You hear of stories where people riding motorcycles believe they have been wronged by other road users and take it upon themselves to exact revenge by breaking wing mirrors and the like. However there is one fatal flaw in this method of madness…and that is it will likely end up in a court action going the wrong way.
Recently another case was of a group of riders believing that a car ahead of them was performing an inappropriate overtake, so when they in turn overtook that vehicle, many of the riders negatively let their feelings to known in a non verbal manner however one particular rider was alleged to have broken the wing mirror of the vehicle in a fit of angst.
This road retribution was met with the registration details being noted down and passed onto the police who in turn too the matter to court with the rider facing criminal damages charges…and for what?
The fact of the matter is that regardless what any other road user has done prior to this incident, any rider who reacts beyond verbal or non verbal castigation and causes property damage or physical harm is more than likely to be in the wrong and will face criminal charges.
There is no room for road rage and even more so for physical confrontation or property damage. Sure the rider may feel good about themselves about the spirit of vengeance, but really it just shows a lack of control and not being able to take pause for a second.
Whilst these incidents are not new news, it has been on the rise in recent months. Whenever I would hear of situations like this, I would wonder why riders would do this? ‘Be careful what you wish for” I would say and don’t think you can easily get away from this.
This is not to say if a driver or any other road user causes you to have a near miss or infringes your path in some manner, you should not be able to vent your displeasure, but really it must never go beyond words and refrain from anything physical.
In this recent case where a Harley Davidson rider was alleged to have broken a wing mirror of a driver, it was also reported the driver was a solo woman occupant. Not that this excuses the driving actions, nor does it mean that it would be different if a man were the driver…but surely you’ve got to feel pretty ashamed of yourself and scaring somebody like that.
Suffice to say there are always consequences to actions and just because we riders may believe we are in the right, it doesn’t mean we have the right to take the law into our own hands…no matter how appealing that might be at the time. And if we do, then it is only right we face the consequences like we honourably should.