I yelled at a motorist today
One of the few disadvantages for me of living in a rural community is a lack of road shoulders. I'm my town, there are precious few bike lanes and even to get to a road with a bike lane I have to ride 3-4 miles. As such, I try to plan my routes and be vigilant on my bike. When people give me space passing, I always try to wave to show appreciation but even so, there are always people who seem to have no problem taking my life for granted.
But today I had enough. I'm riding down this road, part of a normal route I take often, and this car snuck up on me. I have a mirror on my drop bar and try to check it regularly when I'm on a road with no shoulder. And by no shoulder I really mean no shoulder. There are a number of roads out here where there's not even enough pavement for the white line lane marker. Most roads do at least have the white line, but even when they do, there's often only about 6" of pavement and then it's just dirt and gravel. This particular road has no outside lane marker.
So anyway, I'm trucking down this road and somehow I missed this car coming up on me. When he passed, he passed within just a couple feet, maybe 18" doing at least the speed limit (45mph). But what really set me off was that the section of road had a dotted line and absolutely no oncoming traffic for almost a mile. So there was literally ZERO reason to be so close to me. He's gambling with MY life.
I'm generally pretty mild mannered but when something sets me off I'm ready to go, and there's nothing small about me. I may not be particularly tall, but I'm not a small woman. This clown passes me so close the suction almost pulls me in behind him. I sit up and raise my hands like "WTF????" I'm pissed. So I keep yelling at this ******bag and he decides he's going to turn around. OK by me. He turns and he drives right back by me, but I'm fired up. He's not going to intimidate me. I pull into the lane, almost to the line and as he passes by I ask in my most demure manner WTF his problem is. I was expecting him to stop and get out but he didn't. I was almost hoping he would have. I'd probably have gotten my ass kicked, but I was determined he was going to know he was in a fight.