Originally Posted by larryfeltonj
This has varied considerably in my experience. The common factor for the honks and yells seems to be roadways where I can't be passed easily (narrow two lane roads with heavy oncoming traffic or wider roads where traffic in all directions is moving at motoring speeds, and the driver has to wait to change lanes. This circumstance may be a bit more common in the suburbs, but I don't think of it as a suburban cultural thing, or related to the number of cyclists).
The reason I relate it to the number of cyclists and more importantly, how they use the road, is because I travel on two very similar roads (comparable speed limits, intersection counts, shoulder width, number of lanes) but one gets a decent amount of cyclist traffic on the shoulder and the other does not. The road with less cyclist traffic presumably is that way because it has the higher traffic volume, yet oddly enough, I get better treatment on the higher trafficked road especially when considering the number of interactions I have with motorists.