Blue little van, unmarked, driven by youngster in blue sweatshirt. Plonked on the cyclists green 'start line' at the junction of Princess and Portland St. I often use the red light time to shift to the right hand lane, so I can more easily turn when I get to Whitworth St (the next set of traffic lights) - at that point the right lane is 'right turn' only, and normally there's too much traffic for me to shift from left to right just by sticking my right arm and being 'assertive'.
Most motorists don't mind - I can see some feel I'm going to 'delay' them or that somehow I shouldn't be there, but on the left and out of sight. But once they overtake me (on my left - there's plenty of room) that is the end of it.
Not today. Today the chap in the van was of the redneck persuasion - territorial and with a big, big chip on his shoulder. How dare I get in front of him? It took him but a second to overtake me, but not without looking at me and shouting abuse like I had just taken his lolly. Poor baby.
3 comments:
You see, that's the result of having too much fun. You made the poor boy envious.
Er... trouble is, little incidents like this sort of spoil the fun. One thing I do is count how many cars I come across in the few minutes following an incident - ie I remind myself that the overwhelming majority of of motorists are indiferent, or better. When I fell off once (my feet stuck in the toe clips at a traffic light!) two motorists instantly rushed out of their cars to help me.
Good thinking there. I had an interesting discussion with a range rover driver yesterday when he politely asked why I was riding so far out in to the road. I explained about Door Zones and we left as friends. As you say, many drivers do seem reasonably, it's just that 1% that are a problem.
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