Victim Profile

jess wrote:

I was running one day and heard a car honk, so I flipped the reflexive finger. Unfortunately, it was my dad.

Ha ha. That's classic! What was his reaction?

When I was eighteen the driver of a passing car spit at me and hit me right in the eye. I was so mad that I would have fought the f***er if he had 100 pounds on me.

I'm 46 and male. I live in the Detroit area, and do most of my runs around my suburb in the late morning or early afternoon. I run by myself.

No serious harassment (nothing thrown at me yet) but many honks, yelling of "f**got" or "put some clothes on" etc., a few whistles and cat calls, and a lot of strange looks.

If I take the time to drive to a local series of parks with a running/bike trail alongside the road (Hines Drive for those that may know the area), I can't remember any hassles (many other like-minded folks are there).

My biggest pet peeve is that 95% of drivers DO NOT look for pedestrians as they enter or leave driveways and intersections. Nobody seems to remember who has the right of way (or wants to). I always watch them to see if they are looking and what they're attitude is like. Many just want to pretend they don't see you and drive on, the others just have no clue or are on the phone. The worst are the local soccer moms driving in/out of the local high school.

I grounded her until she is 30. No more running!

From what we've got so far it looks like age might have something to do with it, but I can't help notice that some areas of the country seem better than others, and in general, smaller towns do better as well. Looks like the Northeast and Canada seem best if you're not in a large town, and it helps to stay away from high school kids (I guess that's a good general rule anyway ;-) I was thinking back to when I was running in HS and in my 20's, and I don't recall any hassles at that time (of course, this was also during the running boom of the 70's so that might have something to do with it).

Keep 'em coming. It would be interesting to come up with good profiles of runners most/least likely to be hassled.

I'm 49, male and run on the roads in suburb of Pittsburgh. No problems here.

A couple years back, I was biking down on the outer banks of North Carolina and some jackass riding in a pickup tossed and apple or peach at me (unless he was just throwing it out and didn't see me!) Nothing to report other than that one time.

The last altercation I've had running was a few years ago in a park when some one fiddling with his radio forced me to jump into a ditch to avoid being hit. I called him an a****** and he turned around and came back. A loud argument ensued.He did not get out of his truck so I don't think he was interested in a physical confrontation. I was 39 at the time.

All the other incidents of harassment have been when I was in high school and my twenties. All of these ocurred in central and northern NJ. One time a soda can was thrown at me but missed. On two occasions I was squirted by a fire extiguisher when it raining!!! I was already wet! All of the perpetrators were losers in beatup pickup trucks or high school kids.

I've also had a few nice ass comments from females which i welcome. HA HA

34M, Indianapolis. Problems have tailed off over the last couple years but then I haven't been running as much anyway. Most of my miles are logged on trails. Only recent problem I can think of was a couple of drunks who yelled something at me as I approched (they were about 3 feet from me and I don't even remember what they said). I extended my middle finger as I passed and waved it about 1 foot in front of the guys face. This made him very angry. He got up and started yelling, so I stopped and started walking back towards him. After a little posturing and cursing he sat back down with his drunk friend I went on my way.

I think there is some sort of redneck code of conduct which allows them to yell, scream or do whatever they want towards us, but if we flip them off, we've somehow insulted them, their family, their dog, pickup truck, dixie, or god knows what else.

I'm a 47 yr old male in the Detroit suburbs and run early a.m. or late p.m. and only have had 1 incident where I was shot with a pellet gun from a passing car.

Upstate NY male age 42. Relatively large population area with lots of parks and off road sights for running. Can't remember being harrassed on the roads since maybe highschool.

I do however,have problems with self righteous owners of unleashed dogs that believe its up to me to assess the personality and intentions of their dogs as they come running at me at full speed. "oh don't worry he's friendly"

Or if the dog is being unfreindly and aggressive toward me,there is never,never an apology from their a@#$%*& owners. Some even suggest that I shouldn't run in a dog park.(Its not a dog park, just a county park where the leash law isn't enforced frequently enough )!!!

23 Male

Philadelphia, PA

Ive been punched in the face, had stones thrown at me, and verbally assaulted. Best insult ever was a bus of kids mostly african american yelled to a group of my friends "Go back to Europe"

male, 30, live in Brussels, Belgium and I thought I'd offer a view from across the pond.

I do my weekday runs along a canal in a part of town that can be described industrial at best, neighbourhoods with high percentage of immigrant population, lots of social housing.

These are not the parks/forests where most people run here, but I never had any problems whatsoever. I have a nice story though. It was early evening a couple of summers back and I was running back home along a street where trucks usually park. I smelled grilled fish - some truckers were grilling sardines on a small portable stove next to a truck. I nodded as I passed by, indicating that the smell was fantastic - I come from the mediterranean and small grilled fish have the smell of summer back home at a sea-side tavern. They stopped me, offered me a sardine together with a grilled hot pepper. I obliged. They were Turks, didn't speak any language other than Turkish, so we gestured at each other a bit. They offered me some arak when they found out that I knew what they were drinking. We didn't have anything else really in common. Hang around for five minutes then ran home having bagged one of my best future memories-for-ever.

