My road rage experience while riding to work

No matter what the other person says on the street and no matter how insulting it is, it will always be better to just ignore and move on.

BHPian White Aviator recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello, I'm posting an incident that happened with me just a few hours ago.

As I reside in Pune, I always knew I would post on this thread sooner rather than later as the everyday commute is becoming increasingly stressful due to the devil may care attitude of people on the street. It seems as though almost everyone is a goon of the area and they drive/ride as if it's their private road, even a slight reaction from your side would result in you getting threaten or beaten up.

This incident happened today morning when I had just left home for my office on my KTM Duke 250 wearing complete riding gear as I usually do (The street conditions have become so bad that you can never be too safe so I always have at least my helmet, gloves and jacket on).

Here are the events that happened:

• I was passing from the backside of JW Marriott which is the main entrance of Pavilion mall to join SB road and an Activa ahead was going very slow so I went ahead and tried to overtake him from the right.
• He immediately swerved right and I had to brake. I felt he might be going right as he was almost on the opposite side of the road. He had not used his indicator which is not a surprise as most people on the road think of it as optional.
• Him now being on the right and almost on the opposite side, I went ahead from his left when he suddenly swerved left and I braked hard to avoid a collision and honked as I felt he might not have noticed me coming. Here I also realized this person does not have any mirrors on his vehicle and not even a helmet on as he had his trusty goggles to keep him safe.
• I now knew he had noticed me coming and I didn't want to be stuck behind such a hazard on the street so I made a quick overtake from the right and moved on. This is when I heard some shouting so I checked my mirrors to see him giving me the finger.
• At this point I was about to join SB road and had to be aware of the traffic coming from the right to safely join the road so I slowed down, looked and continued joining the road when I suddenly notice this person is on my right. He now started firing expletives and said some other things which weren't audible to be through my helmet.
• I told him to keep his finger showing to himself as it was him who was driving dangerously. He then went ahead to throw in a few more expletives telling me to get lost from his area. I told him to get lost in return as I don't want to speak with him. He got even more agitated which I should have known and started shouting something laced with expletives which I cannot remember as at that point I had my attention the traffic coming and safely negotiating through it.
• I also remembered reading this post on the forum and felt it's better to accelerate out of this situation before it takes turn for the worse so that is exactly what I did.
• I saw there was a good gap in the traffic ahead and accelerated quickly and thought I left him behind but I then noticed him chasing me down. He quickly caught up to me on his Activa and was shouting telling me to stop so he can show me who he is. He even tried to cut me across to slow me down and stop me but now I was afraid of getting beaten up by this goon and accelerated more to leave him behind.
• He chased me towards the end of SB road but couldn't keep up with me once I joined Pashan road which has less traffic and I could ride at a faster pace. I was relived to not see him in my rear view mirror anymore but still very angry and upset because of the incident. I thought to myself of the great day I had planned ahead of getting work done quickly and then going to meet a few friends which calmed me down.
• I then reduced my speed to my normal commuting speed and reached my office safely. I then sat and gathered my thoughts taking a moment to myself and talked to a close friend about our plans for the day which made me forget all the anger. I then immediately started compiling this post so that I do not forget anything.

Key takeaway and learning points:

• I'm unsure what upset this person so much as I just honked and did not even look back at him when I overtook him to just move on and now I feel we cannot even honk to make others aware we are there and overtake whenever they let us overtake.
• No matter what the other person says on the street and no matter how insulting it is, it will always be better to just ignore and move on.
• I'm happy that I had my Duke with me through this so I could outrun him. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had a slower bike as this person was riding the wheels off of his Activa and now I think its safer to have a faster vehicle.
• If I would have stopped I'm sure this person would have called up his fellow goons and even the people on the road would have sided with him after looking at my bike. People easily assume that the one with such bikes are rash riders or some might even try to target me thinking I'm very rich as I'm riding this bike.
• Calling the police may not have helped as they too could have had similar assumptions as the point above I feel and I would have to spend a lot of time and energy for such a small incident. Also I'm sure these goons would have already done all the damage and left before the police came so its better to just get out of the situation then and there.
• Doing a google search of 'Road rage incidents in Pune' will give you some horrifying articles where people were even murdered due to such small issues so its better to never engage with them
• Always keep in mind that these people don't know you so what they say about you is false so do not let it affect you. The people who do such things usually have nothing left in their life so they do this to make their life entertaining or maybe doing this is their job. We have a lot of things to look forward to and such incidents disturb our mental peace so think abou the good things in your life and move on forgetting such incidents.

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