I witnessed a great example of this and it was pretty funny.

John is a friend, club member and was my “Effective Cycling” class instructor. He’s a stickler for following the rules of the road, and hates these ‘courteous’ driver situations. He’ll stand at a stop sign with arms folded as long as it takes for the driver to stop waving him through.

John was leading a club ride of about 20 riders – at least half were novices. He gave a little speech at the start about safety, following the rules etc. With John in the lead, we’re going down a wide two lane. City park is on the right and side street entrances on the left. No stop sign for either lane. I’m toward the front and most of the beginners are near the end of the pack.

John signals a left and moves to the left of the lane. We all follow – pretty spread out. When he gets to the turn he is still signaling and slowing more than necessary because there is only one car in the oncoming lane. John figures “I’ll just stall a little til’ the car gets through and we can all go”. Well, the driver comes to a halt (without a stop sign on her side) to wave us through. One of those ‘No you go’ sign signal interactions starts up.

Meanwhile the riders are catching up to John who is now unclipped, waving and watching the beginners in his mirror. They are coming to a halt in the middle of the street and are starting to bunch up, the kids in the pack are wobbling to a halt, the line is turning to a clump of unsteady, unsure riders.

I could see Johns neck muscles tightening. The waving gets more frantic. Meanwhile the driver is still smiling and waving us through. Finally John turns verbal and screams what might be thought of as a religious prayer if it were not for the hostility in his voice. The drivers smile melts into an expression of fear and indignation as she finally pulls out.

I’m sure she thought that we were rude cyclists who don’t understand how nice she was.