25Feb

I go down a long hill from my house to the main road, about half a mile. I travel more or less the speed limit - 30mph.

But the automobiles tend to speed, and today one sped past me less than 100 yards from the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. He stopped suddenly in front of me and simultaneously cut me off by swerving back right as quick as he could, which meant I needed to seek an outlet in the oncoming traffic lane. I could see this was clear, so instead of going in the dirt and brush, I biked into the oncoming lane and shunted myself onto the left sidewalk, biking slowly facing the afternoon rush hour traffic. It would take me 5 minutes to merge back into the right lane and be legal again.

Every day I am tempted to run the stop sign at the bottom of my hill. I have great visibility either direction, about a half mile both ways. Sometimes when there is no traffic near, I do actually run right through it. This is a bad habit, even though this is the only stop sign I do this at. I coast slowly through others, like most automobile drivers do.

Run-ins with drivers 22Feb, 23Feb

22Feb 400PM - Cedar St near Denison Pkwy, I merge out of a driveway into a near stationary queue of cars, hand signal left, and soon turn left into a nearby alley. After I turn, a driver opens his window, and shouts "it's not a fucking sidewalk!". My response: raise middle finger, shout "piss off, asshole!"

Result and comment: 2 pissed off people: one driver, one cyclist. How to improve? Ignore driver issued insults. Continue to follow rules of the road (I was able to safely merge into the near stationary line of cars - perhaps this offended the involved driver - don't merge next time I am in this situation?) Make eye contact with drivers I interact with whenever possible.

23Feb 100AM -  St Rte 352 toward Riverside, lights on, traveling west on the white line which marks the road's shoulder, I observe a passenger open the window of the subcompact car he is riding in, mutter something unintelligable, then close the window quickly (it was cold out). My response: ignore.