Thanks, but no thanks?

 I usually start a post with a conclusion in mind. Not necessarily a good one, and certainly no guarantee it's correct, but my writing has an intended destination, despite possibly wandering to arrive there. Nope, this time I'm using this as a tool to think, so if you'd prefer to protect yourself from not-too-censored exposure to my thought process, stop reading now.

Hi! To those of you with the poor judgement to keep reading, I give my apologies, and maybe a touch of empathy. Over the past couple months, in addition to noticing spring, I've seen an increase in the number of motorists who will stop to allow me pulling onto the road. Yes, yes, this is nice, and I much, much prefer it to drivers who express the sentiment that a bicycle shouldn't be on the road at all, but I won't say that it is always considerate.

A well considered action would include looking in the rear view mirror, noticing there are no cars behind oneself, and realizing the actions of slowing and stopping, a cyclist confirming the intention to yield and then pulling onto the road, all this, will take longer for the bike rider than simply driving past at speed.

But yes, people on bikes can be part the problem, as some of them don't yield when required in obeyance of the law, so responsible people in cars have learned to be proactively defensive when they see a bicycle. I know traffic laws, as a former driving instructor, possibly better than average, so I yield as per statute, and even other times in defense of my skin, but I acknowledge I may also be part of the problem that intimidates careful drivers from just continuing past.

Despite my demonstration to the contrary last October that had me dislocate vertebrae in my neck and pinch nerves, I have a fair amount of skill riding a bike. Among the abilities I've gained with spending large chunks of my life on a bicycle, a track stand is one of those skills. I even developed it to the point of rolling backward dowhill, which I always called my most useless skill until I actually used it to help in overtaking a lapped rider in a race. So, I guess it is one use away from completely useless!

Drivers, most who reasonably have zero knowledge that it's possible to stand stationary on a bike without putting a foot down, see me stopped at an intersection with both feet on the pedals, and conclude I'm about to bolt in front of them. We wait. Maybe they motion their hand for me to go, but they don't realize a mirror is a plate of glass with a dark background, much like a windshield from the outside on a sunny day, so I can't see them. Maybe one in ten motorists realize they can't see into other cars either and recognize flashing headlights are a more effective signal.

So to the people who yield to me, delaying us both, I do want to thank you for being nice, but it also bothers me that your delay increases consumption of climate changing fossil fuels, an idea that occurred to me a few years back and increased the times I will yield, with a VISIBLE flick of my hand, even when not required. One of my esthetics of riding a bike is that I'd prefer it didn't cause someone else to burn more fuel. Maybe it's time to just put my foot down, so to speak.