why do people in cars like throwing things at me when I run?

The BBQ Pit
21

Another runner/biker/walker here, equally willing to cap these ingrates with a nine if it were legal and I could handle a gun. I’ve never had anything thrown at me, but I’ve had my share of idiots yell at me and do various things like swerve into my direction then pull away at the last second. Yep. I could feel the draft from the car very strongly – it ruffled my sweat-matted hair, even, and they were doing only about fifteen miles an hour. Fellows, does the word ‘manslaughter’ mean anything to you? Considering my age and the fact that I was minding my own business, and considering that these guys were idiotic rednecks anyways, they’d probably do signifigant time if they hit me and I died as a result of their brainlessness.

Makes the blood boil, it does. If their lives are really so shallow and pointless as to limit their forms of entertainment to heckling those actually getting off their butts and doing something worthwhile, then maybe the amazing powers of Nonoproxyl-9 would do both them and humanity good.

22

And frankly, I’d welcome it.

23

Maybe you should stop buying your jogging suits at Target.

b-DOOM kssh

24

in my experience, its not so much the frat boys who throw things as young 15-16ish punks. Frat boys just do catcalls. On the other hand, like the OP, I am not afraid of the possibility that the young punks (in a generic sense, not the musical sense,) will come out of their car. I swear, i could take on all 4 of them, and I’m not a large guy. But when you throw an egg at me at 40 mph (causing a welt,) or shoot a air pistol at me causing my knee to bleed, it tends to raise my testosterone level.

I also notice that no one even has the guts to CATCALL let alone throw things any where near a corner. If they had, there would certainly be one fewer car out there with a decent paint job to say the least.

25

“Why don’t you report the license plates?” **HAW HAW HAW! **

At least in Austin, Texas, that is. You can get knocked off your bike and injured by someone throwing objects out of a car and have several witnesses and a license plate number, and the cops can barely be bothered to swallow the mouthfuls of donuts they think they’re getting paid to eat before telling you to go fuck yourself. If you live in Austin, go ahead and assault all the pedestrians and bicycle riders you want.

26

A cretin tossed a lit cigar at me while I was running. Luckily, the campus police saw it and pulled the bastard over. The driver said it was an accident (and there was no way to prove it wasn’t), but the cop still gave him a ticket for littering. Small justice, but sometimes, that’s all ya get.

27

Bwahahahahaha! Oh, my sides! Bryan, you are my hero.

28

Whoa. The actions mentioned in the OP were certainly reprehensible, but you’d advocate killing these idiots? That seems just a wee bit strong to me.

29

And a bottle whipped from a moving car could possibly hit someone in the head and kill someone.

30

-So aim for the tires.

I remember riding my old BMX type bike many years ago, middle of the city, after school. Riding along on the left shoulder of a two-lane, and something big and kinda heavy, but not with a lot of force, hits me square in the back.

Before I even realize what’s happening, a ratty black pickup whips past- in the left lane- and as it continues on, slides back into the righthand lane and keeps going.

Turned out the item thrown was a “big gulp” type cup, empty but probably a third or more full of ice.

The asshole deliberately swerved into my lane to throw the cup at me.

I can only hope that sometime in the intervening twenty years the dickweed died of a brain hemorrhage.

31

You’re nicer than I am. I’d advocate pulling out an RPG and blowing them and their car to tiny, bite-sized pieces.

32

I have gotten knocked off my bike by stuff like that before. God I hate those people! No offense To Kyla but I aggree with SPOOFE

33

Hey, no offense taken. I guess I’m just mystified by all these casual threats of violence. Not just in this thread, and not just on the SDMB. Kids do stupid things, and while I don’t think they should get off scott-free, capital punishment for that kind of behavior strikes me as overly harsh. Getting knocked off your bike by a fucking idiot who thinks it’s fun to be a nuisance and a danger to some innocent bystander totally sucks. But to get up off the ground, aim your weapon at the moron, pull the trigger and end his life? Yeow.

Of course, I’m against capital punishment in general. So maybe I’m just a crazy hippie peacenik, and you all can take my words with a grain of salt.

34

Maybe I wouldnt go for a whole gun. But I would go for a paintball gun.One of the times I got knocked over was by one of those, after I got hit the first thing that flashed through my head was " Holy Shit! somebody shot me! I’m probably gonna die!" but then you realize that it wasnt real and your just plain pissed off. Unfortunetly the guys who got me werent stupid enough to tape themselves.

35

I would never kill, even in self-defense, even against non-human life – the ‘capping with my nine’ reference I made was just an excuse to say ‘capping with a nine’, a phrase I find side-splittingly funny for some reason. But these people tick me off to an extreme, especially when what they do can land me or someone else in the morgue. These people are complete wastes that would do far better being wiped off on the sheets than roaming around terrorizing pedestrians.

36

What!!! You don’t slap flies? Ants?

