Coming home from work tonight, traffic was fairly heavy; the freeway was at 20 miles an hour across all lanes. I was in the HOV lane, as befit my motorcyclist VIP status, but it didn't make any difference speed-wise. Conditions held that way for the first 20 minutes of the ride, and then just north of the Lake Forest Park exit, the road suddenly opened up. I gave Zoë the throttle and settled at a comfortable 70-75 mph. The speed limit here was 60, so I wasn't exactly lagging behind traffic.

Looked behind me, and there was a large black SUV coming up fast on me. He settled in literally feet from my rear wheel - maybe five, maybe ten, but far too close for our speed. Within seconds of getting there, the SUV driver turned on his brights, as I apparently wasn't quick enough to get out of the way. My first thought - "my speed is fine, if they want to pass and they're being a dick about it they can damn well change lanes" - would have been my final decision in a car, but I realized my vulnerability on the bike, accelerated to find a gap to the right, and pulled out of the lane. The SUV driver surged angrily ahead, running it up to maybe 90 in his haste to get past, and once he was well past I merged back into the HOV lane.

Without even thinking about it, I flicked my brights at him after merging back. He'd been a tremendous asshole, and I wanted to let him know it. In a car this would have been fine, but it was a big mistake on the bike. The SUV driver stepped hard on the brakes, dropping speed fast, down to maybe 40 mph. I am glad I was paying very close attention, and that traffic was light; it was no problem to scrub my speed and I never even came close to him. I don't know whether his intention was to cause a collision, or just to say "you were too slow, how does it feel?" but either way, when he realized that I was stopping as well, he accelerated away.

This is where I surprised myself. It was the hardest thing in the world to hold my slow speed, let the fucker go, and not do anything about it. I've never been an aggressive person, and so I never thought I'd have a problem slowing down and letting some asshole "win," but it was terribly difficult. When he dropped his speed my first instinct was to leave the lane and pass him, get out and away at a speed he couldn't match, but I realized I didn't want someone like that behind me, and I didn't know what he'd do. I know it was safer to let him go, but all the same, it was a real task to swallow my pride and leave it alone.

This is instructive to learn. I've always known that we can't pick fights with cagers, because we'll lose every damn time, but I never imagined that I'd have any difficulty walking away from one. I think knowing that, understanding my first reaction ahead of time, will make it a lot easier in the future - but what I still need to figure out is the reason behind my reaction. God knows I've had idiots try to get me to race off a light before, and I've never bitten; what was it about this tool that made it so personal?

...oh, and I need to stop flicking my brights at folks when they do something stupid, dangerous, or that I just plain don't approve of. You never know who's behind the wheel - are they off their meds? did their wife just leave 'em? did they just get laid off? do they fancy themselves gangstas? I really don't want to find out the answer to this question the hard way.