For crying out loud, give cyclists a 'brake'

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First, a warning and an invitation: This column is a rant. Please join in the diatribe by adding a comment at the bottom. Thank you.

Last week I was cycling fast up a steady incline on a quiet residential street near my home, out for a 7.5-mile training ride. Suddenly, a car horn blasted from behind. Not a gentle hello-I’m-here warning shot but a shrill, get-the-hell-out-of-the-way thunderclap, a surprise attack by a passing motorist who was clearly exceeding the posted 30-mph speed limit.

I was so startled that I instinctively whipped my head to the left to see the rapidly approaching vehicle, an undersized sedan driven by a young woman in her late teens or early 20s. Turning my head as quickly as I did, my body naturally jerked to the left, sending my bike toward the center of the lane.

I quickly turned my head and body back to the right to steady my bike, enabling me to remain on a straight path. The young woman sped past me until she reached a car that had pulled halfway out of its driveway into the center of the street. She stopped abruptly for a few seconds. The other motorist appeared stunned. Then the young woman whipped around the back of the other car and sped up the street, out of view.

My heart was racing. I had to stop momentarily to regain my composure. I was angry. Where was she headed in such a rush? I wondered.

Later, an older man was out driving with his wife in a late-model luxury sedan. He, too, honked as he approached me from behind. This time it was more of a gentle, I’m-here-take-notice alert. Still, it was jarring. The man was driving slower than the speed limit, and I caught up to him at a stop sign, where he paused for an extended period of time. I considered tapping on his window and asking that he never, ever beep at a cyclist again, unless it was an emergency, but I didn’t. He drove off, and I kept pedaling.

The moral of this little story: Don’t honk your horn at cyclists unless absolutely necessary. Bicyclists are incredibly vulnerable, unprotected by a car’s glass-and-steel cocoon and unable to maneuver with the speed of a motorcyclist. A car horn sounded from behind –– loudly or softly –– is just plain unnerving.

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