As much as Id love to react like this from time to time, I find people react a lot better if you approach them differently. I would love to punch every idiot I see acting like this, but they tend to feel a lot more guilty if you talk to them calmly. Either way, Id rather get punched in the face than stand around and do nothing.

I understand Leah's actions. I loathe littering. If an incident occurs near traffic lights, I've been known to tap on drivers windows and say "Excuse me, you've dropped something", and hand them back their litter. If they are moving too fast, I simply slap my hand loudly on the back on their vehicle to make them think someone has rear-ended them and look behind. (In most cases it's not laziness, they've wound down the window to turf out their rubbish, which requires way more effort than leaving it on the floor of the car until they reach their destination.) I also regularly and politely return litter to pedestrians.

I don't think the lesson here is really that one should just stand idly by, failing to take action in case they get attacked. On the other hand, when you initiate from a confrontational stance, you do open yourself to equally confrontational response.

Ideally, I find that Nc is right, it works better to approach people calmly and reasonably. If you do plan to act more aggressively, I guess it would be more than wise to have your retreat planned in advance. I think I'd have been a block away on my bike the moment I saw the driver open the door!

Unfortunately this is just fuel for road ragers and polluters!
What the heck is happening in Toronto?

Press charges. They're going to charge you with mischief? You think throwing a hamburger in someone's car is a convictable offense, especially when it resulted in an assault where there's plenty of evidence? Mischief charges would be dropped before you even saw a judge. This guy lost it, and deserves to see some punishment. Even a year's probation would be enough to remind him to chill out next time.

i'm with mosier. take the charge and hope for the best.

my best friend is not afraid to slap car windows, etc. i have to take a lighter approach after hearing about road rage-people hitting messengers with their trucks and killing them, etc. drivers might be wrong, but they are in vehicles that can do an awful lot of damage to you and your bike. be smart. be safe.

I hope both the motorist and the bike courier are held accountable for their actions.

I believe the mischief charge the bike courier faces is in relation to her having keyed the motorist's car. (For a detailed account of the sequence of events, please visit http://www.citynoise.org/article/2770
and read the comment titled "hool: 26th Jan 2006 - 19:09 GMT")

Both individuals opted to play a dangerous game of escalation chicken. By my count, neither of them won.

I've never been punched, but I have been verbally abused. One lady going through her mail on the subway and ripping up her junkmail and throwing it on the floor was more than I could stand, especially when you have to walk by about 3 garbage cans to leave the subway. I sometimes try to politely say, "Oh you dropped this.", like those above, and people usually get it. But the last time I spoke up, perhaps bolstered by vodka, didn't go so well. I was called a vegetarian!!??

Hey it is biodegradable. It will decompose or a pigeon will eat it. I think there are more important things to take action on. Much worse than this is when people throw perfectly recyclable stuff into garbage cans, and garbage into recycling bins. I often spend time pulling out stuff, but it is endless.

I find it a sad impulse to have to go beyond the effect of the first offense. There is a nice chinese Proverb saying: " It is a small damage when the offense occurs, but there is great damage when the offense is TAKEN"

If you feel so strong about setting things right, stay within the law and record it on camera or film, get a witness and/or report to the police.

There is a fine for littering and if it isn't enforcable in that moment, let's all go home and breathe easy.
There's no reason to top the criminal by escalating things the way Leah did.

I am growing increasingly tired of a social climate that breeds the need of folks to be pitted against each other for causes even smaller than the one described in this article.
When and why exactly did Intelligence and Reason run out of fashion and brainless burgeosie take center stage once again?

Sure, I'm fed up with litter, but violent responses are not the answer. Leah did not think before she acted, especially before scratching up his car. Does she realize that the man will now have to get the car repainted? This alone will cause more pollution than a greasy hamburger would have done! What toxins are in the paint? What are the financial costs of this increased consumerism because of this paint job? I don't agree with his act of violence either - hot coffee can ruin a person's body and damaging a bicycle, especially a courier's, is an injustice! These are financial losses and the only people who win are the industries ... but everyone will lose as a result of the pollution that is caused by the manufacturing and consumption of paints, rubbers, steel/aluminum, etc. Self-righteousness needs to stop and we all need to just calm down ... protest peacefully.