Folks: is road rage on the increase where you are? Have you got in more disputes in traffic in the past 6 years?

I may be rude, mentally ill, and old, and this may account for why I'm increasingly involved in road rage, but it disturbs me.

It's bi-directional but seems unjust. I am angry at cyclists and scooters on the sidewalk: they are rude, they break the law, they speed and weave. They are dangerous. Motorists are angry at me: if I ride a scooter in traffic, they scream and spit on my face and berate me at stoplights. However, my riding is courteous, legal, and as safe as possible. So what gives?

I've got in two sidewalk-screaming matches just a few blocks from home. There was one dude on a full-fledged gasoline moped who was driving the wrong way on the sidewalk, and he was fully self-assured that he was legal. (Narrator's voice: he was not.)

Another dude I just shoulder-clipped because he was a kid with headphones clamped on and speeding and weaving. He came back and tried to get me to attack him. He shoved me and trashed all my belongings. If he'd had a gun he'd be brandishing it. I may get shot soon.

Yeah, you know, I'm tired of the sidewalk being a "special freeway" for everything but cars. There was a dude whose e-bike was cresting at 30mph, pacing our car the other day. These dudes think they can just ride on sidewalks with impunity. (And yes, they are practically all dudes, except for the particularly brazen ones who think it's fun to put their girlfriend on a scooter made for one, and endanger both of them at once.)

It's especially shameful because our city, a college town, has done everything possible to welcome bicycles and build out bike lanes, pathways, and promote walk/bike/bus transit, but people just want to abuse it.

Trying to be courteous and legal doesn't work either; I went to a meeting and the cop told me I need to stay on the sidewalk with e-Scooters. He's wrong, because the e-Scooter companies explicitly prohibit sidewalk riding. Therefore, I ride in the street: a bike lane if possible, but I will take a lane where necessary, even if motorists will spit in my face again and try to provoke a fight, although that tends to make me feel unsafe.

Motorists have licenses and insurance policies. Motorists protect these privileges as precious jewels because it means their livelihood and their precious American individualism. Cyclists and scooter riders don't seem to care about laws, or courtesy, and why should they?