Quote Originally Posted by PamNY View Post
Why would you assume she's trying to teach you a lesson? Perhaps she's a normally good driver who made a mistake, realized it and apologized.

I can understand that this incident is dangerous and would be scary if you are used to having plenty of space around your bike, but taking it personally and attributing motives to the driver isn't helpful.

Of course, biking in Manhattan where I live is different so take my comments with a grain of salt.
There are definitely times when you can tell..... the guy who comes up behind you on a perfectly clear road, drives quite close behind for some time, sometimes honking, sometimes just silently lurking until he decides to suddenly pass within mm of your knee..... or the ones who pass really close then swerve in front of you for no particular reason....

Then if you do catch them the conversation invariably begins with them listing (incorrectly) all of your transgressions - you should be further to the right (in the door zone) - you should be in the bike lane (it's not a bike lane... those are sharrows and in any case we have no law here that says that cyclists must use bike lanes....) you need to move over for me (not so.... only if it is a 2 lane highway, more than 5 cars are being delayed, there is no safe passing zone for said cars and there is a safe place for the slower vehicles to pull over), you have to be single file (not in this state buster, our law explicitly says no more than 2 abreast), your not allowed on the road, you should be on the sidewalk/trail.... (from the really uniformed ones) etc. etc.