Comment & Analysis: Don’t touch the car. Don’t tap on the window. Did the driver nearly run you down? Or your children? Did you feel like your limbs and even your life were at risk? It doesn’t matter. Touching a car is worse. Or, at least, that is what many motorists seem to think, and some will assault you for it.
There are three cases which have happened recently or which have been in court recently where motorists and passengers have assaulted cyclists — I know that at least two of these involved the people cycling tapping on a window or banging on a car.
One of these was an assault that was videoed less than two weeks ago at Marino Mart in Fairview in Dublin. Thankfully, the person who was swung at repeatedly says he’s okay. He tapped on a vehicle after a close
Two cases from 2022 that were resolved in the courts were recently reported.
In the first court case, the Irish Independent reported that a 28-year-old driver was reported to have “pummelled” a 66-year-old man who was cycling in what was described as a “vicious, revolting” assault on Dublin street.
The motorist was jailed for nine months for the assault.
The details are slim enough about how this started, but it is yet another worrying case of a driver in a case of road rage assaulting a cyclist.
In another case in Cork, the Irish Examiner reported that a 25-year-old man was cycling home after a soccer match at Turner’s Cross when he was cut off by a motorist, and when he tapped on the car, it somehow led the occupants to think that the reasonable thing to do was to beat him up.
The two occupants were unidentified, and the car’s owner was not in the car at the time. But the owner was prosecuted, resulting in him being fined €1,500 and banned from driving for two years after failing to provide information under the Road Traffic Acts.
Judge John King said he was very lucky he was only charged with that and not pervert the course of justice. The Judge was reported to have said: “Someone commented on someone else’s driving by a little tap on the car to complain.”
From my experience and from listening to others, people who cycle generally end up tapping or banging on a car for one of two reasons: To try to stay alive in the moment or to let a motorist know they’ve engaged them or others.
Around a decade ago, a taxi driver cut me off. It being Dublin, he didn’t get far, in this case, maybe a few metres ahead before he was caught at a traffic light — which made the dangerous overtake even more pointless.
The driver was irate that I tapped on the car as he passed. He was having none of anything I was saying, and apparently I was never in danger he tried to make out… despite the fact, I could tap on the car as he passed me.
In a much closer shave, a few years before that on Arran Quay, a Dublin Bus driver did something similar. It was just before Church Street — this is an old Street View image of roughly what it was like at the time when bus drivers used to have to pull across the cycle lane into the bus stop:
I only managed to right myself and also stop the bus driver from continuing to drive in on top of me by banging on the window of the bus.
I’m sure that was frightening for the passengers, but, at the time, I had survival in mind.
When he stopped and I was able to talk to the driver, he was also having none of it. Banging on the window was the worst thing that could have possibly happened in the minute before talking to him.
That was a case of banging and not tapping, as I thought I was a goner. It felt like slow motion, and I can replay it back in my head. However, tapping can produce the same result, regardless of whether it is on a car’s bodywork or the window.
(As an aside, you find yourself explaining yourself more than you should have to when these things happen: Why didn’t I cycle away? It’s hard to cycle away when a bus is knocking you off your balance after the driver started to overtake, but when you’re still around mid-point along the bus when he then starts to pull in. I should also add that Dublin Bus drivers were overall far more aggressive towards cyclists back then)
I would honestly advise anybody to avoid tapping or in any way touching a car unless you think that you are at immediate risk and you’re trying to warn the driver.
Added for clarity: Given the assaults listed and some indications of others throughout the years, I am advising against touching a car if it can be avoided. I’m not condoning any outbursts from motorists. I’m not even saying that I will always avoid tapping on a window after a motorist acts like an idiot. As discussed in the comments section, people should make their own assessment of any given situation and their ability and willingness to engage with a motorist.
There are all sorts of psychological and physiological responses involved when you startle or frighten somebody by tapping on a window.
A motorist — especially one who is oblivious to the significance of a close pass, or even the fact that they nearly ran you over — will likely feel like they were just driving along minding their own business until you tapped on their window and invaded their space.
There’s been a lot written about cars as a private bubble which moves through public spaces containing two armchairs and a couch. Knocking on a window punctures that space. For some, I imagine, there’s little difference between tapping on the window of a car and knocking on their living room window when they are relaxing in front of the TV.
There’s also psychopathic behaviour from general psychopaths and a hint of it from people who think cyclists are somehow different to them because of the mode of transport they are using. The latter happens in no small part played by some in the media, depicting cyclists as more lawless than anybody else.
For those who are not frightened or startled, people (regardless of what mode of transport they use) really don’t like being told that they are in the wrong. And some people will react worse than others to this.
