Video: Road Rage, Middle Finger, Happy Ending

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Don’t engage with road-ragers. Just don’t – it’s not worth the aggravation or potentially negative outcome. Here, however, there’s no violent or crazy result, and the situation was handled overall pretty maturely by the motorcyclist, without any voices being raised or windows getting punched-out (save for the initial one-finger salute, but that’s basically a natural knee-jerk reaction).

You’re probably asking yourself then, why should I even watch this video? Well, because we can all take something away from it. The lesson to be learned here is to always be vigilant. Always. Most, if not all of us, have seen this same situation unfold countless times. A car wants to move over and change lanes, and because they’re bigger than you, they should have the right-of-way, no? Hell no! Unless push comes to shove of course… As a general rule, though, there’s too much at stake for a motorcyclist to engage with a road-rager, so swallow your pride and move on.

Motorcycles have as much of a right to be on the road as any car, but just don’t go preaching that all over the place – it might annoy jealous non-riders, like the driver of the blue Honda Accord in this video. I think it’s safe to say that the driver saw the motorcyclist coming, and because “he had his blinker on,” thought the motorcyclist should yield to him and proceeded to move into the bike’s lane before intentionally swerving into the rider to show him who’s boss, for lack of a better explanation.

This kind of thing happens all the time, especially in California where jealous drivers get envious of motorcyclists who legally don’t have to roast like a Thanksgiving turkey while sitting in traffic. This point is further proven when the driver of the Accord moves to the left most part of his lane and even over the line to prevent the motorcyclist from getting past. As an aside, using your blinker doesn’t automatically give you the right-of-way, it simply signals­ your intention to change direction – some people need to understand that.

The light is red, though, and the motorcyclist confronts the driver, eventually apologizing and telling the driver to “take care,” all the while never raising his voice or escalating the situation. Bravo. Personally, nine out of 10 times I would have never even stopped or wasted my breath on the guy – and you shouldn’t either. Just be glad nothing happened and carry on safely to see your loved ones and to ride another day…