I rode sunrise to sunset last weekend, plus some. Of the hundreds people I encountered, from motorists to farmers to convenience store clerks, exactly one person came across as unfriendly. I won't let than one person skew my perspective. All the people who waved, lifted a friendly finger from the steering wheel, sat patiently behind me as I crested a hill... those are the people worth remembering.

I have to disagree with you here, although when I toured in the south, stuff was hurled at me by those who appeared to be on the lower end of the economic scale.
Around southern California the typical person who throws things, insults, or displays road rage toward cyclists seems to be middle class (or above) white punks, sometimes in $50k trucks, sometimes any other car. A lady friend of mine was hit with a Slurpee by 2 idiots in a BMW who then ducked into their private school where another friend saw them go and had them arrested. I figure Mommy took the Bimmer away for a couple days.
It was a doctor who was busted out here for brake-checking two cyclists with his Benz, he got some jail time for it, too.
Sick, sadistic bastards come from all socio economic backgrounds.

I agree the overwhelming majority of drivers are courteous and look out for cyclists. In fact some are way too helpful; thus causing a problem.

I was riding in a local area where there are many STOP signs. All of them faced me with none on the crossing street. With approaching cross traffic I didn't bother to unclip. Instead I did a track stand, intending to proceed after the motor vehicle. that had the right-of-way passed. I was foiled and darned near fell into traffic when I had trouble unclipping and simultaneously balancing the stationary bike when the driver came to a halt. Don't know about other folks; but I found it difficult to balance a stationary bike, not crash and wave him on; all at the same time.

Apparently experience had taught that driver cyclists couldn't be trusted.

There are quite a few "courteous drivers" around here.

Technically a car is supposed to stop for a pedestrian that is stepping into the road... or looks like they will. So, some also stop for bikes at odd places.

Occasionally some drunks will roll down a window and yell something, but with slurred speech, the Doppler effect, and road noise, I rarely have any idea what they're saying. And that is just fine. I can only imagine it is some kind of encouragement.

I used to have the same problem. I finally started putting one foot down which helps, but does not totally alleviate the problem.

My wife and I were sitting in a brew pub in Eugene, Oregon last night having dinner. It is a bike town, and it was a busy time. We had a window seat where I had a good view of a 4-way stop intersection. During the time we were there, I saw at least 2 dozen cyclist blow right through the stop sign. A few did a half second pause or a very short track stand, only one took the lane, stopped, put his foot down, and then moved across.

Experience has taught this cyclist that a lot cyclists can't be trusted to obey the traffic laws, which means you really can't any. Last week a guy blew through a stop sign in our small town and a car smacked into him. The cyclist was cited for failure to yield the right of way. I'm not sure if it was before or after they took him to the hospital.

You do know that one need not put a foot down to make a legal stop, don't you? Would you expect motorists to open their doors and put their feet on the ground at stop signs? A complete cessation of forward travel, behind the limit line, is all that is required.

Other than that, yes most cyclists run stop signs, as do pretty much all motorists. As we say around here, "They ride like they drive."

Oh, and calling Eugene a "bike town" shows a lack of understanding of what a bike town is. With fewer than 10% of all in-town commuters choosing bikes and a loss of nearly 25% of said bike commuters over the past five years, this is only a bike town in the tallest midget sense of the word. We don't even have a single local elected official who rides a bike.

I had an incident with a motorist yelling, "Get on the sidewalk" at my wife and me two days ago. We had just crested the last hill on our way back into town when an electric car pulled up alongside us and the driver shouted the comment. It was a friend of ours who happened to live near the top of that hill (and also rides a fair amount). The funny thing is my wife didn't recognize him until well after he had shouted his joke, so she was mildly annoyed for a few seconds.

