Can't
we all just get along?
I
don't understand motorists in Boston, and I've done my
fair share of driving, parking, and crying because my car
has been towed in Boston, so it's not a matter of
perspective. People in cars don't seem to understand that
they have what I call a "killing advantage" over
people in bikes. The main difference between bikes and
cars, and what I believe to be the secret behind their
so-called "killing advantage," is the fact that
a car is surrounded by metal, while a bike is surrounded
by the much weaker element, air*. This simple factoid puts
cars in a different league than bikes, so bicyclists and
motorists are not exactly on the same playing field. Maybe
someone should gently remind motorists just how very
fragile their pedaling friends are when they speed past
them, barely inches away, managing to cut us off so they
can get to the next red light faster. Yes. This is Boston.
You know the next light you hit is going to be red.
Yet it
doesn't seem as though any heed is paid towards bikes.
Although smaller, bikes still do exist. When you decide to
switch lanes suddenly, then you should count bikes as
oncoming traffic, and not plow into them. The same rule
applies to parked cars. You should check for oncoming
traffic (and once again, last time I checked, bikes are
such) when you are parked on the side of a street because
it is painful to have a door swung open in your face. Once
again: air versus metal. Oh man, now I really want to play
Mega Man II.
But the plot thickens as another villain is introduced:
the common pedestrian. Pedestrians, unlike cars, are at a
disadvantage when compared to bikes. Bikes are faster,
stronger, and have wheels. Before a pedestrian crosses a
street, he will generally move his simple, Red Sox
bedecked head to check for traffic. Sometimes a bike
speeding in his direction will not register as traffic,
and he will walk out anyways, endangering both himself and
the biker. It seems like natural selection would have had
their names at this point. I mean, they must see that
we're there. Don't they realize that a bicycle, although
smaller than a car, is still a moving mass that can hit
them? Do they regard us as some sort of gaseous entity
through which to be walked? When we smash into you, do you
not bleed? Of course you do, you bleed profusely.
So
these reasons, along with the following: shitty roads,
absence of bike lanes, taxis in bike lanes in the rare
instance that there is a bike lane, I give bicycling
around here a 7
. Because I'm a masochist and still love it anyways, and I
guess I need to leave some room below for the worse things
in life. Like geese. I fucking hate geese.
*Element in the
"Captain Planet" notion of element, not the
periodic tables notion.
