crhilton

This has nothing to do with stop signs or red lights.

On my way to work this morning I was riding down a moderately trafficked side road. Probably something like a couple dozen cars an hour, so not busy by any stretch.

I looked up the road and noticed another cyclists coming downhill toward me. He was a ways out from the curb, but approaching a parked car. Then I noticed a car right behind him. As they approached the car honked and he looked back and then moved clear to the left side of the road (where I was -- in fact he moved closer to my curb than I was).

I have no idea what the kid did after I passed him.

The thought struck me. This kid was doing, more or less, the right thing on the road until somebody honked at him. Then he rode down the wrong side of the road. I wonder how many people ride the wrong way, or cling to the sidewalks because they're intimidated not by regular reasonable traffic but by harassment such as honking, buzzing, and yelling.

If the kid had been going the wrong way down the road, to start, there likely would have been no altercation. The car would swerve over, the driver might roll his eyes, but he probably wouldn't honk: The encounter would be very brief. If the rider were on the sidewalk the driver would have no reason to honk, yell, or even acknowledge the riders existence.


I wonder if some riders who do these things (sidewalk cycling, bike salmoning) do so in part to avoid conflicts. This kid may have no one telling him "ride right, it's the law." But he just had one person telling him, essentially, "get out of my way."