Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

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The second issue, is, as you pointed out, one of perception.  We're naturally inclined to place greater weight on bad interactions. It makes sense evolutionarily: you only get to die once.  On our ride the other day, my partner and I were bullied by a driver who felt that we shouldn't be turning left off of the road we were on.  This really spooked us, and we spent some time at the side of the road calming down.  While there, at least 5 different drivers pulled over and asked if we needed any help.  One even offered us a ride.  Yet, the story here is still that one driver who bullied us off the road.  And after all, it only takes one bad driver to end a life.
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Out of curiosity, how did that driver actually do that?

With traffic stopped because of cars turning left ahead, my partner and I signalled left and pulled into the space between two vehicles--this is a perfectly legal and safe movement, and totally appropriate for making a left turn.

The driver behind lays on the horn, after he lets off, I can hear him yelling at us telling us to get out of the lane, I turn around and shout "we're turning left", and wave my signal arm around.  He honks again.

I'm not particularly happy about this, so I flip him off.  Obviously not an appropriate response, but he squeals around us onto the shoulder and proceeds to yell at us some more about how we're not supposed to be blocking traffic (traffic is still stopped at this point) I tell him to move along, although not so politely, more curses are exchanged, and eventually he moves off still on the shoulder.  My partner is in tears at this point, so we move off to the shoulder of the road.

You can argue that my response was not good, and it wasn't, but that doesn't excuse a driver in a large vehicle repeatedly honking at us, and then dangerously swerving off the road to lecture and cuss some more.  It's pretty fucking intimidating having a pickup truck behind you rev and squeal their tires.