Plain sailing so far! (touch wood ...)

XmisterIS

Hi all,

I've just been reading the wealth of posts from people who have been driven at, shouted at, run over, mangled, etc by inconsiderate or just plain anti cyclist drivers.

Perhaps I live in a particularly sedate part of the world (Fareham on the South Coast of the UK) but I whizz everwhere on my bike and I have only ever had two very mild altercations with people! In first incident, a group of teenagers threw an apple (at least that was what it looked like when it went whizzing past!) at me - I stopped to look for it to throw it back, but I couldn't find it. The second was when I change lanes to turn right across traffic and a car (which was a VERY long way behind me) came flying up my arse at well over the speed limit and beeped at me - I just gave him the finger and he whizzed off round me and shouted something at me out of the window. A few people do seem to give me slightly too little room when overtaking, but I never get cut up.

Other than that, the drivers round here seem courteous and accomodating to cyclists! Mind you, I very rarely see any road rage, so perhaps it is just because I live in a nice part of the country.

The biggest hazards round here seem to be sheep and tractors ...

Perhaps I have very few problems with motorists because I do a lot of driving myself, and so I am always aware of other cars on the road and I am always thinking like a driver when I am cycling through traffic (i.e. if I was a driver, what would I expect a safe cyclist to do in such-and-such a situation?). In defence of drivers, I tend to beep at cyclists who ride like idiots! I get the finger and the abuse and all the rest when I beep at them, but the one thing that shuts them right up and makes them look like fools is when I wind down the window and instead of screaming abuse at them, I calmly tell them that I am a keen cyclist as well as a driver and I would certainly never ride like THAT if I wanted to live!