You flinchy passengers can all go to hell. I've been pulled over one time in like the last five years(and been in one accident which ilvolved a pedestrian running in front of my motorcycle, of all things), but my mom still flinches and gasps at the way I drive my miata.
Yes, I wind the engine up to ~5000 before I shift gears and yes I speed but I never speed in traffic and I always leave at least one car length between people I'm merging in front of, more if they aren't a super tool and speeding up so I can't get in front of them(everyone in oklahoma does this. If you're ever driving here, let your signal blink one time before starting your merge or they will move up to block you because they are all cocks).
On the topic of cycling(I don't pedal, but I do ride motorcycles) the biggest problem I have with cycling on the road is that people are generally too stupid to pay attention to the cyclists around them and also aren't looking for them ever because there are so few of them around here. Plus specifically in Oklahoma City we have a pretty cool series of cycling trails that do in fact give cyclists their own little lane of pavement that literally runs through the heart of one of the more busy hubs of the city as far as shopping and restaurants go.
So there's basically no excuse to slow down traffic on the main roads when you can take the bike path and cross the main street and take the neighborhood through to the residential streets(which have less, slower moving traffic and are probably safer anyway, I have no idea), and come out behind the building instead of riding two miles on main roads to get there.
I'm aware that my solution doesn't work downtown but downtown can pretty much fuck off.
edit: as a motorcyclist I have, three times, kicked the driver's door of other vehicles. Twice due to them not seeing me and forcing me off of pavement(which is pants-shittingly horrifying. No I didn't.) and once forcing me across the line into oncoming traffic(which there was fortunately none of). It's a pretty big part of why I don't ride as much anymore, that plus seeing the pavement rush toward my face at ~40mph just once is nightmare fuel enough. These three events happened over the course of nearly six years, just for clarification, only two of them happened in the 1.5 year span while I was riding every day.