It’s always worth remembering that the cars you try and avoid being hit by, and potentially shout at and gesture towards do actually have people in them. And those people might well be able to lip-read.
When you realise that the driver of the car which has cut you up has actually understood what it was you were saying things can get a little dicey, if you’re not careful.
In my case I realised that the driver of a white van, who had cut me up by pulling out of a side road as I was coming along the major road, had fully got the message that I guess I had been aiming to give him. He let me pull alongside on the inside (which wasn’t difficult as I was already going faster than he was), wound down the nearside window leaning across the van as he still tried to drive in a straight line, and politely requested the reasoning behind me calling him what I had. Or something.
As I quickly realised that an explanation of my concerns with his style of driving in relation to vulnerable road users such as cyclists wasn’t necessarily going to get me anywhere I decided to basically ignore him. His next move was to start to pull in, either to mean I ran out of space, or perhaps to get out of the van to have a go at me. It was probably a bit of both, but either way it was a little scary as the amount of road I had in front of me started to steadily narrow. He hadn’t really banked on that exciting development in bike history; the brake. I let him pull in, and then slipped round behind the van and passed him.
Luckily the traffic gods smiled on me and a long queue at the next lights allowed me to slip to the front and then not be caught by him. As far as I can tell he went in another direction and probably eventually calmed down.
Let’s face it the outcome did us both a favour. I would guess that he needed to keep his driving license for his job, so an actively aggressive move might have seemed like the way to get back at a cyclist who had sworn at him, but would have potentially far reaching consequences. As for me; I was just glad not to actually get hit, whether by a car or a fist.
Just for the record, his driving after I’d expressed my opinion didn’t in any way change what I thought of him. In fact I was even more right that he was a p****. Being right, however, does not always take away the pain of actually getting hit.
A
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