FlowerBlossom

On my way to work today, I was trying to make a left hand turn onto a busy road. A very nice person in a silver car (don't know the make, sorry) stopped at an unsigned intersection and waited for me for at least 2 minutes to enter the road. Traffic from the opposite direction was busy, traffic behind him/her was backed up at least 5 cars, one honked to get the stopped car to move, yet, the car (driver) didn't budge until I was able to make my turn.

Karma points for that silver car (driver)!

recursive

While probably well intentioned, I don't think waiting for traffic out of turn is helpful to anyone.

Treespeed

+1

It just seems to confuse everyone and I don't trust motorists when they yield the right of way because some of them lose patience halfway through.

2manybikes

The forces of the universe have balanced out your good experience.

Today I was walking across a cross walk with the dog on a leash. There was a "walk" light. As I got in front of the guy in the left turn lane (who had a red light) he drove at me, missed my back leg by about a foot and turned left against the light. By the time I looked at the other cars to see if the light changed, or they were going to roll, or something, he was gone.

scooterbeans

That's OK, on Tuesday afternoon in Seattle, a Silver Miata tried to invade my space a couple times then got ahead of me, pull righ and drove in the bike lane in front of me trying to block me as we came up to a light. I calmy rode around the left side of the Miata to filter back up to the bike lane. As I did, the Miata swerved left as if to hit me. And then honked.

I was pretty amused. Seattle is a mostly biker friendly town, but the occaisonal jerk always seems to be in an SUV or truck. Getting harassed by a Miata just made me laugh.

Anyway, score is even on Silver cars in Seattle. If you see a silver near S. Jackson and MLK, give the guy all the guy some respect. He's driving a Miata and harassing bikers. Super cool.

vrkelley

Unheard of! On my route yesterday, a ped in a red coat was hesitantly waiting for the walk light. As she started to cross a truck came barreling around the corner. He wasn't gonna stop. I gave him the WTF wave.

FlowerBlossom

Maybe next time I'll try harder to get the make of the car. Obviously, being silver wasn't good enough.

Patriot

You sure she wasn't just fixing her makeup, or some guy reading a book? I've actually seen that happen.

FlowerBlossom

Positive. They were waiting patiently for me to enter the road, and looking at me while waiting. Eye contact! Woohoo! I love eye contact, even if I have to be the one to stop.

This road (8th Street NW in Ballard) is a major north-south street in a very residential area. This part of Seattle is still very polite and people obey the law [edit: for the most part]. Drivers drive 35+ on this road. I happened to be in an intersection that has a blinking "Crosswalk" sign hanging from above. WA state law states that drivers must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, so, I think the person decided to make it their interpretation of the law, even though probably not technically necessary, since technically I was a vehicle.

I was thinking that the driver must be a bicycler, and knows what it's like to wait forever for traffic.

Or heck, maybe they were just nice. Whatever the reason, it was very nice.

Blue Jays

Hi All-

It could have also been a fellow cyclist in his/her cage for the day. Drivers with a Thule or Yakima rack atop their cars tend to be very courteous to riders!

~ Blue Jays ~