37

If it’s kill or be killed, you had best be damn sure that I’m going to do everything I can to be the one standing when it’s all said and done. And fact of the matter is that a rock or a bottle thrown at you can kill you. A good friend of ours died when “punk kids” with “nothing better to do” threw a piece of brick down on her as she jogged beneath an overpass.

Another friend came damned close to dying when someone threw (or fired, it may well have been a bullet) something which shattered her driver’s window in her car – the glass shattered and nicked an artery in her neck, and she came close to bleeding out. It took months for her to recover from the blood loss (she still has residual brain damage) and she has scarring on her face, neck and arm which she will bear for the rest of her life.

I no longer run, but when I did it was in places where there was no vehicular traffic (highly recommended) or where the traffic was so heavy that no one with half a functioning brain cell woud try something so stupid, because they’d never be able to get away. If I were running now, it’d be in broad daylight, with a cell phone, in the safest places possible.

mmjewett, et al, if you have to run before dawn/after sunset, is it possible to use the track at a local school, or in a well-lit public park, somewhere away from cars? It’s infinitely safer, and easier to track your mileage, too.

38

Whoa. The actions mentioned in the OP were certainly reprehensible, but you’d advocate killing these idiots? That seems just a wee bit strong to me. **
[/QUOTE]

Please show where I specifically advocated killing the idiots. Now.

39

No, I’m going to go ahead and rant, because I’m not going to wait.

People who accuse me of being “bloodthirsty”, “evil”, “murderous”, “violent”, etc.; or who clearly attribute actions and words to me that I did not say along those lines make me sick. And if their accusations are completely without grounds, I will seek their banning from this message board.

One thing about living in the Real World is that Bad Shit Happens. Bad Shit happened in history, it happens now, and it sure as shit WILL continue to happen, so long as people allow it to happen, and do not act to prevent it from happening again.

Let’s examine this in language that’s right down to Earth, so even the persistently or terminally stupid can understand it, since this seems to be a recurring problem here.

A person who is out for a run, a ride on their bike, or just out for a walk, gets something thrown at them. It could be as simple as a Big Mac wrapper, it could be a lit cigarette, or it could be something much more deadly - in the case of the OP (which apparently was either unread, or uncared-about) bottles.

You don’t need a fucking engineering degree to know that a bottle thrown from a moving car that hits you can be a fucking life-altering event. Or maybe you do, since otherwise intelligent people think that being knocked off your bike by a bottle only “sucks”.

Welcome to the real world, where hard glass objects thrown from cars cut, maim, disfigure, and can kill. Still don’t believe it, because it doesn’t fit into your happy shiny Worldview? Go post over in GQ; I’m not going to teach the scientifically illiterate about the basic facts surrounding Bottle meets Head.

We’ve also had people post that getting the license number (assuming you are able to) does no good, and that the police don’t take it seriously. Imagine! The police not taking a crime seriously - who’d a thunk it? And Smiling Policeman who will always be there to protect us all when we are left defenseless (as is often asserted by gun-banners) hasn’t been there in most all cases, and in fact is normally not present. Imagine! People might actually have to protect themselves!

But how? :confused:

Well, unlike 99.99% of the people who claim to have done so, I actually have defended myself or de-escalated a situation using a firearm. On three non-consecutive occasions.

Horrors! I thought guns only were used for slaughtering innocent children like hogs?!?!

Let’s stick to the OP - a person who throws bottles from a moving car at another who is minding their own business, walking or jogging along, is, intentionally or otherwise, trying to commit manslaughter. Or showing depraved indifference towards their fellow human beings.

He has every right to let these fucks know that this will not be tolerated. He can show them the weapon. He can fire into the air. He can fire at the car. Or, if he feels his life is truly in danger, and that they are going to come back, he can fire at the car, and the occupants. Something - anything - to let them know that today, this day, their depraved actions will not be tolerated!

Even just firing into the air makes human scum piss themselves and scurry away 99% of the time. They will think twice before they decide to commit a criminal act on a random, undeserving person.

I know it’s hard to imagine, but every time a gun is fired, people don’t have to die. Quite often, lives are saved.

I have been “stalked” by a car, which returned not once but twice to throw things at me, as I worked on a flat tire by the side of the road. They threw lit firecrackers, then a piece of wood (with a nail in it), and on the last pass, a socket, which dented my fender. If it had hit my face, I’d be even uglier than I am.

I am sick to shit of people who live in a fucking fantasy world where everything will work out, there is always the Smiling Policeman, people can always be reasoned with, and every individual is a perfect, beautiful flower in their own way.

I did not call for the killing of the bottle-throwing individuals, I called for defense, in the form of saying that it was too bad he couldn’t throw something back at them - like 9mm slugs. There is a leap required to go from that to me advocating killing people - especially when it’s couched to make it sound like I advocate killing casually, or in cold blood. Which I don’t think I’ve ever done. :frowning:

40

I’ve been hit in the chest by a bottle and it not only knocked me down, but cut hell out of me as well. The only issue I’d take with your post is that I’d prefer a .40 instead of a 9mm. You summed up the situation so much better than I could have.

Thank you.

Testy