Dear PoPville – Are Zip Car Drivers Particularly Bad Drivers?

Dear PoPville,

I had a pretty nasty experience with a Zipcar driver and I’m wondering if anyone else has had this happen.

I was biking down Kansas past Georgia and suddenly a car came right up behind me and laid on the horn. There’s no bike lane on Kansas, and I was already pretty far over to the right, but I pulled over to the curb. Then I saw a small red zip car pull out into oncoming traffic at the stop sign at Taylor (by the SED Center pre-school), run the stop sign, and speed down Kansas toward 13th Street. He blew through the next couple stop signs as well and then turned onto 13th Street, where I lost sight of him.

I got the tag number and later in the day when I got home, I called Zipcar and told them what had happened, and that the guy was really driving aggressively and dangerously. The lady at Zipcar took the info but didn’t ask what time or where this happened. She then told me it was probably somebody racing to get their car back in time!!!

I then told her that if that’s how people drive when they need to turn their cars back in, then Zipcar should be considered a hazard on the road. I finally got her to look up whether the car had been taken out multiple times that day, and if that was the case, maybe she could figure out who it was that needed to race down Kansas at 45-50 mph to return the vehicle. As it turned out, the car had been taken out earlier that morning and the guy still had it.

Anyways, I will definitely steer clear of Zipcar drivers when I’m on my bike, but I was pretty shocked at the company’s total lack of accountability on this.

Thoughts? Anything else I could have done?