2 thumbs down

I've ridden bikes for many years now. I ride in traffic a lot and am used to dealing with idiot drivers who think being enclosed in a metal box gives them the right to be complete assholes to everyone else around them, most especially cyclists. All these years of dealing with idiots has taught me a few things, and one of them is that it's best to let drivers know when they are being idiots, but not by giving them the finger, because that just brings it to the 'road rage' level. So my preferred method of letting them know they are being an asshole is to give them a big old 'thumbs down.' It lets them know I disapprove, but I'm not calling them a name or trying to incite violence. Seriously, when you almost KILL SOMEONE they have the right to let you know it happened. Otherwise, you just go on driving your loaded weapon threatening people at will. And that's just not cool.

More often than not people take offense to my thumbs down. Like today. Coming back from lunch a car passes me and then makes a right turn directly in front of me, causing me to have to hit my brakes hard to avoid hitting the car. It was a woman driver (almost all the ones that try to kill me are women, WTF?)and I saw her look in her rear view mirrow after she ALMOST KILLED ME and so I throw her a nice big thumbs down, actually a series of thumbs down, so she gets the point that she ALMOST KILLED ME. So what really gets me is that as she sees me giving her my friendly symbol (trust me on this, I really want to flip her off, I mean fuck her, she just tried to kill me!) she hits her brakes to slow down, like she's gonna confront me or something. Oh lady, pleeeeease stop your car just once and confront me....pretty please....cause I have a LOT to say about it. But no, she just taps the brakes because that's all she has the guts to do in her big metal box. I wish just once one of these drivers who ALMOST KILLS ME on my bicycle would just stop and discuss it with me. Again, I have lots to say about it.

People use their cars like loaded weapons. The next time someone ALMOST KILLS ME on my bicycle I'd like to make them ride the bike and let me take the car and do to them what they just did to me. And then when they are unable to refrain from using the middle finger (unlike myself) then I can threaten them with my big metal car.