Neighborhood biking

I hate biking in neighborhoods, but when there are no bike trails in Oshkosh, I bike on the road so I usually cut through a neighborhood to avoid the main roads until I get out of town. Here is why I hate biking through the neighborhoods:

Yesterday about 5 p.m. I biked down Witzel Ave. which is a very busy road but leads west out of town into the country. About half a mile down Witzel, I cut through a very nice neighborhood, planning to skirt the worse of the traffic and come out on the west side where things open up. I've done that many times before with no problem. The neighborhood roads are wide and there is virtually no traffic in the neighborhood, so I don't have to worry about getting run over.

Well, I pedaled up into the neighborhood and rounded a bend. Up ahead was a white mini van backing out of a driveway. I could tell that the driver didn't see me because the van kept backing, so I swung out towards the middle of the street to give it some room. The driver continued backing as I went by until I was even with the back of the car. Then the driver slammed on the brakes. There was no danger since I was a good 10 feet away from the back of the car when we were even with each other. I think it scared the driver though...because of what happened next.

I pedaled on and the mini van finished backing out of the driveway, turned up the street in my direction and caught up with me. The woman driving the van pulled up alongside me and slowed to stay even, wagging her finger at me through a rolled up window. She was obviously mad and must have been blaming ME for causing her to brake while backing out of her driveway.

Remembering a story a few weeks ago that LaRae told me about a friend at church who said that she defuses road rage by flashing the peace sign at other drivers when they get mad, I decided to do that. So I flashed the driver a nice peace sign backed with a big smile, doing my best Richard Nixon imitation.

To make a long story short, her finger wagging changed a bit. She switched fingers from the index finger to the middle finger and flipped her hand over so that the palm was up, the wagging finger becoming a definite statement of how she felt about things at the time. Her face wasn't a smile, but a grimace. Her eyes glared. Her lips moved, lip synching something I can't type here. Then she sped up and left me behind.

So much for peace symbols putting a damper on road rage.

Something similar to this happens about once a month here. Last time it involved an older gentleman in a min van who was mad because I came to a 4 way stop at the same time as he did, him to my right. I didn't come to a complete stop at the 4 way, pedaling through it while he waited on me, wagging his finger at me as I pedaled through. He then chased me down in the mini van and swerved toward me, barely missing hitting me with his outside mirror as he went by.

Its dangerous biking around all the nice people in Oshkosh. Or maybe its just mini van drivers?

Anyway, I completed 7 miles on the bike without anything else happening on a very nice 80 degree late summer day. No one else waved at me with one finger.