Good driver experience! :)

Today I had a GOOD experience with a smart and courteous driver. I thought i would post it here amongst all the not so good experiences.

I was cycling down the country 2 lane highway today. There was no shoulder so I was riding about 12" in from the right hand white line.
The road was somewhat winding and there were various trees and fields on either side with some patches of woods. Double yellow line in the middle.
It was a fast road, with the cars passing me at about 55mph, which was fine, and I was going about 30mph. No one was passing me dangerously closely or anything.

So I'm going along and way up ahead I see woods on the right and a subtle black silhouette of two deer near the edge and facing the road. They were hard to see.
In my helmet mirror I saw a car approaching behind me and going the usual 55mph.

Still riding along my edge of the road, I put my left hand out palm down and started making "slow down" motions. I noticed in my mirror that they immediately slowed down to my speed and followed behind me slowly making no attempt to pass me. (whoa, talk about a sense of power!) I knew they were watching me and wondering. At that point we were both going about 25mph I guess. Then still not looking back, i made a big hand/arm motion attempting imitate a deer jumping and bouncing across the road. I felt a little silly but I felt sure they must have understood. :cool: (or else thought I was truly nuts)

We continued slowly for about 50 yards, the car staying well behind me. Then sure enough, the deer and her fawn decided to cross the road right in front of us both. They crossed safely, the woods turned back to open fields, and I waved the car to pass me.
They then passed me and speed off into the distance, but not before giving me a little "beepbeep, beepbeep" thank you honk after they passed me.
I felt good! :p
Who knows what might have happened if neither of us saw the deer and slowed down?

I have had 99.9% POSITIVE experiences with drivers. I interact with them a lot with smiles and waves and with few exceptions they don't pass me on narrow roadways.

Maybe it's the "road painting bicycle....don't not pass" sign on the back of my jacket????

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Originally Posted by pardes

I have had 99.9% POSITIVE experiences with drivers. I interact with them a lot with smiles and waves and with few exceptions they don't pass me on narrow roadways.

Maybe it's the "road painting bicycle....don't not pass" sign on the back of my jacket????

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Yes I have almost all wonderful experience with drivers as well. I too do plenty of hand signal communication with drivers- I know they appreciate it.

This highway had room to pass me with no problem at all- but I thought it was so cool that they obeyed me (a lowly cyclist) and hung back, sensing I was trying to warn them of something.

You're totally right BSG. I think I got my ideas about being my own marshal from reading your posts (and also from marshaling for races). Drivers for the most part (around here anyway) react really well to active signaling. I think a lot of the aggressivity comes from drivers being really scared of hitting a cyclist and frustrated at how invisible or unpredictable cyclists can be sometimes.

Your way is the way to go, that's for sure.

Glad both you and the bambis made it safely to your destination!

Saturday I did the organized ride connected with our county fair. As a group of us came into the home stretch, a pickup truck with West Virginia plates ended up in our midst. We were trying to wave them through until we began to realize that the little old couple inside was having a fine time smiling and waving at us.