Campbell County judge laments lack of civility on area roads

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RUSTBURG — A traffic case in general district court between a bicyclist and a motorist Tuesday mirrored a larger trend playing out on area roads.

It earned one man an assault conviction and a $750 fine. Area drivers earned an admonishment from Judge Patrick Yeatts, who decried the increasing lack of civility he sees not only in the courtroom, but on the roadways.

The judge said he can’t drive between his home and the Campbell County courthouse without seeing someone get cut off, someone talking on a cell phone, drivers getting angry and folks swearing at each other.

“It’s unfortunate … I guess that’s our culture today,” Yeatts said during sentencing.

A safety advocate for AAA as well as an avid area cyclist — who were not part of Tuesday’s hearing but were interviewed later in the day — agreed that courtesy and common sense can help avoid these confrontations. They also agreed that a sense of entitlement to the roadway may be keeping both groups from driving more sensibly.

The case stemmed from an April 16 confrontation between cyclist Suzanne Rodemann and driver Douglas Sherwood.

Rodemann, of Evington, testified she was riding her bike on Town Forks Road in Campbell County near Leesville Road. After one car passed her, she said, another driver came up behind her, honking persistently.

She said the driver eventually passed, moving very quickly, and came so close that the wind pushed her bike toward the edge of the roadway.

She started to wave, she said, but then decided to give him the “one finger wave,” as Sherwood’s lawyer, Glenn Berger put it.

Rodemann told Yeatts that Sherwood stopped his pickup truck in the road, blocking her path, then got out and walked toward her.

“He said he had the right to kill me,” she testified.

Sherwood denied making such a threat.

The Forest resident said he followed Rodemann for nearly three-quarters of a mile at 10 mph. Instead of moving over as she had told the judge, Sherwood told the court the bike rider stayed in the middle of the lane. He said he was afraid a distracted driver would end up rear-ending him because he was moving so slow.

When he finally was able to pass, she shook her fist at him and cursed him, he said.

That’s when he pulled his truck off the road and got out, he said.

“I went back there to give her a piece of my mind,” Sherwood testified. “I told her she had no right to put my life in danger.”

Once he realized Rodemann was a woman, he said, he got back in his truck and left. Rodemann said he left when she grabbed her phone to call 911.

“I left because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Sherwood said.

When questioned by the prosecutor, he acknowledged that at 6-foot-3 and more than 200 pounds, he was much larger than the 5-foot-8, 130-pound Rodemann.

“I’m sure that I scared her,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Yeatts convicted Sherwood of improper driving, a traffic offense, and assault, a misdemeanor. He fined him a combined $750.

Sherwood immediately appealed the convictions.

Yeatts found Rodemann not guilty of riding her bicycle in an unsafe manner because there was no independent testimony to support either of the conflicting versions of where she was in the lane.

But he did have a caution for her.

“I don’t know if it’s wise, ma’am, if you’re riding the bicycle, to give a person in a vehicle the finger,” Yeatts said.

Randy Green, safety manager for the AAA Mid-Atlantic auto club, said drivers need to understand bicyclists have a right to be on the road so long as they’re riding with traffic and doing so safely.

“People lose their patience too often with older people and bicyclists,” Green said. “Wait till you reach the first place you can safely get by and don’t endanger the person who is going slower.”

Too often drivers get impatient and stare down slower drivers and cyclists as if they’re doing something wrong, he said.

“People in their hurry-hurry world can’t stand the fact they get behind something,” he said.

Bicyclists should be considerate, too. Some have the attitude that they shouldn’t have to pull off the roadway if they’re impeding traffic and cars are starting to pile up behind them, he noted.

Paula Dahl of Forest said she has been cycling for 20 years. Dahl, who knows Rodemann and who also rides on Town Forks Road, said she rode more than 13,000 miles on her bicycle last year and is no stranger to road rage expressed toward bicyclists.

“I ride five days a week,” she said. “I probably have an instance of someone tooting at me, yelling at me to get off the road, once or twice (per week),” she said.

She said she believes drivers and bicyclists should share the road. If cars are backing up behind her, she said, she will pull off into a driveway. However, she said, she’s found her attitude isn’t shared by the many cyclists.

“Most (riders) won’t pull off into a driveway,” she said. “I don’t want to speak for the masses, but you lose all your momentum if you’re doing that.”

With the region’s scenic cycling opportunities, she said she hopes the case will make all who use the public roads think about being more courteous.

“It’s just a matter of the cyclist and the motorist getting along … respecting one another,” she said. “The cyclists have the right to be on the road, but along with that right, it takes some responsibility.”