Normally riding home on the trike is a breeze; 99% of people are pleased to see you, wave, grin, kids point and you can read their lips going “I want one of those”…
…and then you run into the remaining 1%.
Around 1915h (ie: within the past 60 minutes) I was coming home along the Fleet Road when I heard a car horn some distance behind me.
I checked both my mirrors and saw a car or two behind me; I am not blocking the road or anything – I tend to ride with one wheel on the white line and the trike is about 90cm wide, so I occupy no more space than a bicycle ridden normally; it’s just that some drivers when confronted with something recumbent with three wheels and a yellow flag waving in the air, they fall into a stupified trance and forget they’re allowed to overtake.
It’s not my fault, and I try to help by waving them on when it’s safe.
So I checked the road ahead and waved him on in suggestion; he overtook, as did a couple of other cars in train behind him, and then a big black Mitsubishi Warrior 4×4 who’d been at the back of the queue. That the 4×4 was the guy who had honked earlier was confirmed to me when he did it again, at length, when overtaking. He then stuck his hand out the driver’s window and started making “wanking” hand-gestures.
Presumably this explains what he was doing behind the wheel instead of driving, because when I flipped him the bird in return, he swerved up onto the verge and slowed, in an apparent attempt to make me crash into the back of him.
Fortunately the Trice has disc brakes, and good ones. I pulled up, but he drove off – however I got his plate.
So, to the driver of a Black Mitsubishi Warrior 4×4 registration LC54 CVF who was in the vehicle on the A323 at around 1915h on Friday 11th July 2008:
- you give 4×4’s a bad name
- you’re a wanker
- you’re a coward
- you’re inconsiderate of other road users
- and you’re a really bad driver
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