Paranoid ranting or is this stuff common?

I've seen these things on the road too many times to be coincidences:

1. Driver approaches in opposite lane and does a quick flick of the steering
wheel towards you.

2. 3 full lanes with middle turn lane, no traffic in sight and car
approaching from behind passes you, without any attempt to swerve at all,
coming pretty close to you and never coming close to leaving his lane.

3. Car (or usually truck) comes around you and immediately comes back into
his lane, leaving the road by a few feet as if to say, "I could've knocked
you off the road".

4. You are behind a car as you both approach a stop sign at a 4 way stop
with no other cars at the intersection. You are 10-15 seconds behind him.
The car stops for that whole time as he waits for you to arrive. He then
takes off when he could have taken off way before then. Any other time that
car would have blown through that intersection lickety split or would've
stopped and then immediately taken off.

5.You come to a 4 way stop with 2 cars waiting on your right. They both take
off, one after another, simultaneously - the 2nd car never having really
stopped.

6.A car pulls right out in front of you (pretty common stuff here). The
person driving is talking on his cell and you KNOW he sees you out of his
peripheral vision but he will not look right at you.

7. Truck approaches from behind and revs his engine and then when he comes
around, floors it, even if there is a clear line of sight and no other cars
in sight.

8. Car approaches from behind and feels the need to honk (pretty common
also) They always go WAY around, usually in the opposite lane. Good, safe
maneuver, except for the honk.

9. Car comes around real hard 20 yards in front of a 4 way and then blows
the stop sign as he cuts you off.

10. Fill in the blanks...

"Steve Brunsman" wrote in message
news:Xobck.187137$TT4.144316@attbi_s22...
I've seen these things on the road too many times to be coincidences:

1. Driver approaches in opposite lane and does a quick flick of the
steering wheel towards you.

Never seen it but I'm sure it happens


2. 3 full lanes with middle turn lane, no traffic in sight and car
approaching from behind passes you, without any attempt to swerve at all,
coming pretty close to you and never coming close to leaving his lane.

I've seen this, I think some drivers are simply too lazy/not thinking of
leaving lane

3. Car (or usually truck) comes around you and immediately comes back into
his lane, leaving the road by a few feet as if to say, "I could've knocked
you off the road".

I do think this is aggressive or at least grossly incompetent behavior and
totally ridiculous... either they're trying to prove a point or they're
counter-correcting an over-correction in the first place...

4. You are behind a car as you both approach a stop sign at a 4 way stop
with no other cars at the intersection. You are 10-15 seconds behind him.
The car stops for that whole time as he waits for you to arrive. He then
takes off when he could have taken off way before then. Any other time
that car would have blown through that intersection lickety split or
would've stopped and then immediately taken off.

Could be... might just be drivers fiddling with radio, messing with drink,
texting, other distractions, whatever

5.You come to a 4 way stop with 2 cars waiting on your right. They both
take off, one after another, simultaneously - the 2nd car never having
really stopped.

Drivers do this stuff all the time, bike or no -- yep, it's rude, aggressive
behavior -- thankfully low on the list of really dangerous behaviors but
anti-social at the least and potentially dangerous at worst

6.A car pulls right out in front of you (pretty common stuff here). The
person driving is talking on his cell and you KNOW he sees you out of his
peripheral vision but he will not look right at you.

Could be, or it could be a moron talking "in the zone" -- i.e. their brain
woefully unengaged to his/her surroundings... we've all seen pedestrians
practically kill themselves doing stupid things with cell phones, no
surprise drivers would do the same

7. Truck approaches from behind and revs his engine and then when he comes
around, floors it, even if there is a clear line of sight and no other
cars in sight.

Some people are just paranoid and want to make the pass as quickly as
possible-- bikes make some people nervous -- shoot, passes at all make some
people nervous

8. Car approaches from behind and feels the need to honk (pretty common
also) They always go WAY around, usually in the opposite lane. Good, safe
maneuver, except for the honk.

The honk I can do without...

9. Car comes around real hard 20 yards in front of a 4 way and then blows
the stop sign as he cuts you off.

Yep, just an idiot... doesn't have to be a bike, they'll do this to
cars/peds/their mother/whomever is in the way...

10. Fill in the blanks...

I think you nailed most of them but as you can see a lot of them I think are
often explained less my malice and more my
incompetence/ignorance/unawareness... and that does not absolve them, in
fact for example it's probably worse for #6 to be blisfully unaware than
screwing with you... at least someone screwing with you is still not going
to want to hit you, if he doesn't see you he's much much more of a hazard.

My pet peeves are the usual: failure to signal, failure to leave adequate
space on a pass, etc. these are problems I see just as much when I'm in a
car as when I'm biking, frankly... they just pose more of a hazard when I'm
on my bike.

