That was different...

I scheduled my day off for today so that I could help at Seneca High School. Mr. Keswani, a teacher there (who also rides to work fairly often), asked for someone to do a presentation for his first-hour class, then participate in a panel discussion with a few other local folks working to make our community a healthier and more sustainable place to live.

Of course, I rode a bike to get there.

Having done a presentation in Mr. Keswani's classroom before, I know it's on the second floor. I opted to ride the Raleigh this time, simply to make navigating the stairs less of a hassle.

On the way to my next errand, though, is where the title originates. I was pedaling along Hikes Lane, a bit east or north of Klondike Lane, when a motorist passed me with almost no room to spare (with no other traffic going our way, she could have used the left lane, but...). Being the person that I am, I yelled out a variant on, "Hey! Watch where you're going!" To my surprise, the motorist stopped--in the middle of the right lane of a four-lanes-with-left-turn-only-median roadway--and waved me up to her window. She said something along the lines of, "I'm not trying to start nothing, I want to apologize for not moving over further. I'll be more careful in the future."

I was gobsmacked. I asked her to please give people she's passing more room in the future, and let her go on her way.

It's a first for me, to have a motorist stop and apologize (albeit in an unsafe manner, stopping in a traffic lane as she did).

In my travels today, I've had a surprising number of motorists stop, without need (i.e. stop sign) or legal suggestion, to allow me to make left turns from, say, Breckenridge Lane to Grandview Avenue, or from Grandview to the entrance for the public library branch (separate trip), or similar sites. I don't know how to tell these folks that I'm perfectly happy to wait my turn to turn left, and I don't want them creating a disruption in traffic flow (and thus a potential safety hazard) to be so polite. I usually wave them on and wait anyway, but one guy today wouldn't go until I had made my turn. I don't know if having the kid trailer on my bike had anything to do with it, or just what his thing was (the first two times it happened today I did not have the trailer attached).