So yesterday I was cycling home and approaching a point in my journey where a line of parked cars effectively turned the road into a ‘single track with passing places’. A car, seeing me approach, (in itself something of a first, despite the lights and the scary yellow jacket) stopped to let me through, pulling over and flashing its headlights encouragingly (it had to do this a couple of times before I realised the signal was aimed at me and not some other more glamourous road user behind me). Sensing a trap, I proceeded warily but no, the offer was genuine and I passed by with a grateful wave.
And this evening as I was waiting to turn right onto Kennington Road the car behind me waited patiently to turn too, despite the fact that this can be a protracted process as I don’t really like launching myself out into the traffic in order to see if there’s anything behind the bus that’s blocking my line of sight that might be about to kill me, preferring to wait until the bus (and indeed pretty much everything else that’s moving on the road) has gone, which can take a while. But the car not only waited, it even decided not to simultaneously overtake and turn left in front of me, but actually let me make my left hand turn first.
So the question is, are these merely temporary aberrations or signs of something else, such as the end of the world as we know it? Anybody else noticed an outbreak of courtesy and consideration among the nation’s motorists? Or is it just me?
Disgruntled Commuter 
Not down here in the Land of My Fathers (well, not my particular father, he was from Millwall) – it’s business as usual. But then it has been raining in solid sheets for the past six hours.
They may be cyclists themselves! In any case it’s nice to know that there are some caring drivers about, albeit seemingly few and far between.
Grunt – solid rain – yep, that sounds like business as usual in Wales…
Flighty – I’m not sure that cyclists remain cyclists when they get behind the wheel. I’m sure if I ever went back to driving the red mist would descend if I ever saw someone wobbling along slowly in front of me..
i suspect you were asleep – then you woke up, and it was all a dream
yeah, must stop sleeping on the bike, it’s dangerous…
I’m a friendly driver – but it wasn’t me.
Ah but are you always friendly – or have you suddenly come over all polite?
I am from south Africa and visited my son in the UK. It was strange to travel in such narrow roads with so much traffic. I also found it odd that the cars would actually let cars into the traffic from the side roads. I can not recall seeing bicycles but I found the drivers very polite in comparrison to what I am used to in south africa. That might not say much, but riding a bicycle on our main roads is suicide. We do have far less traffic on the other roads.
Ericat – I lived for a couple of years in Southern Africa & I know what you mean … I would never ride a bike there. Apart from anything else there were potholes that could swallow a bus ..