Road rager driving a silver Toyota Tacoma harassed & threatened the life of a bicyclist on the Redlands June 28

A G.J. bicyclist recounted on social media an incident he experienced by an enraged driver on the Redlands on the evening of Saturday, June 28. The cyclist reported it to the GJPD, but since the GJPD was unable to do anything about it, he wants to warn the public to protect others from this person.

The cyclist wrote:

As soon as I passed the Safeway driveway, I hopped on the sidewalk and went into the Safeway parking lot since I had planned on getting some stuff there. The truck driver saw me turning in, too, and made his way past the actual shopping center into the service entrances behind, obviously now trying to avoid being seen by me. But I could see all of it since I was just on a bike.

In the parking lot, I ran into a friend of mine and told him what had just happened. We chatted about some other stuff for a while. As I pulled away from my friend, luck would have it, I saw the truck of the cursing driver in front of Redlands Liquors. I think he thought he had out-waited me behind the stores and had come back to the main parking lot to do his intended shopping at the liquor store.

I stopped on my bike by the store and wanted to take a photo of the back of his truck. Right then he walked out of the store and started yelling obscenities at me:

“You motherf-er, get off our streets!”

“You have no right to be on our f-ing streets!”

…and so on. I got a bit closer (I was across the street) and said, “Hey, you know that I do have a right to be on the same streets, right?” but this triggered an even more aggressive posture from the man, and he got really close to me.  More obscenities—

“You were f!#@*ing impeding f*#!ing traffic!!” and more.

He was in a foaming-at-the-mouth kind of rage—flushed face, pure anger. I was scared.

I then took out my phone, and he yelled at me, “You take that phone out, motherf#@!er, and I will f*cking shoot you!” I moved closer to the store entrance and called 911. He got in his truck and drove off.

What kind of deranged lunatic rages against another road user on a sleepy Saturday afternoon, with empty roads, when we weren’t even going in the same direction?

During the encounter I wish I’d had the wits to actually video it, but it all played out relatively quickly and I was nervous. I decided to file a police report and press charges, even though it makes me even more nervous, but I want that man to be on record in case he berates or worse – harms someone on the road.

In 25 years of biking on Grand Junction streets, I’ve only had a few encounters when drivers acted aggressively toward me while I was biking, but overall people are friendly and courteous drivers. That’s why, even more so, the driver of the Tacoma truck pictured here needs to be known and held accountable for his threatening road rage. He wore a CMU logo embroidered baseball hat.

The enraged driver also warned him to “watch out” because he “may be clipped when seen on the streets again.” 

After posting photos of the driver on social media, three people contacted the bicyclist and identified the driver.  The driver lives in the same neighborhood as the bicyclist and all of the people who contacted the bicyclist alleged the driver was a “raging alcoholic,” leading the cyclist to fear cycling in his own neighborhood. 

The driver reported the incident to the Grand Junction Police Department, but said,

“The police simply called him later—they never went to see him in person or check whether he was intoxicated, which I am certain he was. He told the officer that [I] ‘cut him off,’ which is a lie, since I was two lanes away, biking in the opposite direction. They also spoke to the liquor store clerk, who said there were no security cameras out front. So, because it’s my word against his, he won’t be charged.

While I understand how that happens, I also find it very frustrating. There were ways to gather evidence—like going to his house and observing him directly—but it wasn’t done. It’s water under the bridge now. I get that for GJPD this is small potatoes, and that’s why unhinged people like him may never be held accountable.”

The bicyclist offered the following observations and recommendations after this unsettling incident:

“…[F]or an unhinged person like [this] to remain a known danger in the community without consequences, it takes many enablers. The bars … that keep serving him when he’s clearly driving to and from, the liquor stores selling him alcohol when he’s obviously drunk, and so on.

So that’s it—watch out for your own safety. And if you ever need law enforcement’s help, make sure you have all your evidence ready, ideally video—something I failed to do when I froze, and when [the driver] threatened to shoot me if I pulled out my phone to record the encounter.

I’m sharing …these details in hopes that knowing others [who] are aware of his behavior might keep him from hurting or killing someone on the road. While my case went nowhere, if he does this to someone else, my report will at least be evidence of a pattern.

In the meantime, I’ve bought a bike camera system. And if you ever experience road rage while biking, please file a police report, even if you don’t have evidence in hand.”