I don't drive a car much these days, but on the weekend I had an urgent need to collect some ice-cold groceries
so the Co-Pilot and I jumped into the jalopy to do a snatch-and-grab at a local supermarket. On the way we encountered a not-quite-road-rage incident that for some reason I only just remembered today.
As we approached a left-hand turn at a set of traffic lights another car went around the corner ahead of us then immediately stopped in the traffic lane no more than a car's length from the corner. Being a cyclist, I'm quite used to the blatant selfishness of some motorists*, so with the same sort of patience that I muster when a car roars past me on the bike only to pull-up suddenly in front of me, I sighed quietly and looked for a safe way to go around.
Because it's a narrower side-street, we had to veer onto the opposite side of the road to pass. So as we approached from behind (in the same way that I'd use the bike bell to warn of my approach) I gave a single short beep on the horn—just to indicate that I was there and that I was coming around. (This is, incidentally, one of two legal uses of a car horn allowed under the Australian Road Rules. Using the horn as a substitute or enhancement for verbal abuse doesn't rate a mention, strangely.) Honestly, there was nothing aggressive about it although I reckon plenty of others would have leaned on the horn to show their displeasure. I was only interested in overtaking safely*.
I completed that pass and headed on my way. But as I glanced into the rearview mirror I saw emerging from the driver's side window of the car I had just passed the inevitable middle-finger salute. Sure, that's hardly road rage but I thought it was a bit uncalled-for. As if it were I who had stopped on a road within 20 metres from the nearest point of an intersecting road at an intersection with traffic lights
. Or even that my response had been excessive and aggressive.
To the best of my recollection my actions were both legal and reasonable, yet the other driver (although totally in the wrong himself) reacted in an unfriendly and even mildly aggressive manner.
Curious.
I don't think I can extrapolate anything about driver behaviour in general from this, except perhaps that some drivers don't need any excuse to act aggressively—and that's a real worry for those of us who (usually!) get around on two wheels…
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I've said for a number of years that the size of a man's car is inversely proportional to the size of his penis.
That was something else I might have extrapolated but I managed to stop myself. But now that Chris has brought it up…