"Outta my way!"

January's unseasonably mild weather allowed me to bike to work every day last week. We're normally coping with a foot of snow on the ground and a double-digit below zero wild chill.  I'm out early, before traffic is much of an issue, but with short daylight and heavier traffic, the ride home is a little more treacherous.  I wear hi-viz and run some high-tech lights, though, and am not afraid of a little nighttime riding.  I generally find Lincoln driver's to be considerate and patient when I am the same.

One evening last week, I had an encounter with an irate motorist--a rare occurrence for me. My route included a short two-block stretch on a multi-lane arterial.  It was dusk, and I was in the inside lane, about 3.5 feet out from the curb--basically in the right tire track.  The angry motorist was directly behind me, and I think he was probably annoyed that he couldn't pass right away due to other traffic in the outside lane which prevented him from swinging around me.  He had to dog it for about half a block, and when he finally passed, he executed a right turn directly in my path, rolled down his window, made the universal peace sign, and shouted a colorful greeting that I will translate as,  "Outta my way!"

I wasn't trying to be an obstruction, but I just couldn't get over any closer to the curb safely.  Here's why:

This particular species of pothole tends to form where the poured curb meets a seam in the roadway surface.  This short stretch of road had quite a few in quick succession. While I would ordinarily choose to ride a little closer to the curb, the safest course of action in the situation I suddenly found myself was to assert my presence emphatically in the lane.  If you were behind me in a car, you would not be tempted to pass until you had plenty of room to move into the inside lane.   I could have kept a tighter line to the right, and simply zig-zagged around the obstructions for the next couple of blocks, but it would not be a good thing to be following a cyclist who suddenly changes course to dodge one of these buggers, rather than one maintaining a steady and more predictable course.  He obviously doesn't realize it, but this was safer for both of us.

While I have occasionally seen a cyclist acting boorishly or disobeying the law by failing to right as close as practicable to the right hand side of the road, most of the time when I see a bike out in that right tire track or the center of the lane, it's for the same reason: debris, storm sewer grates, uneven pavement joints, potholes, in preparation for a lane-change or turn.  The vast majority of motorists are respectful of me in traffic, and the vast majority of cyclists understand the physics involved in an encounter between a 22 lb. Huffy and a two-and-a-half ton SUV.