I'm sure many people have had good things - compliments aside - happen to them while on a run - perhaps someone should start a new thread.

JimFiore wrote:

The working hypothesis is that older runners don't experience the taunts, that it's mostly generated toward those 15-30 years old. So, just list your age, where you live, the size of your community, where you run, when you run, and indicate what sort of crappola (if any) you have to deal with while running.

Location, location, location.

In urban areas of large cities (except Salt Lake, if it counts as large) I will get "run forrest run" type of comments on a semi regular basis. Generally people just having a good time yelling something out.

In rural areas I've gotten the occasional swerving pickup truck/honking/yelling. Also the occasional dog chasing you. I think the guy who described a hypothetical redneck code had it right. If jogging on roads, I prefer urban to rural.

Now in Salt Lake City, I don't get any harrasment, and the drivers, while still bad, are much more corteous to pedestrians/cyclists than anywhere else I've lived or visited.

I jogged by some kids having a snowball fight one time, and they stopped and kind of smiled as I went by, and then 20 yards later a snowball comes flying by. This seemed all in good fun.

My experience is also that I receive more comments when wearing running shorts than when not.

not speaking for myself here, but for a running friend.

one of charlotte's finest runners, age mid-40s at the time of the incident, was training in McAlpine park (sight of Footlocker South & the main park in charlotte.)

it was about 6 or 7 in the evening when some teenage boys perched on a bridge overhead shot at him as he was running by. they hit him in the legs, but he was able to recover fairly rapidly.

the news coverage angered a lot of those who knew the victim; they described the man as "jogging", which is unlikely given that the man has probably never run over 7 minute pace for a mile of training in his life. also the local news released the man's name and said he had been "shot" without revealing right away that he was fine (i.e. not shot and killed).

anyway, if you know this particular man he is pretty hard not to like. he has always been pretty intense about his training and won plenty of local races, but is anything but elitist or hard to talk to. he is, in fact, such a gregarious and warm person that he invited his attackers to a run in the park (which they agreed to). these kids had never run before and his assailants stated afterwards, "this man doesn't jog...he runs."

this incident received a lot of coverage in the local news and even a small blurb in Runner's World. however, the victim of the assault, being humble and not much of a glutton for attention, was pretty embarassed by the publicity and just wanted to get on with his runs.

raison d'etre wrote:

My experience is also that I receive more comments when wearing running shorts than when not.

It seems like it would be the other way around.

mommy mommy wrote:

raison d'etre wrote:

My experience is also that I receive more comments when wearing running shorts than when not.

It seems like it would be the other way around.

Indeed...let me clarify...

My experience is that I receive more comments when wearing running shorts than when wearing longer shorts or pants.

23 female

mainly just the occasional catcall and whistle. i have heard "hey, girl, are you a virgin?" and "run, forrest, run" and a lot of annoying comments from maintenance workers on break while i was running in college.

the greatest incidenet was when i was getting verbally harassed in Spanish by a group of 4 Latinos who were driving in a car. they probably assumed i didn't understand the offensive things they were yelling and laughing. they were stopped at a stoplight, so i yelled back in Spanish, "eat sh*t!", hawked up a good one and spit through the car window and took off in a sprint down some side streets.

it felt good, but i do regret my foul behavior. spitting at someone is generally uncalled for, and i've since learned that spitting on someone can classify as "assault" given that it is a way to spread communicable diseases.

my theory is that women are probably subject to more sexual harrassment than men and fewer physical assaults (as far as running on the roads goes).

when it comes to the trails, the story is different. i have beautiful trails near where i live, but i am afraid to run there b/c they are often empty at times when i am able to run, and i fear for my physical safety. i doubt that many males are randomly attacked while running through a park. Rape is one thing male runners do not have to worry about so much.

What a great story from gaufre runner! I've had good interactions with people while running, but nothing to equal, much less top, that.

He raises an interesting possibility that Jim may want to incorporate into his working hypothesis -- to what extent is harassment of runners, esp. by motorists, a U.S. thing? I'm thinking also of the experience of the Toronto runner on the other thread (the guy who wore the most outlandish running get-ups possible and never got any hassles, only compliments!).

Maybe countries that provide universal health care are more civil???

here on the north shore of LI, my team was running down a hilly road with traffic (we felt it was safer that way bc cars behind us could see us, cars in front of us couldn't). a lady pulls up next to us and starts screaming that we're running the wrong way and should be on the other side of the road. of course, we flipped her off and told her what she could do with herself, because runners think they're badass. she proceeds to follow us for a while, then pull ahead of us, take off her shoe and throw it at my friend. after collecting her shoe, she gets back in her car, and since we have passed her by now, decides the best course of action is to tap my buddy with her fender.

he didn't like that. she went away when he showed her how much he didn't like that.