Had a run-in with a cop on the way home last night. Sort of.

It was on the most frustrating part of my route - on a 4-lane road, 2 lanes each direction but no shoulder, 45 mph speed limit, between two lights. The second light is for a road leading only to a community/sports center on the right; for some reason, drivers are often very impatient in this area, rushing up to the light; of my 9-mile commute each way, this is the section where I consistently have the most close passes. I have learned to aggressively take the lane here most of the time, but it's also up a hill, so sometimes I drift over to the right side of the lane to allow traffic to pass me. That was the case yesterday; I wasn't really thinking about it, but there was a headwind in addition to the hill, so I was going slower than usual and probably drifted over toward the right 1/4 to 1/3 of the lane. And sure enough, a big SUV passed within a foot of my handlebars - way too close for comfort. I yelled at him (or her, who knows) - and right then another car passed just as close, just in time to get stopped at the red light behind the SUV (as an aside, I've noticed this phenomenon a number of times - one close pass is often the trigger for another follow-the-leader close pass right after it). I stopped behind the car that just buzzed me; it was a late-model brown Crown Victoria with dark tinted windows, a spotlight affixed to the driver's side, and exempt license plates. An unmarked cop car, obviously, so obviously the driver should have known he was supposed to give me 3 feet of space, or preferably the entire lane, especially since he was just rushing up to the red light. Pissed me off, not to put too fine a point on it.

So when the light changed traffic starts moving, very slowly; I start moving behind the cop car, who is going so slowly that it's hard for me to keep moving, so, again without really thinking about it, I start to pass him on the left. As I get alongside the driver's side window I start pacing him, and staring into the window from about a foot away. Frankly I don't know what his reaction was, because the window tint was so dark I couldn't see into the car, but he was trapped in the slow-moving traffic and had to have seen me - just like he had to have seen me when he buzzed me (another aside - as I stopped at the next light a little further down the road, another driver, wearing a Livestrong cap, gave me a thumbs-up and complimented me on my rear flashing red light - said it could be seen from a long ways off) so I'm pretty sure I made my point. Point being that he endangered my life just so he could be ahead of me at the light, and was now in MY way so I had to slow down just like he should have when he was behind me. And that incidentally he was a ******bag and should have known better.