By the way, the road in question is a narrow road that doesn't have any sidewalks until well after one crosses into the city proper, about four miles further up the road.

in S.E. Michigan - this is not the case. the more affluent the suburb, the more unfriendly and entitled the drivers are.
the more working class, the more tolerant the drivers. i still think it's related to how close the lower income folks know they are to being on a bike.

here's a problem i'm having: my township put in bike paths under the power lines (good). they put in really well marked cross walks for the bike paths, since the paths cross roads where there's no intersection (Great!). there was a decent media campaign to get the word out about the new intersections (outstanding!!).
Now, when i am using the paths, i will check traffic to see if i can avoid hitting the button to cause a red light. if i'm all clear, i roll through without hitting the button.
A lot (not all) drivers are STOPPING without the cross walk light being red, trying to wave me on. but that's traffic from one direction, so I can't roll. then they get mad, and as soon as the light turns red for them (green for me) they hit the gas and take off because they were watching me NOT go.
good times.

+1 I make my living (teaching and administration) at a very large university. Common sense -- even common decency -- is not a given among the 'educated classes' or 'higher socio-economic groups'. Far, far from it.

Further, my experience suggests that poor/aggressive/dangerous driving behaviour correlates (if it correlates with anything specific) with 'luxury class vehicles' (car or SUV/pick-up) just as readily as it does with other vehicles.

Quite a bit of arrogance in some of the responses here.

I rarely get hoots from drivers but it happens. I used to flip them the bird but I have stopped. As others said, responding in kind may just wind them up more against the next rider. Even worse, you may enrage a total nut job who will turn the truck around and run you off the road or do an Easy Rider. On DC news yesterday and today everybody is upset about a surveillance video that shows a 69 YO man getting beat down by a 20 something on the Metro escalator. The story says the kid shoved the guy exiting the train door or something, words were exchanged and bam. You can clearly see that the kid is moving away up the escalator when the old guy makes some angry comment. The kid then turns back and spits in his face at which point the old guy sort of jabs back or pushes him away. The kid then starts punching him. The kid may or may not have started the incident but the older guy would have been better served holding his tongue. Gotta admit it can be hard to hold back when somebody f's with you, but...

There are two distinct types of drivers being discussed here. The inattentive guy/gal in an expensive car that feels entitled to ALL the road and doesn't care if he/she crowds you or causes you to crash etc. The second group (the one to which I was referring my story to) is the low life trouble maker out to intentionally ruin someone's day just because he can or gets a kick from doing it. I don't have much experience on a bicycle but walking along the side of roads with kayaking gear, it's usually been an old beat up pick up truck with beer drinking, cigarette smoking unemployed local aresholes out to make trouble. These are not wealthy guys and I make the assumption that they are not well educated either. Sorry if that offends anyone but I call them as I see them. I'm not giving anyone that yells obscenities or hurls eggs out the window at me the benefit of the doubt.

A recent close-encounter revealed that the driver was later arrested and lost his drivers lic. and ins.

His only mode of transportation now is a bicycle. Better days ahead!

Me too. I attribute most of that kind of stuff as attempts to either intimidate me or to anger me. When I flip them off, it shows them they were successful and actually rewards them.

I'm a huge 5'5" tall 145 lbs. so you have to use your head.
Smile and wave is the answer, if they do come back ( they won't ) tell 'em you thought they must know you shouting like that
Since in my area, Little Rock the amount of riders has increased tremendously in the last thirty years this is a lot smaller problem than it was.
Far less trivial is the fact that riders here are killed by drivers and never prosecuted.

[QUOTE=B. Carfree;17751321]You do know that one need not put a foot down to make a legal stop, don't you?

QUOTE]

But the point is, as this thread has illustrated several times, car operators don't always know what the next cyclist is going to do; the foot down establishes clearly that the rider is not doing a quick or "rolling" stop to break the right of way queue. OTOH, I've seen car operators take advantage of that, and take their turn out of order....

When I was road riding here in the Los Angeles area, I actually found quite the opposite to be true--it was always a fancy mercedes, beemer, land rover, etc that would mess with me, driven by some privileged young jackass who seemed to get a kick out of nearly killing somebody, all while texting of course (you know the personality type--would probably tweet, or post to Facebook how funny he thought it was if he ran somebody off into a gully, and then blame it on the cyclist). The workers in trucks, people in beater old cars, and so on never caused me any trouble.

