Bikes versus cars -- a battle fought with hand signals

BRISBANE -- It's been a cold war simmering for years across the developed world, but now the bicycle-versus-car clash appears headed for open conflict in the form of a celebrity courtroom confrontation.

Australia will be the venue for the hostilities as high-profile cricketer Shane Warne faces legal action after allegedly colliding with a cyclist who, in turn, reportedly whacked the back of Warne's Mercedes sports car.

Mathew Hollingsworth, 28, is launching a civil claim in Melbourne and seeking around $1,500 in damages from Warne, the famous spin bowler who keeps ordinary Australians transfixed with his international lifestyle, which includes a glamorous girlfriend in the charming shape of English actress Liz Hurley.

The incident exploded on Twitter when Warne, driving his sports car home from cricket training in Melbourne, told his several hundred thousand followers of tangling with Hollingsworth and pleaded with cyclists to be more careful on the road.

Warne alleges Hollingsworth attempted to hitch a free ride through traffic by grabbing onto the back of his car:

"I yell out, 'Hey, buddy, what the hell are you doing?' and he abuses me,'' Warne tweeted.

"He stops in front of me and holds up traffic and just stays on his bike.''

Hollingsworth countered it was Warne who was the aggressor who drove deliberately towards him.

"He lurched his car forward, forcing my bike wheel and almost my leg under the front of his car,'' Hollingsworth said on a blog before announcing he would use the civil courts to pursue damages.

Whether it's a case of Warne's road rage or the pedaller's petulance is not clear. What is clear is the confrontation has given a sharp focus to one of the most ridiculous manifestations of tribal behaviour in our sophisticated, urban world -- motorist versus cyclist.

That the human animal is devoted to creating warring factions where gentle unanimity should preside is not contested. Witness the Sunnis and Shiites, the Protestants and Catholics, even the internal backbiting of the Republicans and Democrats during the presidential primaries.

But, quite honestly... motorist versus cyclist? To those of us who still possess even a tenuous grip on reality, this utterly inexplicable feud is the ultimate rebuttal to those annoyingly sunny optimists who insist humanity will eventually become one big, happy, peace-loving family.

That people transporting themselves from one location to the next on the same road network could develop such distrust, suspicion and outright fury at one another makes the butchery of global warfare appear perfectly reasonable, logical even.

And each side has its champions who spout the same froth and nonsense of the born bigot, conferring a range of negative character traits on their opponents.

Depending on which side you're on (and increasingly, we are urged to pick a side), cyclists/motorists are "arrogant, stupid, selfish, given to violence and a danger to the general public."

America suffers from it and so does Canada, while in Australia, many roadways are almost a daily theatre of war as the two opposing sides vent their rage at perceived insults and slights.

The bulk of communication is limited to hand signals -- the extended index finger now the most popular form of aggressive expression across the continent.

By way of an aside, the finger is a relatively new addition to our repertoire of non-verbal insults. Australians displaying displeasure would, until recently, employ the index finger as well as the middle finger to create a "V" sign before thrusting the hand vigorously skyward. It was called giving "the forks." Like many others aspects of our cultural life, it has been both downsized and Americanized.

The simple truth is that adults who are not psychopaths take to the road in the full knowledge they are fallible, guilty of irritating and sometimes dangerous mistakes and accept as graciously as possible the same failings in their fellows.

Without making any commentary on Hollingsworth and Warne, who will have their own day in court, the sad reality is that adults in many developed countries, including Australia, are regrettably fully functioning psychopaths.

And so we have urban warfare exploding on all sides of us as we drive to work. It's fascinating, slightly funny at times but ultimately rather sad.

Never has the famous lament articulated by the great American philosopher Rodney King been so appropriate. "Why can't we all just get along?"

Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg Free Press correspondent in Australia. He writes mostly about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.

madiganm@thecouriermail.com.au

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 3, 2012 A11