A huge pickup truck rode my tail as I pedaled up a long hill on a narrow country road. Although the truck had plenty of room to pass, it drafted behind me, closing to about three feet. Then, the horn; but this was no ordinary horn; it was a powerful, bone-rattling train whistle! I resisted flipping an obscene gesture, and pulled on to a side road as the truck roared passed.
My preferred means of transportation is a bicycle; it's free, easy to park, good exercise, and lets me enjoy being outside. I recently moved from Houston to a small town in the lovely Texas Hill Country. There's less traffic here, but the asphalt is as dangerous to bicyclists on a bucolic lane as in six lanes of crazy city traffic.
On a bicycle, I have "the rights and duties" applicable to the driver of a motor vehicle.
Texas Transportation Code Sec. 551.101 One of the prescribed duties is to stay to the right of the roadway, which I did. The "rights" are not set forth in the statute, but I like to think they include not being closely tailed by several tons of rolling steel; and they surely must include not being blasted by a whistle intended for a railroad engine, and not a truck on a sleepy little road nestled between a river and a wooded hill. By the way, I finally found a flat spot in these hills: