All car drivers should have to bike commute to their office, school, or grocery store at least once each year. Trust me on this one: I am a much better driver now because I cycle. When you're in a car, you don't realize how dangerous your mode of transportation can be. Try sharing the road from the security of a small carbon frame, open-air, you-powered vehicle, and all the bad habits we develop as lifelong drivers become abundantly clear: the California stop, the cell phone while speeding, the fiddling-with-the-radio while turning, the blind turn with only a glance at oncoming traffic...Don't get me started about the speeding semi trucks, the cars full of teenagers who think it's hilarious to see how close they can get to your elbow, or the idiots trying to discipline their dogs/kids/friends while passing you.
I know there are plenty of bad cyclists out there -- really, really bad cyclists who make your commute and mine hell. I'm all in favor of bike licensing; I think fixies don't belong on roads; and I would like to see us all pass a basic cycling skills test before we get to take our bikes off designated multimodal paths. But to me the difference will always come down to this: if I'm a bad cyclist, I might die. If I'm a bad driver, someone else might die. If I'm a good cyclist who meets a bad driver, it doesn't matter how many laws I obey, because I'm going to be the one who pays the price.
Lately, I've noticed an uptick in crazy drivers all over the Northwest: I nearly lost the back half of my car in Seattle when I stopped for a red light that the guy behind me assumed I'd run. I've been halfway through a crosswalk when someone decides they don't need to slow down for me. I had a sedan miss me by about four feet today as I cycled home because he didn't yield to the right of way. It was easier to run the stop sign than to see if anyone might be entering the intersection.
I know we're all busy, stressed out, and sick of the region's growing traffic, but what happened to being kind to each other? Or to recognizing that slowing for a yellow light -- or stopping for a freaking red one -- is not going to take hours off our day? If you're in that much of a hurry...maybe you should try leaving earlier?
What really bothers me is that you aren't going to get a lot of jail time if you kill a cyclist down here, even if you're speeding, running a light, or performing other acts of negligence which distract you enough to run down a human being. Last month, a guy road raged on two cyclists because he didn't like sharing the road: he intentionally hit one, sped off, struck the other, and then tried to flee. One cyclist went to the hospital; the perp is free on reduced bail.
I know we aren't always easy to see, and I know sometimes the laws for cyclists and drivers get confusing...but please, try it from our perspective once. Think of it as drivers ed redux. I guarantee you'll be a kinder, gentler, safer driver afterwards. I know I am.
Showing posts with label random thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random thoughts. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2007
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Round and round
How's your week been? Mine's been interesting. Here's a random snapshot.
Bosses quitting on a Tuesday totally suck! Especially when they take you out to lunch under the guise of "Let's all celebrate," only to begin the meal by preluding the announcement of your group's impending doom with, "Now, there's no such thing as a free lunch..." And they wondered why we spent the rest of the day in a shell-shocked trance.
Weird old-men clubs with funny animal and/or telephone-related names? Interesting places to give a presentation. Or, in my case, click through the PowerPoint while someone else gives the presentation. 'Cause that's why I went to Cambridge: to hone my slide show skills. That, and improving my ability to butter up large-nosed, 80-year-old white guys who want to wow me with their tales of anti-Communist activities in 1970s Siberia. Hell's yes, that's what they pay me for! Ladies and gents: your tax dollars at work.
Kitties freaking rock. Especially nice kitties that still let you touch them after vet visits involving blood draws, matted hair removals, and ear mite treatments. I don't think I'll tell the nice kitty that he has to go back to the vet for a full day soon...yeah, we're ignoring that part because the possibility of his being diabetic or in kidney failure is too depressing to contemplate right now.
Oregon drivers?? SUCK. Turn signals, people. They actually didn't install them in your car just for show. Speedometers are also important, because they tell you when you're going 25 miles over the speed limit so you know that maybe you should use those little blinky turn things before you swerve in front of my car without notice. I swear, if you hit me, I will break your arms with your own turn signal lever.
The public process? Dear god. Nope, sir, no, you can't build a tunnel through them there acreage. Little thing called liquefaction. Liquefaction. You know, "smash, crash, bang," instant catastrophe? You don't see why it has to be that way. Well. I know your brother-in-law's second cousin's daughter draws bridges for her industrial art class. That does not make you an engineer. Please go away. Please? Oh, you want to fill out a public comment record. About a tunnel. Sure, just step right here while I get a form and a big stick. It's to hold the paper down while you write. Yes, it is. Now, just look that way...
It's a bit disheartening, really. We have a public process in place so people don't wake up one morning and discover major infrastructure projects running through their neighborhoods. But when a handful of nutty people dominate the entire process, and you have to treat them like they're sane? I wish we could have a cut-off point at six months or a year, where you're just SOL if you didn't get your comment in on time. We waste so much money trying to reach everyone, when half them don't have anything to contribute (but do anyway) and the other half don't care. I'll write seriously about this at some point, but for now...I'm wondering if the process is broken, or if this is just how it has to be when you want to create a collaborative process.
Bosses quitting on a Tuesday totally suck! Especially when they take you out to lunch under the guise of "Let's all celebrate," only to begin the meal by preluding the announcement of your group's impending doom with, "Now, there's no such thing as a free lunch..." And they wondered why we spent the rest of the day in a shell-shocked trance.
Weird old-men clubs with funny animal and/or telephone-related names? Interesting places to give a presentation. Or, in my case, click through the PowerPoint while someone else gives the presentation. 'Cause that's why I went to Cambridge: to hone my slide show skills. That, and improving my ability to butter up large-nosed, 80-year-old white guys who want to wow me with their tales of anti-Communist activities in 1970s Siberia. Hell's yes, that's what they pay me for! Ladies and gents: your tax dollars at work.
Kitties freaking rock. Especially nice kitties that still let you touch them after vet visits involving blood draws, matted hair removals, and ear mite treatments. I don't think I'll tell the nice kitty that he has to go back to the vet for a full day soon...yeah, we're ignoring that part because the possibility of his being diabetic or in kidney failure is too depressing to contemplate right now.
Oregon drivers?? SUCK. Turn signals, people. They actually didn't install them in your car just for show. Speedometers are also important, because they tell you when you're going 25 miles over the speed limit so you know that maybe you should use those little blinky turn things before you swerve in front of my car without notice. I swear, if you hit me, I will break your arms with your own turn signal lever.
The public process? Dear god. Nope, sir, no, you can't build a tunnel through them there acreage. Little thing called liquefaction. Liquefaction. You know, "smash, crash, bang," instant catastrophe? You don't see why it has to be that way. Well. I know your brother-in-law's second cousin's daughter draws bridges for her industrial art class. That does not make you an engineer. Please go away. Please? Oh, you want to fill out a public comment record. About a tunnel. Sure, just step right here while I get a form and a big stick. It's to hold the paper down while you write. Yes, it is. Now, just look that way...
It's a bit disheartening, really. We have a public process in place so people don't wake up one morning and discover major infrastructure projects running through their neighborhoods. But when a handful of nutty people dominate the entire process, and you have to treat them like they're sane? I wish we could have a cut-off point at six months or a year, where you're just SOL if you didn't get your comment in on time. We waste so much money trying to reach everyone, when half them don't have anything to contribute (but do anyway) and the other half don't care. I'll write seriously about this at some point, but for now...I'm wondering if the process is broken, or if this is just how it has to be when you want to create a collaborative process.
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