car-trapping

In the context of a Critical Mass ride: surrounding a car with belligerent cyclists (cyclepaths) in a manner that obstructs both the flow of riders and the continued mobility of the car.

When this happens, to avoid tacoed wheels and messier accidents from provoked motorists the car-trappers should be gently advised to ride on and the car guided slowly out of the Mass to the next available intersection turnoff.

To get cyclists to move out of your way to let a trapped car out of the mass (safer for everyone involved) a holler of "Homicidal Maniac Driver! Let 'em through!" will generally suffice. To salvage hurt feelings you can wink at the driver for added effect.

This is also done intentionally by the more confrontational members of Critical Mass (at least it was in San Francisco.) The intentional harassment of some average joe on his way home from work is just not activism. It puts a really bad spin on all the good things that Critical Mass tries to promote and polarizes (again, at least in San Francisco) the riders against each other. The local news just loved to represent Critical Mass as some kind of rolling riot. This eventually led to some pretty sketchy confrontations with the police.

The moral of this story is not to piss off or attack the people you're trying to reach.

BTW, I hope no one assumes that this is some kind of attack on the write up above. It ain't.