I'm riding home from work on M street, heading to the bike trail, just as I do every other work day. I hear this honking for a couple blocks coming from somewhere behind me. At first I thought it was just someone who knew me, like a co-worker.
But as I pull up at the last red light at 17th street before the trail, I hear a couple more honks. I turn around to find the culprit -- and it's some bozo right behind me in a crappy-looking pickup truck. He starts yelling at me to "get your bike out of the center of the road!" "Get to the side!" etc.
The far right side of M Street is a turn only lane -- unless you're turning or want to get killed, you get in one of the center lanes to ride straight through. Apparently, this guy thought I should be riding in the turn only lane.
I looked at him for a couple seconds with a WTF expression and he opens his door as if to get out. I wish I would have come up with something clever to say, but I just turned around and ignored him and waited in middle of the lane for the light to change. All the while he was yelling at me. It was kind of comical after a while.
The light turned green, he proceeded behind me for a block, then turned, giving up the fight. Kind of glad I didn't say anything to him -- I'm pretty sure it would've escalated.
It made for a few chuckles on the way home. First time something like that's happened to me in a year and a half commuting.
4 comments:
Was the pickup truck red?
Nope -- it was blue, and I don't think he was going to church.
I had a scary experience on Tuesday doing a solo ride out to Sprague in the afternoon - I turned right onto Saltillo from 14th as a truck was coming up the hill - it was probably 300 yards away, and the light up ahead was red, so the truck should have been slowing and had the whole left lane free to pass me in, anyway.
Regardless, the driver took exception to my actions and reacted by passing me as close as possible - mirror missed me by about a foot. Not fun.
You shoulda punched his lights out.
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