This morning going to work I saw a bike rider about 400 yards infront of me on the road in the right lane as was supposed to be. Between the biker and me was a huge garbage truck and a small car. We were all in the same lane going the same direction. At first the truck and car slowed down a bit, but as they got closer to the bike rider they began to tailgate. I then saw the garbage truck swerve vey fast to the left and speed up quickly to go around the rider in a blind curve. Then the car floored it and went around the biker missing him by inches. Instead of passing the biker myself up ahead as there was a passing lane comming up, I decided to stay about 150' back just to keep all the other cars behind me off of him. They passed us both but atleast I acted as a block for a while before pulling into work. Its funny how I see riding situations different now that Ive started riding myself.

Done similar my self in the past. Generaly when im riding with a more in experianced rider. I put my self in a spot so the car has to pass futher out. I can more or less handle a to close pass. If they pass me with 8 inches to spare and im left of center in the lane they have to pass the rider in front oof me with alot more room to spare. Give your self enough room and you can get over when needed. I do it even in areas where drivers tend to pass with plenty of distance. Just helps the newer cyclist get more confortable in trafic.

I had one driver seemingly tail gate me for miles he sat about 5 to 10 feet back. It was on a very busy stretch of road. When he finaly did pass i seen the bike rack on the back. Here he was running intefearance for me for like 2 miles. Very nice experiance indeed

This morning I stopped at a red light at a T-junction (I was going straight, usually I don't stop in such cases but since I got a ticket for allegedly violating a stop-sign yesterday, I now behave like cars do) and there were a line of cars stopped there as well. As we all took on the green light, I saw a parked car on the right and naturally I looked in my rear view mirror, put my left arm out and started passing the parked car (the road was empty behind me by that time) giving enough room on my right so that the door did not automagically open from that parked car. All of a sudden a car came barrelling behind me and started honking the horn several times (looked like I was taking more than my fair share of the lane). I moved to the right after passing the parked car and stopped for pedestrians to cross a crosswalk while the car just zipped past just to wait at a red light less than 100 feet away. When I caught up with him at the red light, I explained to him about the parked car and how I had to occupy the whole lane to pass it. He told me that he honked because he didn't want to hurt me and that he was hit by a car once while he was riding his bike. I told him that he had a better chance of not hitting a bicyclist if he just didn't honk the horn and waited for the lane to clear.