It's been a relatively tame week for me as far as traffic incidents go. I guess it's because I switched to working in the mornings, and most of the traffic is outside of the city until about 8:30-9 anyway. I usually average one, maybe two honks from motorists outraged by my trailer blocking 1/4 of "their" lane.
Today, however, there must have been something in the coffee. I counted at least 6, including one that was totally unwarranted, as I was actually riding in the bike lane on 11th street. It was a couple driving a Land Rover with a New York plate. I'm not sure what rolling down your window to yell at me to "get off the road" accomplished other than allowing a cold wind to blow into your car. Well, I guess it also partially inspired this blog post...
My favorite, however, was the woman in a white Lexus that aggressively honked at me even though I was over as far as I possibly could go and left MORE than ample room for her to pass. When we got to the next intersection, I pulled over in the crosswalk to let her pass. She all but ran the stop sign and no more than 50 yards ahead was forced to slam on the brakes. Garbage truck. Ha!
It made me think of this quote from this fantastic article in Philly Weekly about the sometimes adverse relationship between cyclists and motorists:
"Don’t take it personally. Have you seen how drivers treat each other?” This is what I tell myself: I’ve made a choice to be on the bike because it’s the best place for me to be. So I just need to find the part of it that I enjoy… and try and have some sympathy."
I'm guilty of a little schadenfreude here, but I do enjoy biking, and not just because of incidents like this.
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