Hopedale,
I don’t mean to hijack your thread, but your experience is instructive for us all.
I had an incident a year or so ago that I am still debating. I was on a road that had a curb and no shoulders. A pickup pulling a trailer ran a stop sign from my left front, and turned in my direction. He then proceeded to end up in my lane head on. I was doing 20+, he was only traveling 10-15mph. Everything happened so fast but here is what I saw:
The driver had a cell phone held to his ear with his right hand and was leaning to his left looking down as if he had dropped something during his turn. He had no idea that he was about to get a new hood ornament (me). I hollered at him (thankfully his window was down), he looked up and swerved back into his lane. I passed by the drivers window with only inches to spare. In passing I uttered a few unkind words about his cell phone practices. The driver stopped in the middle of the road, got out of his vehicle (I was 100 yards on down the road by then) and began to scream at me. People actually came out of the nearby houses to see what was going on. I stopped and pedaled back and listened to him rant then rode on. His main complaint was that I did not live nearby and had no business on his roadway.
After discussing this incident with others, and pondering it over and over I have come to these conclusions:
a. I don’t have a horn to get a driver’s attention so I often holler to get their attention, and I will continue this practice.
b. When a driver realizes that someone has had the temerity to holler at him, his blood immediately boils, never mind the nearly new hood ornament
c. I probably should not have communicated with him as I passed his open window.
d. In the future I will not stop to listen, or in any way get involved in the ranting
e. I don’t carry a cell phone when I ride and won’t in the future
f. I am still searching for that mental state for riding where I can just let these incidents go without letting my blood pressure rise