I keep having these confrontations where a driver slows but does not stop, and heads at’ me. At least it seems to my hyper-vigilant paranoid commuting-in-traffic persona that they either don’t see me.
Previous one was a driver who was either intending to cross SE Salmon or turn east on it. Stop sign on the cross street, none on Salmon. He rolled the stop and I screamed at him, horn blaring. He chased me down the street to the next stop sign, and asked “What are you yelling about? I stopped.” Rolling stop. We like to think they constitute a stop (I stopped pedaling – that means I stopped) and drivers do, too. I think he honestly thought he’d stopped, and he could not see that my perception was appropriate to my vulnerability.
Today’s was someone turning onto Salmon as I was in the intersection. This one I chased down at Hawthorne. “Did you see me? Are you trying to terrify me?” Answer: “I gave you a good 10′.”
How can we make “cagers” understand that even though they know they’re not going to run over us, we can’t even be certain they see us? Am I supposed to be able to ascertain the behavioral difference between “I saw you and wasn’t going to knock you onto the road” and “I never saw you and you’re lucky I didn’t run you over”?
mh