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

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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!

I rarely have trouble so far, a couple of tractor trailer drivers have blared the horn as they pass me but other than that most motorists give me a wide berth as they pass and some may toot their horn as they approach me from behind. I'm sure I'll have my share of belligerent motorists if I keep this up but so far so good.