Social IssuesNOV 20, 2023

Cyclist Gets Pelted With Stones By Rowdy Kids, Gives Them The Scare Of Their Lives

Depending on where you happen to live, a group of young people just hanging around can be a normal sight or a reason for concern. Similarly, cyclists most likely know that certain places are bizarrely hostile to bicycles and others see it as a regular part of life. But regardless of where you are, a simple commute normally doesn’t come with kids attacking you.

A man was cycling when some rowdy youths decided to throw rocks at him for fun. But little did they know that they had messed with the wrong cyclist who sprung into action immediately to get revenge and turn their hooliganism into a learning moment. We also got in touch with karnasaurus to learn a bit more.

Kids with nothing better to do will often engage in destructive and disruptive behavior

Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)

A group of children ended up throwing rocks at the wrong cyclist when he decided to teach them a lesson

Image credits: halfpoint (not the actual photo)

Image source: karnasaurus

Cyclists often get the short end of the stick

Bored Panda got in touch with karnasaurus, who posted the story, and he was kind enough to answer some of our questions. We were curious to hear what he thought was the kids's motivation. "I think he was just trying to prove how much of a bad-ass he was to his friends. Who knows what goes through the mind of a dumb 11-year-old? I myself only started becoming half-sentient in my early 20's," he shared with Bored Panda.

We also wanted to hear if, as a cyclist, he has encountered any other "attacks." "Not to my face but I've seen a whole lot of online hate towards cyclists which I don't get. I've seen claims about cyclists breaking the law more often than drivers, but this hasn't been my experience. Besides, they are reducing pollution by not driving." As to why the post got popular, he had a simple answer. "I think there is something satisfying about a bratty kid doing something mean and getting smacked down proverbially without anyone getting hurt."

Hooliganism can start out small but often tends to end poorly

While the youths described in this story were not “proper” hooligans, they perhaps could have been not too far in the future. Throwing stones at random, adult strangers is not something most of us have done even in our most rebellious phases. As often happens with unsupervised and unguided boys, they tend to get more destructive over time.

The namesake of “hooliganism,” the Hooligan Boys, a gang of lads from Southern London, started out as just that, some young men with nothing to do. Crime and vandalism soon escalated and they came to national attention in 1898 when they murdered a man named Henry Mappin. Papers jumped on the gang’s name and soon it became synonymous with this sort of behavior.

Writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells all mention these wayward youths like the Hooligan Boys in their works. The latter wrote in Tono-Bungay (1904) that "Three energetic young men of the hooligan type, in neck-wraps and caps, were packing wooden cases with papered-up bottles, amidst much straw and confusion," indicating that the name had truly stuck.

Young people with nothing to do will, unfortunately, take it out on the world

Interestingly, a common method used to help prevent juvenile delinquency is the “scared straight” strategy, where at-risk youth can interact with “real” criminals in prison. Research suggests that it really doesn’t work, as the main issue isn’t ignorance about consequences but a bad influence by certain peers.

However, OP managed to do his own variant of “scared straight” by literally scaring the offending child. Given that the kid who ended up terrified was the perpetrator, it can be reasoned that he is or at least was the bad influence on his peers. At the same time, OP taught him an important lesson that not everyone is as meek as, presumably, this group’s previous victims, and harassing random people can and will have serious consequences.

One commenter even claimed to be the kid who OP scared, but we should all take it with a grain of salt, as there is no way to verify this person’s identity and people have lied about less for internet clout. However, the sentiment does make sense, as a “bizarre” encounter like this could have been the wake-up call this person needed to not go down a significantly worse path.

Bicyclists also tend to get a lot of hostility from everyone else on the road

On the other hand, cyclists somehow do garner a lot of hate from both drivers and pedestrians. People like OP who spend a lot of time on their bikes have probably experienced some form of harassment, perhaps that is one of the reasons OP could react so quickly. He simply wasn't in any form of shock from a stone being thrown at him.

It’s also possible that, as a person who rides a bike among cars, aka 1.4-tonne death machines, some stones aren’t a big deal. Bicycle lanes don’t exist everywhere, so riders do have to share the road with cars, much to both party's annoyance. Even in places like the UK, where cyclists are a common occurrence, there are still a myriad of stories involving hostility and abuse. The silver lining is that OP perhaps developed skin thick enough that some rowdy boys were hardly a threat.