Not too many BMW's and Mercedes here in Northern Michigan

Sometimes those jerks make me angry, sometimes I just feel sorry for them. I'm engaged in something that I love, why would that move people to hurl abuse?

Regarding the sub-debate about whether this kind of abuse correlates positively or negatively with education, I would say that it does correlate negatively. It's not that smart or educated people are overall more courteous or not prone to being arrogant, etc.. it's more that education has a tendency to to moderate public boorish behavior. The educated find other ways to be jerks.

I'd say that I get 100 waves, thumbs up, smiles from people for every honking, yelling jerk. 1% jerks in the world probably hasn't changed much in my lifetime. I hardly hear them, and when I do, I just ignore them.

I had a minor bike mechanical the other day. Lots of drivers stopped to ask if I was ok or if I needed any. Almost all of them were farmers with darken skin above the neck and trust me, we have tons of Mercedes and BMW here. I had a wheel collapse once at high speed on descent and injury and bike damage meant I needed help. Who helped me? A damned smelly outdoorsmen hauling a stinky little boat. He got me where I needed to go.

Californian drivers are all dangerous. The absolute worst especially in a Mercedes or BMW. Mercedes owners are evil. When I drive my truck or other off road vehicle, I am like a kitty cat but when behind the wheel of one of my Mercedes, I become part of a fraternity out to get the goat of cyclists. We own the damned road and you cyclist have no business on them. So, the bottom of the barrel are those Californian Mercedes drivers.

I wonder if my limited experience justifies my bias against Californian drivers and Mercedes owners.

I do notice that in deep cold winter when I put a camo neck gater one and/or a hunter orange gloves, I get respectful thumbs up from tons on rednecks in pickups. I do not fear them at all.

It is the young female textaholic that scares the dickens out of me.

I don't think anyone was offended, certainly I was not. My point was over the last 30ish years of road riding I have had all manner of trash, spit, unknown liquids, diesel smoke, and insults thrown toward me and my friends, and the dufuses commiting these acts are from different economic backgrounds.
I also agree that I usually feel safer cycling in a poorer area, or a working class area. I lived in a rental in an upscale suburb and cycling out there could be perilous. My ex wife was assaulted by a bozo or 2 out there when she was alone.
Another time, a group of us were riding in a very upscale area when we were shouted at by a punk in a Mustang convertible whose license frame proclaimed his USC diploma. He tried to brake-check a couple of us (adw) before he sped off.

In my area, 99 percent of commercial truckers are Punjabi. Don't know if they qualify as 'rednecks' though.

I guess I resemble all the evils here, I own a mercedes, a diesel pickup and I drove over the road for 15 years. I never did any of the things that people are relating here.

I had a tweenie bopper yell out the window last year to get my fat ass off the road, I ignored it. Her mother slammed on the brakes and made her walk back to me and apologize for being a " spoiled little brat ". I didn't hear it all but I think she lost lots of privileges for a while. Living in a small rural town where everyone knows almost everyone else has its perks.

I'm proud to say I'm teachable. Today I met two drivers who had the right-of-way but were sort of giving it to me, ala my previous post. But I foxed them! I was ready to, and did, stop until they passed. Then I proceeded.

One driver illustrated the pont several have made: Cyclists as a group have a reputation as reckless scoff laws. After we passed he, in a puzzled voice, said :"I thought you wanted to turn left and I was getting out of your way".

Also had a cute encounter. I put out my arm to signal a turn. The approaching driver changed expressions; put a big smile on his face and waved. Made my day.

I haven't had the privilege of being able to get on the road yet here in SC but I'm sure it will be interesting.

One thing thats good here is there's a state law protecting bikers from harassment.

Section 56-5-3445. It is unlawful to harass, taunt, or maliciously throw an object at or in the direction of any person riding a bicycle. A person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined not less than two hundred fifty dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.