For context I am in my early 40s.
When I was 18ish, I was running for a bus. I missed it by the most narrow of margins. (Also, the bus driver was kind of a dick for not sticking around when it was pretty obvious… regardless…)
As it just so happened, there was a taxi a couple cars behind that bus that saw me running for it and it driving away.
That taxi driver waved me in with nary a word, drove me a stop or two in front of the bus, and without charging me, dropped me off so I could catch the bus. (To be clear this was in an area where the bus route was LONG and the taxi driver obviously knew it’d be an hour or so before the next one.)
Ever since that day, for over two decades now, that random act of kindness has stuck in my mind. We literally never said a word beyond my panicked “THANKS” as I ran out at the end. No names, nothing, just wild gesticulations and gratitude.
Love to hear some more.
I’m in a very car-centric city (Phoenix, AZ) but I use a cargo bike all the time, probably 90% of my local trips. I can’t count how many times someone in a car has done something to make my life a little easier, giving me a bit more space for example or waving me through so I don’t have to stop. There’s lots of bike hater stories out there, but it’s almost never been like that for me.
And on the other side, I let people know they have a tail/brake light out, all the time. Once you start noticing it, there’s a LOT of them.
My city has gone from one of the worst cycling-friendly places to one of the best in the country in the past two years. Lots of construction.
Neat hearing a positive story in that regard as I, 99% of the time, hear the opposite as people transition to a different road norm. (Just a product of where I am.) And the saying of my city is, “newly wed or nearly dead” and the “nearly dead” portion definitely have troubles adapting to the new ideal that yes, you have to let the guy in a cycle go first despite being in a big SUV hogging the road.