This will be long... OK. Sunday I was out for a 65-mile ride through towns I don't know. In that situation I bring lots of maps. To set the scene, imagine a four-way stop. I’m in some confusing little downtownish area, with few helpful road signs and a couple major intersections coming up, so I stop and pull out my map for a quick look-see. I’m maybe a foot from the “edge” of the road, which isn’t really clear, since it shades from grass to a wide strip of leftover sand to asphalt. I’m not far from the wide strip of sand.
Standing there, scrutinizing, I was surprised to hear a rather angry honk behind me. I glanced back and sure enough, a big red SUV was stopped behind me. I waved them to go around me, then turned back to my puzzlement. Maps, bicycling, turns in roads, and I do not mix well, so I’m very careful when making turning decisions (this is also why we make routes that involve as few turns as possible); I pretty much totally ignore cars around me while mapping.
Imagine my surprise, then, when the honk sounded behind me again, if possible more irritated than before. I decide to explain that I’m going to be here a bit, so I show them the map, point to it, and wave them around me again. I even say, “I’m looking at a map,” although I doubt they can hear me through a couple tons of steel. Then again I go back to my map.
Somewhat shockingly, the SUV remained stopped behind me and this time the driver actually opened the door, and stuck her head out. This, incidentally, is the first time I’ve had somebody do this. She said, very angrily, “We’re in an intersection! Pull over!”
“I’m looking at a map. Go around me,” I told her, amazingly calmly considering she’d just honked at me and now was shouting angrily at me.
“Move over!”
“Go around me.” I look back at my map, decide to go straight through the next couple intersections, and tuck the map away. As I do so, I hear, furiously:
“Do I need to call the cops?”
My jaw dropped. The cops? For me standing on the right side of the road, not blocking the intersection, while checking a map? Yes, I could certainly have moved completely off the road, onto the grassy strip on the side. But, I’ll be honest here, after she started honking at me, I started feeling remarkably stubborn. I wasn’t angry at all, but darn it all, I was NOT going to move off the road, her irritation be darned! I don’t like being honked at any more the next person, and I have NEVER had anybody threaten to call the cops because of me. My most egregious law-breaking is tied between speeding in a car and riding my bike the wrong way on a one-way street. So I refused to move. In fact, I’m not sure what made me do it, but as I pulled away, I shouted, “GO FOR IT!”
By strange coincidence, I happened to see a state police car almost immediately after that, as well as two more local police cars in close succession. Each time I wondered, “Did she really call the cops?” I wasn’t worried, but—but—honestly. Call the police, because I was somewhat in her way? Goodness me.
