A Surly guy writes:
The new part was that this evolutionary mishap made the mental leap to attempted murder. He gunned the motor after I was back on the right side of the street… and hit me. Full-on ran me down. Wow.
I can see where people who read this kind of thing would be scared to even attempt to ride a bike in traffic.
Rightly so. You’ve got to be extremely aware of what is going on. You’ve got to always give yourself an out. If you don’t, you’re too far on the edge for me.
I dunno. There are so many questions that it’d be nice to get answers for, but I don’t think they’re really out there. Out there in the sense that the answers you do come up with aren’t going to apply to all drivers.
What would it take for you to get so pissed off at someone that you’d run them over? What would it take for you to ram your car into another car? Why do drivers think that cars are the only thing that should be on the road? Why do cyclists go through red lights? Why do cars run red lights? Why do cyclists to unpredicatble things? Why do drivers not pay more attention to what they’re doing, especially if it is someone reading a magazine or putting on make-up while driving a Ford Expedition? Can you change the mind of the driver with the “I piss on Fords sticker”, or the guy with the plastic balls hanging from his H2? Should cyclists pay license fees to encourage a more communal road system?
I’m sure a lot of these issues and questions are things that motorcyclists deal with everyday as well. I can only assume they have it a little better in that they have more agility and mass when on the road.
I’m reminded of a story a friend told me years ago about how he got pulled over on his motorbike for speeding. His answer (which got him out of a ticket) was that he didn’t realize how fast he was going because he was flowing with the traffic and keeping alert to it. If he was constantly checking to see what his speed was, that would increase his likelihood of being caught off guard.
I also wonder how much this has to do with enforcement. There’s a busy intersection (45th and 15th), which was where the building I used to work in was, and I’d always just dismount and walk the bike. There’s an immediate increase and awareness in drivers when you’re a pedestrian vs. someone on the bike. It’s almost (and perhaps I’m just being paranoid) like you aren’t fair game anymore. Would this change if more people who would hit/run cyclists were prosecuted?
In the end, no matter what happens, hitting someone with your car is just not the right thing to do. And for what? I mean really? I’d be interested to hear the reasons that don’t boil down to “being in a hurry”. Does it matter if you’re delayed a couple of minutes? If so, you really should’ve left earlier. Does it matter if you really miss that light? It will indeed change in a few minutes. Think you should just sqeeze by the cyclist instead of waiting to pass in the other lane? Slow down. Relax. Listen to some music. Calm down. Making a 40 minute commute into a 42 minute commute isn’t really worth harming someone else is it? I sure hope not.