Buses, sideways

If I was cycling in London or thereabouts, and a car slowed right down and sat on my arse even though there was a ton of space, I would naturally assume that there was a fair chance that some dickhead gazza was going to roll his window down and impress his mates by throwing something at me.
Here, however, people who want to deliberately be dickheads just floor it past you getting as close as they possibly can or just pretend that they did not see you or some other stupid passive-aggressive crap.

Generally, when people do the sit-on-your-arse thing here, it is because they are nervous of passing a cyclist. Let me point out that, generally, there is nervous, very nervous, then there is fantastically nervous, and at the top of the scale there is Japanese nervous.

It is very common to have an unconfident driver straddling you when, in another place on another day, buses would be safely wheel-spinning and skidding sideways through the same size space. Tanks have also been known to do the same thing, and sometimes trucks, too.

I often fantasise that they are actually trying their best to get past me but cannot keep-up with my advanced maneuvering. I look back and think things like "Yeah? Is that all you got, baby?" and I feel like that bloke in the first scene of Quicksilver when he races the taxi with Kevin Bacon in.

Thankfully, when I get out into the windy Kanagawa countryside, I can get off of the main roads and then I only have chainsaw-swinging farmers to contend with.