This might be the longest series of unnecessary honks in the history of driver-versus-cyclist confrontations. An older male driver in a Ford SUV, license plate Colorado 893 EKG, slowed behind two bikers out for a Sunday ride near Longmont, Colorado, and laid on his horn for an awfully long time. He ignored the fact that the cyclists rode single file on the edge of the road. He honked so incessantly that one of the two cyclists ran out of memory while recording a video of the incident on his phone. There's no video to show what happened before the truck pulled up behind the cyclists, but here's a quick summary of what happened from one of the riders:
This guy obviously doesn't like seeing bikes for some reason since he sat
behind us for more than five minutes blaring his horn. What's even
worse is we saw him approaching from behind and to be polite we ride
single file to give him as much road as possible, as we did with every
other car we encountered on this road east of Longmont, Colorado. This guy was
so intent of bugging us that he backed up traffic behind him and cars
had to pass him on a double yellow line. It seems he was the one
obstructing traffic, not us. We ended up slowing up in order to force
him to pass us and go on with his day. Insane. Hopefully this is the
worst thing this guy does to cyclists.
The cyclists said they know of similar situations occurring with this driver and have notified the Colorado State Patrol. They've posted underneath their video if anyone wants to call and file a report.
We picked up the following update from on September 20.
The driver who hassled two road cyclists in Colorado this week by
following them and honking his horn obsessively for three minutes has
been charged with four misdemeanors by the Colorado State Patrol. Seventy-five year old James Ernst, 75, of Erie, Colorado, was cited for
improper use of his horn, two counts of harassment, and — this is the
most delightfully schadenfreudenistic part — impeding traffic.
H/T:
—Joe Spring