cellphone? The answer is yes. The cellphone, once entered into evidence doesn’t change any of that. And as previously stated, honking is not a great way to make clear what you’re objecting to. We need more Zen drivers not more drivers that are willing to assert aggro to everything they don’t like. This wouldn’t have helped had the guy not been a cop, and would have accomplished precisely nothing.
I’m a motocyclist. People who talk on cells phones in traffic are driving distracted. Period. Distracted drivers are a serious risk to motorcycle safety. I don’t know how many times I was almost creamed by a cell-phone wielding driver…
The horn is an indispensable communication tool for motorcyclists to make other drivers aware of your presence and potentially hazardous situations.
That said, cops can legally use a cell phone while on duty. Of course that’s almost impossible to tell they’re cops when they are in unmarked cars. Still, it’s not ‘road rage’ to honk at another vehicle, police or not, to get their attention or alert them.
Let’s look at the relevant section from the Colorado Driver Handbook:
Page 33: Under section 12.6 Aggressive Driving
A single act, such as tailgating another driver, passing on the shoulder or running a red light could be seen by a law enforcement officer as aggressive if the officer believes the action is willful and places others in danger. A combination of acts, such as speeding, cutting off other vehicles, swerving toward another motorist, honking, flashing headlights, yelling and using inappropriate hand gestures can also be considered aggressive driving.
It doesn’t look like the officer could sustain the “combination of acts” requirement in writing a ticket, particularly with the video evidence.
The fun irony is hearing other drivers honking and passing (illegally) on the right as the officer lectures the motorcyclist.
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Are you not engaging in the exact behavior you are decrying, that is, telling other road users how to behave?
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Around here, technically, you’re supposed to use the horn only for safety - to communicate danger, communicate a hazard to a driver whose vision may be blocked, announce that you’re about to reverse across the sidewalk, that sort of thing.
Using the horn to communicate impatience, because a picketer’s sign says “honk if you support IATSE local #21286”, because you’re too lazy to go ring the doorbell, or to get someone’s attention so you can wave good morning or gesture to get off the phone or whatever - all of those can net you a ticket (though seldom do).
These videos always remind me of this passage from Beagle’s Folk of the Air
"The myriad arts of self-defense,” John Erne said. “They’re all just in it because of the muggers, you understand, or the police, or the Zen of it all. But no new weapon ever goes unused for long. Pretty soon the streets will be charged with people, millions of them, all loaded and cocked and frantically waiting for somebody to pull their trigger. And one man will do it—bump into another man or look at him sideways and set it all off.” He opened one hand and blew across his palm as if he were scattering dandelion fluff. “The air will be so full of killer reflexes and ancient disabling techniques there’ll be a blue haze over everything. You won’t hear a single sound, except the entire population of the United States chopping at one another with the edges of their hands.”
And we’ll have footage of it all.
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Honking your horn at someone, even if you’re not in the right, is not a crime. The cop is being an asshole by even getting out of his car.
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Just doing his job, driving around and playing with his phone, like the L.A. Sheriff’s deputy who murdered bicycle rider Milt Olin.
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This is a roundabout. When the biker honked his horn, it was because the vehicle ahead of him was not merging. When he realized it was due to distraction from a cell phone, he motioned to the driver to ‘hang up’ the phone and drive undistracted. None of this makes the motorcyclist an asshole, in my mind. “Hotdogging” on the other hand, is a different matter. Nonetheless, his actions here are wholly justified. This officer was caught not paying attention and used his position of authority to harass a motorist who called him on it. He should be reprimanded for his behavior, regardless of any alleged previous behavior from this motorist.
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Of course. You didn’t see the cop pull a gun or at least a taser, did you?
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christ what an asshole.
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Every now and then we get a chance to look behind the public service curtain and see how police culture regards itself, the citizenry and the relation between the two. Officer Roadrage here let the curtain slip. That’s sure to get him a brief talking-to from a supervisor.
I think the guy on the bike did great. He held his ground and kept his wits and (mostly) his poise despite one provocation after another from the officer. If the biker was able to finish one complete statement without the officer talking over him I missed it.
(I would have had to put my gloved hand in my mouth to keep from responding to the nonsense, and even then I would have been bouncing up and down in my seat with my eyes rolling back in my head. Keeping my mouth shut in the face of factually inaccurate statements and illogic from authority figures is not a talent of mine.)
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Is “talking on a cellphone” necessarily “obviously inattentive to their driving”? Your sentence very strongly implies you think so. I disagree.
If I see someone obviously inattentive to their driving, I too feel outrage. But equating that with simply being on a cellphone is nuts. I’ve had a cellphone for 20 years, and in my entire 35 years of driving I have exactly zero accidents.
Dialing seven digits while driving, yes, that takes a lot of care, I daresay more care than I trust many people to use. But simply talking on a cellphone, I’m not buying it; I’d rather that, than have someone fiddling with their radio, eating a burger, or any of a number of other activities that we don’t appear to have any laws or even societal norms against.
And if someone talking on a cell causes some observer so much outrage that the observer gets into some kind of wreck, I will lay that squarely at the observer’s feet.
Actually, I’m on @vonbobo’s side about this. It is exactly the responsibility of our society and its citizens to self-regulate when it comes to dangerous behavior like this…especially one that affects people’s lives. One might be annoyed to receive a chastising horn beep, but at the same time, it might prevent someone who is as bad or worse than a drunk driver from hurting people. If it’s our responsibility to stop someone who is obviously intoxicated from driving, it is absolutely our job to get people off the phone.
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I saw one motorcycle rider that would like the impeding car to get moving and to get on with his day and one asshole. Where’s the 2nd one?
Yes, I already knew that well-known link to that objective-third-party study; all my friends know the link too, and indeed everyone I meet on the street. And I’m glad my friends and I all know it, because otherwise the difference between “an assumption made by a lot of people” vs “a well-known fact” could be a contentious issue.
Edit: I see “well known” has been changed to “well-established”. My friends and I all agree with that too.
As has been linked before here, driving while talking on a cell phone is as bad as or worse than driving while drunk. There have been multiple studies, and they even did a Mythbusters on it.
I’ve had a cellphone for 20 years, and in my entire 35 years of driving I have exactly zero accidents.
This is no different from saying “I’ve been driving home drunk for 20 years and have never had an accident.” Your personal anecdote about how well you hold your [cellphone use] has no relevance to whether cell phone use greatly increases the risk of accidents.
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“Officer Roadrage here let the curtain slip. That’s sure to get him a brief talking-to from a supervisor.”
A brief talking to? That would be inhumane! Surely he’s suffered more than enough already. This is a family man, subject to stresses none of us could possibly imagine.
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Yeah, well I’ve been smoking for 20 years, and I don’t have cancer, so where’s your science now?
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christ what an asshole
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SERIOUSLY CHRIST WHAT AN ASSHOLE
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