Reposting (with minor edits) something I wrote in another comment a few days ago:
Cars force communication that is inherently anti-social. If someone is genuinely sitting at a light too long, you honk at them. There aren’t a lot of other good options. But even a honk sounds aggressive. You could be as polite a person as can be in any other situation, but making the completely reasonable choice to honk at them makes it sound like you’re calling their mom fat.
When this happens to me, and the guy ends up pulling into the same parking lot, I tend to avoid any other contact, even if it’s just walking by.
It can be different regionally too, where I’m at now everyone honks all the time so a little honk is a fine courtesy if you don’t see the light change, where I moved from though it would come off as screaming at someone on the street.
But meanwhile as a cyclist if I pass someone and they give me extra space we can smile at each other and wave, or if I have to ‘honk’ it’s a little polite bell. But also I semi-frequently have times where I think “that car could have killed me” and I continue my commute unfazed. It encourages an entirely different mindstate than car-brain.
Reposting (with minor edits) something I wrote in another comment a few days ago:
Cars force communication that is inherently anti-social. If someone is genuinely sitting at a light too long, you honk at them. There aren’t a lot of other good options. But even a honk sounds aggressive. You could be as polite a person as can be in any other situation, but making the completely reasonable choice to honk at them makes it sound like you’re calling their mom fat.
When this happens to me, and the guy ends up pulling into the same parking lot, I tend to avoid any other contact, even if it’s just walking by.
It can be different regionally too, where I’m at now everyone honks all the time so a little honk is a fine courtesy if you don’t see the light change, where I moved from though it would come off as screaming at someone on the street.
But meanwhile as a cyclist if I pass someone and they give me extra space we can smile at each other and wave, or if I have to ‘honk’ it’s a little polite bell. But also I semi-frequently have times where I think “that car could have killed me” and I continue my commute unfazed. It encourages an entirely different mindstate than car-brain.