Garage Sales

[colorisnt]

Okay, so I think garage sales can be awesome, but has anyone noticed how scary people drive going to/from garage sales. It's like they are so intent on making it to the sale they ignore everything else.

Case in point: I was riding my 20-mile route yesterday. It was my second ride after two months off and I was doing pretty dang good for being out of shape. I was cruising along about 22 in a 25 (flat and perfect tail wind). All of a sudden, a car pulls across both lanes of traffic. I unclipped and slammed on my brakes in time to avoid the garage sale-r. Another female cyclist apparently was behind me and she passed saying, "Hey, are you okay?"

I told her I was and clipped back in. I was just startled and it took me a minute. I got back into my groove and continued on. About 2 miles from my parents' house, I had a guy BLARING on his horn at me. The road there is narrow and there are huge potholes on one side. The speed limit is 20, so I did a fast interval there and took the lane. I had every right to do so. He passed me with less than 2 ft of clearance and proceeded to cut me off so closely that I almost fell off my bike while clipped in trying to avoid hitting his car. We're talking he SLAMMED on his brakes. He then pulled into a garage sale.

I made it up the road to a four-way stop and had pretty well caught up to the other cyclist who had passed me. She was almost side-swiped by someone once more coming FROM a garage sale. The person didn't want to wait to turn. She pulled over and I pulled over to make sure she was okay because she almost got hit. It was CLOSE. She said that garage sales are the worst part of these nice days. By the time I got home, I was pretty shell-shocked. A lot more sales again today, so I was afraid to go back out. We weren't even in a hugely populated part of town. We were basically in the burbs. I am glad we were both okay, but I was livid by the time I got home. On the way there, another motorist flicked me off. Good times. Anyone else notice this trend?

[lovelygamer]

I don't go out on yard sale days or times much but I have noticed a trend of cars generally being intolerant of cyclist on the road. I get this all times of day and week. It's inexcusable. There really needs to be some education done at the divers license level. I'm sorry you had these experiences.

[thekarens]

Garage sales are pretty much every weekend most year round here. I think people in general are inconsiderate drivers.

[Blueberry]

Welcome to my neighborhood just about every weekend

My neighborhood also has a tradition of "curb alerts" - putting stuff on the curb with a free sign. People have figured that out, and they troll the neighborhood. Some make a living off of it. It's a bit disturbing, really.

[colorisnt]

Blueberry,

People did that in my old neighborhood in Columbia because there are a lot of doctoral students who move in/out at odd times and you can find some nice things. I was disturbed when one of the people who came around blocked my parking lot entrance for 15 minutes. I took my sweet time getting in the car, honked, and then got out to explain to him that I was going to be late for work. He grudgingly moved. It was really inconsiderate.

I ride this route probably 20+ times a year for a light ride. Whenever I am home for a week or even a few days, I do it once. I've never really had an issue with cars like this before. Maybe the nice weather after days of intolerable heat just had people going crazy, but the female cyclist I met up with seemed to think it was definitely more common when their were tons of garage sales. Perhaps spurious correlation?

[Blueberry]

It's a very liberal neighborhood, and a university community - so I'm sure that's what's going on. I was pretty laissez faire about it (in fact, I think it's nice that things get passed on) - until they started stopping for stuff without a free sign (I had to stop them from taking stuff off my porch that I intended to keep), and petty crime (i.e., shed break-ins started happening). I don't know - the people trolling to re-sell just struck me as creepy. I now put lists of stuff on the neighborhood email list and ask people to email me.

[Wahine]

Agreed that drivers in general are pretty intolerant but I've also noticed an increase in poor driving amongst the garage sale goers. I was alarmed one week when a family go into a oversized pick-up that they had parked in the driveway of the yard sale, (making it hard for other people to get in to the sale), he backed out of the driveway nearly hitting me and proceeded 3 doors down to park in another driveway at the next sale. Ugh!!! I can't believe he didn't just park on the road and walk from one to the other. It was a multi household community sale and most people were driving to areas, parking and walking around. So not only did he almost hit me, he came way to close to other familys walking. There were little kids all over the place.

Rant over.