Okay, so this is what happened to me tonight. On my way home I needed to stop at a neighbor's house. I approached the address and signaled to turn off to the left, into the nearest drive. I couldn't because this Ram Sport with Black Appearance Package (I used to make car ads, so I know these models by sight) is bearing down on me from behind and won't let me slow down or turn off. I'm frantically signalling left, but it turns out this moron doesn't even know what a hand signal is (yes, he actually said that!), and he keeps trying to push me forward with his truck, then tries to wedge his truck to my left where my outstretched arm is signalling.

I finally get off into the parking lane and he rolls down his window screaming at me that I'm "in the middle of the road!" and both him and the woman with him scream at me that "You're supposed to be on the side!" Now I must stress that this is a single lane residential road. There's "the lane" and there's parked cars. There is no "on the side" lane for bicycles to use. He just felt that my very presence in the lane meant he could run me out of it.

I tell him that I've been signalling left and show him my outstretched arm, so he says, "What is that? I don't know what that means! You're just an idiot on a bike!" then "Riding a bike is easy, any idiot can do it!"

How does he go straight from "I don't even know what a hand signal is" to "people on bicycles are idiots!"

He repeated this "idiot on a bike" accusation over and over, insisting that it's perfectly okay to hit me because I'm an idiot on a bike and signals on a bicycle aren't a real thing.

Then after telling me to get off the public road he approached me and threatened to take me out or put me down, while puffing out his chest in my face with his hands by his side in order to intimidate me while claiming to not be the instigator (typical angry white man move).

Edited to clarify: Hand signals are in the driver's manual in Alberta and are potential questions on the driver's exam. Always have been. This is "requisite knowledge" for getting a driver's license.

You also can't leave a hand signal on by accident, and you really have to bend over backwards to ignore one.

And not knowing that other vehicles can use the same road you do? I don't think they even considered a need to test people on that knowledge.

#yegbike