Ahh, to be back in the City. After a long weekend of cycling in the Fingerlakes area, where drivers courteously give cyclists wide berth on the on the road, I have a story from today. Short, but ugly.
My commute to work involves me driving by UPS' main facility in NYC so I contend with their crazy drivers on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, my UPS guys at work and at home are quite nice fellas and some of the drivers appear to have some sense, but for the most part, they act like they own that part of town.
So a couple of avenues down from the facility (this would be 8th and 44th now), I am getting close to an intersection where I always just make the light. Well, UPS man drives up next to me, holds his position for a bit, and then attempts the classic right hook.
I
never, ever trust a car right next to me to not right hook, so it wasn't even close (compared to previous close shaves), but it could have been very ugly were I less attentive. I rather lustily cursed the guy out along the lines of "what the bleep do you think you're doing?" to which he replied "what do you think you're doing?!?". A hearty belting out of "getting your number to get your stupid a55 fired" made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Does that make me a bad person?
I didn't really get his driver or plate number because I was in a hurry to get to work and this kind of crap happens too often to spend my time on it. However, it was nice to see a ped also yelling at the guy for his stupidity. Glad somebody pays attention!