Originally Posted by
ianbrettcooper
Point taken. Although as a cyclist who has never driven a car I can honestly say that I don't remember ever having had the opportunity to be courteous in that way.
I was thinking more from the perspective of motorists who stop to let someone out of a side road or cross traffic. Sometimes if I'm approaching something like a roundabout on my bike and a car is approaching, if we are the only vehicles in the area and the driver makes it clear he will let me go first even though it's his priority then I'll go through and wave. If there are lots of vehicles about someone doing something unexpected tends to cause more confusion.
People tend to cross traffic and enter the main road from side roads even if I'm right there and even if doing so risks a collision, because they usually assume I'm going about 10mph slower than I actually am. Alternatively, they exhibit the false courtesy we've been talking about and refuse to cross in front of me or enter the road even when I'm 100+ yards out, which results in me huffing and puffing in an effort to make their courtesy not seem so embarrassing, LOL.
I don't tend to bother with the huffing and puffing... if someone wants to assume I'm an Olympic athlete they can wait until this very non-Olympic guy gets past! I agree it's irritating when people assume that a cyclist is doing 8-10mph when you're actually doing 18-20mph, although I've found most of the time drivers will try and rectify things if they do misjudge rather than just press on regardless. I once had a guy pull out ahead of me when I was going down a hill at nearly 30mph but as soon as he realised that I wasn't trundling along in single-digits he pulled to one side so I could go around him easily.