Advocacy & Safety - When Drivers Sympathized with Me

I had a minor incident in Seattle En route to Sunset Park I was honked at angrily by some old guy on 80th NW in Ballard. I assume he held down his horn because he wanted me to pull over or more room to pass. He was of course free to pass when oncoming traffic was clear, but did not want to wait. He did pass eventually, but then I caught up to him at a light. Through the light, I had my camera phone out just in case I wanted to call the police, and I suppose he noticed since he stopped in the middle of the road. Was he going to lecture me? The old guy probably wanted a word with me but I didn't want to hear what he had to say. I'd probably intimidate him if he was pushy, like say "Get out of your car, you f ucking coward!" I didn't really want to escalate. Dealing with crazy old guys is frustrating. Anyway, there he was stopped in the middle of the road. I went down a side street. (Oh, and my wife was following behind me, though she was behind me behind a couple of other cars.)

Simultaneously a sympathetic lady drove next to his car and shouted at him angrily to "share the road". Several other drivers waved at me as well. It makes me feel better about the world--there's drivers who sympathize with cyclists. And so I left the situation feeling pretty happy about that, but yet still pretty angry, imagining I wouldn't mind finding this ******* and send him to a convalesce center.

I wonder how I might have acted, if I was driving and saw the same thing go on?

Thanks, it's nice to hear about the good guys out there.

Cool story man. There are few commuters in SoMD, so for me its been an education process... one driver at a time. My arm gets tired from giving a nice thank-you wave to the drivers that pass me correctly and I feel like a dweeb after a while, and it f-ups my workout intensity, but when a "newbie" driver at the back of a line sees positive reinforcement given to drivers ahead of them and he/she repeats the correct behaviour I swear that it makes a difference the next time I encounter them. So maybe the old dude in your story learned something. My mantra is "one driver at a time".