My first spill on my new bike was when I slowing down to turn left onto a side street with a motorist at a stop sign waiting to cross my lane. He decided to try and dart past me, causing me to panic and grab the front brake too hard. I flipped over the bars, but was going slow enough that I was fine.

Today in the same spot it was the same situation with a big pick up truck. I was intentionally going really slow trying to make eye contact with the driver before making the turn. When I was nearly right in front of him, he decided to go and had to actually turn a bit to make it around me. I think since I was going so slow, he thought I was yielding to him while I was actually just trying to make sure I wouldn't get run over.

Just a few minutes later I was going straight and a car was trying to turn left across my path into a driveway. I kept up my speed this time but he tried to make it past me anyway. I held up an open palm to tell him to stop and he stopped barely in time. I realized later how close a call that really was.

On another day, I was going through a traffic circle and staring right at a motorist waiting to get into the circle. She started rolling forward and I pulled the same move of holding out my hand and that stopped her. Both times that I've done it I've mouthed "Stop" but not audibly. From now on I think I will just straight up yell "STOP" and just scare the hell out of people. It's worth being a little aggressive to avoid being put into dangerous situations. Motorists somehow think that no matter how fast a cyclist is going they don't have to yield.