Fed up with the amount of car on bike road rage in and around Boulder, CO, cyclist Ernest Ezis decided to take matters into his own hands. He created the Close Call Database, where cyclists anywhere can log their aggressive incidents with cars. The hope is that serial road rage offenders can be identified and brought to the attention of local police, who may encourage the drivers to change their behavior before a real tragedy occurs.
Many hostile drivers are often serial offenders. Ezis wants to know every time a driver purposefully passes within several inches of you, runs you off the road, or worse yet, turns into you. By cataloging and documenting their aggression, he hopes it can help build a case against those drivers.
Once you register with the Close Call Database (you can sign in using Strava or just your email), you can report aggressive incidents, see all other incidents that have been reported, and even get alerts when accidents or aggressive drivers have been flagged in your area.
Although I think the database will be great for alerting fellow cyclists about potentially dangerous drivers in the area or even identifying accident prone areas, is there much law enforcement can do without proof? I have personally been involved in a couple of really bad incidents around Marin County but neither time was able to actually capture the license plate of the driver. I think this will be key, along with actual video or eyewitness testimony of the assaults.
Also, like all networks, the strength of the Close Call Database depends on numbers–plenty of eyes and ears on the road will be critical to its success. Thoughts on this one fellow cyclists?