I thought it would be educational to describe actual examples of cyclist mistakes and misbehavior that we observe. My thought is that we can learn from the mistakes of others (although perhaps not as quickly as from our own mistakes). For example, seeing a wrong-way rider T-bone a turning car made a believer out of me.
Why not describe motorist mistakes and misbehavior? Answer: we already do that here, and non-cycling motorists don't read this forum anyway.
OK, I'll go first --
Saturday, October 1, riding southbound on PCH going into Newport Beach from Huntington Beach, I'm riding solo but there are about 6 of us that have coagulated into an informal group in the bike lane.
Motorist passes us on our left, plenty of clearance, proceeds about 100 ft ahead, puts on her signal to turn right, pulls across the dashed line into the bike lane and slows down. However, rather than immediately turning right out of the lane, she comes to a complete stop blocking the bike lane because there's a pedestrian on the corner stepping off into the crosswalk.
While we cyclists are not nearly sideswiped or brake-checked, we have to either stop or move to the left to pass. For me it's a non-event because I've already checked and moved into the empty lane to our left, but it would have been just as easy to stop. I think I said, "we're clear".
However, the leader slows way down, passes within inches, shouting profanity, and flips off the driver, an older woman, really getting in her face. By that time, I'm 20 yards ahead coasting, looking back at the scene. The guy catches up back up with me fuming, and I say something like, "hey man, what's the problem, it's not like she cut us off." The G-rated summary of his response was that motorists should not be pulling into and stopping in the bike lane when there are cyclists there.
-- here is street view of the lane and intersection.
http://g.co/maps/37uhm
I'm thinking there were 2 cyclist mistakes here:
1. Motorist had the right of way to pull into the bike lane at the dashed lines to turn right with plenty of clearance (as described in this scenario)
2. Cyclist did not make friends and influence people by cussing out a driver who was yielding to a pedestrian.