> or even shocked (as if I appeared from thin air)
Motorcyclists are invisible. Never rely on others seeing you, ride as if they're an obstacle you have to navigate.
You can hide a whole truck behind the A-pillar of modern cars, let alone a motorcycle. At certain angles, human eyes have complete blind spots that we're not aware of because our brain filters them out. Motorcycles fit perfectly into those.
Never hover in people's blind spots. Pass quickly or stay back. Do not drive parallel with another vehicle. Goes for cars too.
When approaching another car perpendicularly (like an intersection), remember that humans lose depth perception because their nose covers one of the eyes. A driver literally cannot tell how far you are. Our usual proxy is the distance between headlights. Motorcyles have 1 headlight so this heuristic doesn't work, but we don't realize that it doesn't.
Oh I know. They look at me while turning left cutting me off.
Maybe I need a bigger bike, the 2cyl 400cc is particularly invisible. ;)
Best one was a woman who cut me off doing her left turn. I high-beamed her and honked. She put her hands in front of her face and came to a dead stop in my lane directly in front of me. I was already braking before I honked. Nothing happened. I stopped wondering and just assume everyone is out to kill me.
It's a rule that also applies to bicycles.
> I high-beamed her and honked. She put her hands in front of her face and came to a dead stop in my lane directly in front of me.
Personally I skip the honking and high beams. Just perform evasive action assuming driver will continue on their current path at roughly their current speed. Swerving behind their path of travel usually works great.
Spooked drivers behave erratically. Very dangerous.
So far I've had 0 serious incidents in ~8 years of riding. A couple close calls when I was being an idiot. So I think my approach is working :)