“How lovely to be home” I thought as I rode along a narrow one way street with the traffic.
“Brrrmmm, Brrrrm” Said the car behind.
“Funny, why are they doing that?” I thought. “They can’t be trying to overtake because there isn’t any space, and anyway, I’m riding as fast as the vehicle ten metres in front”
“Brrrmmm Brrrrrmmmmm” Said the car behind.
“I guess there’s something wrong with the clutch, or something” I decided.
“Brrmmmm Brrmmmmmmmm, Beeeeeep” said the car behind. It was almost alongside me now, somehow squeezing into a gap between the parked cars. The driver was waving at me, which was nice.
I waved back.*
The driver noticed they were about to drive into a parked car and stopped suddenly.
At the end of the one way system we entered a wider road and the white van pulled off. Car behind pulled past. The driver waved quite a lot this time.
I waved back again.
The driver seemed to be happy to stay with me and drove v e r y s l o w l y in front of me for several metres before pulling off and stopping at a house.
I would have stopped to further our aquaintance but I had an appointment to get to.
* Because they couldn’t have possibly been trying to push me to the side of the road to get past as this is a highly illegal and dangerous manoeuvre, which would only have enabled them to get a few metres further.
5 comments
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September 17, 2011 at 11:22 am
Zweiradler
These drivers … Always getting in the way when you have to get somewhere in time! Trying to communicate is hopeless, by the way, since their only word “honk” can hardly be considered a language.
Nico
September 17, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Andy in Germany
You mean they weren’t just being friendly… say it ain’t so…
Some certainly seem to understand little else apart from “onk: move out of the way”. I had even more fun yesteray carrying Euro pallets on the Bakfiets… I’ll post pictures as soon as I can…
September 17, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Iain Robinson
I sympathise with you on this one. Several times in the past I’ve found myself cycling through a one way, one carriageway roadworks, keeping up with the traffic at 30mph, only to have the driver behind honk and verbally abuse me when the roadworks finishes…probably because I owned my space of the road by riding in the middle, instead of squeezing to the side so that he could bash me with his wing mirrors as he exceeded the speed limit to get past me.
September 17, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Andy in Germany
Hello Ian. I still think this is a sgn of how the culture of car ownership has changed us. For a generation or two car drivers have been told they have the absolutes right to go where they want, when they want, and as fast as they want, so it’s offensive for them to find someone using a different form of transport and being in front of them,
Personally I don’t mind getting out of the way if it’s safe but I object to being pushed…
March 24, 2012 at 10:16 am
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