While avoiding tapping on cars, both while cycling and as a pedestrian, I’ve also had motorists react by pressing down on their horns in reaction to anything from me giving them an obvious dirty look of disapproval, holding both palms open in the air, or polite or at least not unreasonable vocalisation (ie “what are you doing” after zooming past a zebra).
They know they are in the wrong but cannot help trying to have the last word. They are probably the type who claim cyclists say they are never wrong.
Great piece. I do tap, but I’m a 57 year old female on a small bike usually not wearing a helmet and not in full body lycra. I tap politely and often have a friendly expression and I frame my comment as ‘you’re probably not aware of this, but you drove past me very close and could have risked injuring me.’ I would say over 50% of the time especially if the reg is outside Dublin and if there’s a woman passenger in the front, I get a courteous response. I’ve also received a few apologies. I tap for the same reasons I take the lane if someone has parked illegally in a cycle path. I’ve had enough of having to make myself invisible and inconsequential and ‘nice’, just so somebody with more power can feel good about themselves.
As a pedestrian or a bike user, Danes are quick to slap a car’s body work with an open palm if there’s someone foolish enough to try and e.g. drive across a footpath/bike lane or other place they should have given way. The responses from drivers is unreservedly apologetic, and usually involves them reversing out of the situation.
At complete odds to the ever-less-polite and care-less behaviour of Irish motorists.
Yes I do slap metal or glass as needs be, especially for the idiotic close passing, blocking of bike tracks that lead me to have to go around them into general traffic lanes etc. I’ve also done it to passing motorists that have ignored zebra/pedestrian crossings while I am out walking. In my view, the more people call out the care-less and dangerous behaviour of motorists, the more likely it will get attention overall.
Us going and soldiering on will allow just yet another aspect of embedded poor driving into our motoring culture. As for assaults, it is still assault and a criminal offence, one where they also would need to catch up to me first! Yes, I have had 2 taxi drivers attempt to catch up and have it out with me for touching their precious metal boxes, and in one case one got out and grabbed the bike I was on. In front of static cars beside him. I shouted quite loudly that it was assault and he backed off in a huff. In his case I touched (accidentally) his wing mirror as he blocked a magic paint lane. Not even moved it, touched it. In general, for peace of mind, I don’t intentionally touch taxis as taxi drivers seem the ones most likely to want to get out and have it out in my experience.
Are we all to remain apologetic into submission to satisfy the minority of psychos out there, who-by-the-way may be on bikes as easy as they be in cars?
A lot of drivers in Ireland simply shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Everyone gets just enough training to pass the risible test, and can do largely anything they like after that, regardless of their temperament or their general attitude to others.
The lack of CPD is nuts. All the information campaigns should be replaced with refresher course when you renew
Cian, I am shocked, disappointed and frankly bewildered by what you have written in this article. I don’t think you should advise cyclists to not stand up for themselves, and I don’t think you should be making psychological excuses to Psychotic narcissistic drivers’s who assault cyclists for touching their sensitive ego’s (i.e. their cars). I think you, above all people, should be careful as your words, as a rep of cyclists, can be manipulated. It would not surprise me if you are quoted by a defense lawyer, at the next attempt to prosecute such psychotic drivers.
Hi Paul,
Given the assaults listed and some indications of others throughout the years, I am advising against touching a car if it can be avoided. I’m not condoning any outburst from motorists. I’m not even saying that I will always avoid tapping on a window after a motorist acts like an idiot.
For clarity: I’m adding the above as a point of clarity to the article. But just to add:
Much like Mia’s comment about looking at the variables of who’s doing the tapping or Marks’ comments about nobody being able to catch up with him, people need to make that assessment themselves.
I also don’t think my pointing to primaeval responses, total or partial psychopathic behaviour, or people thinking cars are an extension of their living rooms will help anybody in court.
As I keep writing, if a driver of a vehicle overtakes you on the road and you can reach out to slap the window or near-side body panel, that driver has executed a ‘dangerous overtaking of a cyclist’ offence, by definition. Do the maths.
The distance between my sternum and my outstretched palm is just under 1.0m. If I can slap, then its proof of a dangerous overtake. QED!
I wish that Garda and RSA would use this fact in advisories to drivers.
A slap means you are far too close.
Totally 100% agree, it’s up there with the “if you are close enough to read this, you are too close” stickers. It is a simple case of fact.
I once was behind a driver and the light turned green and the driver didn’t proceed. I didn’t want to go round, as from long experience I know the tendency of drivers to decide to rev up and go through the lights just when you commit to passing them. I said “green”, progressively more loudly, still with no response, and then I tapped lightly on the trunk to let him know the lights had changed, and he then started (possibly had fallen asleep while the lights were red), leapt out of the car and threatened me with various forms of violence. Some teenaged onlookers started sympathizing with him about his car being touched.
Car brain, and, given it was during the boom years and his behaviour, maybe coke brain as well.