Zoot Katz <
[email protected]> wrote in message news:<3eb61708.
> Yes, I appreciate drivers' acknowledgement but I often take offense at their stupid resistance to
> follow traffic laws regarding right-of-way. Around here there are many drivers who err on the side
> of extreme caution. They're a nuisance while trying to be polite. I honestly believe most of them
> simply don't know nor understand the basic traffic laws. I don't trust them.
Fair enough. I'll give you a concrete example of what I mean, though:
Intersection of Wm IV Street & Charing X Rd (just north of Trafalgar Sq). Gridlocked traffic
southbound on Charing Cross Rd; i'm looking to turn right onto the northbound end of that
street.(this is England, remember, so right turns are 'across the grain' movements). All traffic
stops, stranding two or three cars in the intersection.
Rule of yields means I have to wait for a proper break in the traffic & yield to the southbound
gridlock. I make eye contact with a black cab in the intersection and point to a *narrow* space in
front of him--just enough to get through, if he waits ten seconds and lets me by before he proceeds
(the queue is beginning to move, wave of motion hasn't quite hit him yet). He nods, points, and
waves me through. Stupid as it sounds, that made my day.
[OK, partly: on the way home, I yielded to let a black cab scoop a fare up from the pavement. This
got me a grateful wave out the open drivers-side window of the black cab.]
>
> The other extreme, those who knowingly break laws and depend on their vehicles' mass for
> intimidation, are thankfully, fewer and further between. They're potentially dangerous because
> they generally overestimate their driving skills.
...wasn't there a study somewhere that found that SUV drivers were several times more likely to
agree strongly with the statement "I'm a better than average driver"?
>
> The ones who act on some vengeful desire to run you down, for something I did, are truly rarer
> than good fiction except in the bent minds of inferior cyclists.
They do exist, however rarely. Not all of them are rednecks--I'm still mad at the old woman who
tried to push me and my brother off the road--and then shouted at us as we rode to church one
Sunday--and then walked into the same church. Physician, heal thyself, eh?
-Luigi