Got angrily tooted at twice by some aggressive person in a giant black SUV whilst out driving the other day. I’d have quite happily gone faster but that would have entailed running over the cyclist in front of me, whom I thought was doing a pretty good job going uphill on his non E bike. The road was very narrow and there simply wasn’t room to safely pass him. I’m going to give the SUV driver the benefit of the doubt and hope he couldn’t see the cyclist, but I still flipped him the bird for just assuming I was going slow for no good reason. My personal feeling is that tooting is hardly ever justified.
I’m afraid I’ve decided that there are times when I’m cycling that I’m going to have to position myself right in the middle of the lane. Too often I’ve tried to get as far to the left, out of driver’s way as I can, but people just end up overtaking dangerously and I’m not willing to take the risk. On my ebike I can go 30 – 40 kph, and it will only ever be for a couple of hundred metres at the very most.
My vegan cycling friend has done up her e bike like this:
Apparently there is research to show that if you decorate your bike in this silly and inoffensive (and feminine?) way, drivers will automatically give you more room. Whereas, if you wear fluoro yellow, they actually give you less room. Where in their brains are people making these decisions? It’s horrifying. Although, I’m a driver too, some of the time, so I could well be doing it as well, subconsciously. Anyway, cycling is the way of the future, so people are just going to have to get used to us.