For the most part, I find the vast, vast majority of people to be very
respectful and kind in their interactions toward me. I can even do without
the kind, just the respectful is good enough for me. There are so many more
bikes on the roads these days I do think drivers are learning some lessons
that weren't being absorbed even a few years ago...

brink

In article Xobck.187137$TT4.144316@attbi_s22,
"Steve Brunsman" wrote:

I've seen these things on the road too many times to be coincidences:

1. Driver approaches in opposite lane and does a quick flick of the steering
wheel towards you.

Major asshole. Could be considered a threat with a deadly weapon, so
consider reporting details to the police.

2. 3 full lanes with middle turn lane, no traffic in sight and car
approaching from behind passes you, without any attempt to swerve at all,
coming pretty close to you and never coming close to leaving his lane.

I'm used to urban traffic, so I don't think much about close quarters
unless it's clear the action is willful. It'd be *nice* to get a little
extra room, but I don't sweat it too much if they can safely pass
without changing lanes.

3. Car (or usually truck) comes around you and immediately comes back into
his lane, leaving the road by a few feet as if to say, "I could've knocked
you off the road".

I don't understand your description of the action. It generally seems
like people turn into jerks any time they have to use the steering
wheel, regardless of what the other vehicles on the road are.

4. You are behind a car as you both approach a stop sign at a 4 way stop
with no other cars at the intersection. You are 10-15 seconds behind him.
The car stops for that whole time as he waits for you to arrive. He then
takes off when he could have taken off way before then. Any other time that
car would have blown through that intersection lickety split or would've
stopped and then immediately taken off.

This is the paradox of politeness. Most often, the driver is yielding
to the cyclist. If you plan to fully stop at the sign, it can actually
confuse a lot of drivers, slowing down traffic for everyone. Then
again, 10-15 seconds puts you about a block away, so it's possible their
delay is unrelated to you.

5.You come to a 4 way stop with 2 cars waiting on your right. They both take
off, one after another, simultaneously - the 2nd car never having really
stopped.

Nothing to do with bikes; they could both be driving together. If
anything, I'm more likely to double up like that myself to use the car
as extra protection in the intersection.

6.A car pulls right out in front of you (pretty common stuff here). The
person driving is talking on his cell and you KNOW he sees you out of his
peripheral vision but he will not look right at you.

Shrug it off or escalate it. Again, nothing to do with bikes.

7. Truck approaches from behind and revs his engine and then when he comes
around, floors it, even if there is a clear line of sight and no other cars
in sight.

Small penis. A related compensation I see is when I'm stopped at a
light and it changes, I find I can accelerate up to 10mph faster than
most cars normally do. This seems to upset certain people, and they
*have* to floor it to keep from being made to look foolish by a bike.
This is most amusing in heavy traffic, because it usually means I've
caught up to them at the next stop light, and the process repeats. :-)

8. Car approaches from behind and feels the need to honk (pretty common
also) They always go WAY around, usually in the opposite lane. Good, safe
maneuver, except for the honk.

Drivers don't understand how annoying a horn is because they only hear
other horns from inside their own cage. People around here are
horn-adverse, thankfully.

9. Car comes around real hard 20 yards in front of a 4 way and then blows
the stop sign as he cuts you off.

I don't understand your description of the action.

10. Fill in the blanks...

Drivers around here seem generally good to cyclists, at least to the
extent that they're no bigger dicks than they are to other drivers. My
biggest complaint is that they don't understand why a bike sometimes
needs to take the lane. Even when I'm obvious signaling for a left
turn, they get confused by a bike "in the middle of the road".

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On Jul 7, 8:32 am, Doc O'Leary
wrote:
In article Xobck.187137$TT4.144316@attbi_s22,
"Steve Brunsman" wrote:

Drivers around here seem generally good to cyclists, at least to the
extent that they're no bigger dicks than they are to other drivers. My
biggest complaint is that they don't understand why a bike sometimes
needs to take the lane. Even when I'm obvious signaling for a left
turn, they get confused by a bike "in the middle of the road".



Taking the lane will prevent rant #2...

I don't think that it's the bike in the middle of the road that
confuses them but just their natural state. If they were capable of
thinking clearly they wouldn't be motorists now would they?

But the bigger point here is that people riding in cars (they're just
sitting there steering while the engine provides the drive) are dicks,
they are dicks towards cyclists, towards each other, towards their
venerable elders... they are what they are and you will not change
them by your good example. Just don't let their behavior drag you into
the mire they wallow in.

On Jul 6, 5:10*pm, "Steve Brunsman" wrote:
I've seen these things on the road too many times to be coincidences:

3. Car (or usually truck) comes around you and immediately comes back into
his lane, leaving the road by a few feet as if to say, "I could've knocked
you off the road".

I see this a lot. So much that I don't think it can be intentional
but rather just overcompensating. Or maybe they look back through the
mirror and thus tend to sverve right. I know when I look over my
shoulder I tend to head in that direction.

Let me guess, you ride in the city (probably out west) a lot don't you?

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