Location = 4 way stop intersection (approx. N/S/E/W layout)

Situation = 1 @ Cager approaching intersection from South + 1 @ Cyclist (me) approaching intersection from East




In chronological order:

----- Cager reaches the intersection and comes to a stop at the stop sign I am still about 30 feet (two cager lengths) from my stop line and I am still rolling.
----- I realize the cager made the intersection first and thus legally has right of way so I come to a complete stop (takes about 2 sec.) at my stop line.
----- Both me and the cager are both stopped at the intersection.
----- I give it another two count waiting for the cager to start going through the intersection.
----- The cager still hasn't moved so I do my standard take a long slow drink from the water bottle act which almost always ends this kind of 4-way stop stand off.
----- The cager still doesn't move, so I put the water bottle back and wave the cager through with a hand motion.
----- The cager lifts a finger on one of her hands on the steering wheel (don't know which finger but in hind sight I have my suspicions) and then shifts her car into reverse and starts backing up away from the intersection.
----- I have never before in years of on-roadway in traffic riding seen a cager do that before during a 4-way stop stand off so I just stare with an extremely puzzled look on my face.
----- She continues backing up slowly away from the intersection so I figure I have done all I can to do the right thing and it looks very obvious that she absolutely insists that I go through first, which I am hesitant to do because legally I'm in the wrong if there is a collision since technically I'm supposed to yield to her since she got to the intersection first.
----- So I visibly shrug my shoulders and start to proceed into the intersection, she initially continues to slowly back up as I enter the intersection going East to West straight through.
----- Once I have gotten out into the intersection she rams her car into forward gear and rams on the gas complete with roaring engine and comes right at me (South to North) while I'm right in the intersection.
----- I do a desperate tight hard right partial U-turn trying to get back out of the intersection and up onto the side walk desperately hoping to get on the other side of the street light pole on the corner desperately hoping that it will stop her car if I can reach it in time.
----- At the last micro-second with my heart beating like crazy and having not yet reached my objective safe point and still on the roadway she swerves around me and roars on past.



She set me up !!! Long story short I still recommend using the water bottle trick since in my experience it has ended 95+% of those obnoxious 4-way stop stand offs in a positive manner.

But if you have a Cager back up on you backing away from the intersection in a 4-way stop stand off. HEADS UP they might be backing up to get a good run at you !!! Can't be sure that every cager that backs up on you is setting you up to make a run at you like she did to me since I'm only 1-for-1 so far but since aggressive cagers seem to have similar patterns of behavior I thought I should give a heads up shout out.