Playing In Traffic

Beautiful day to ride a bike today. It’d be considered a little cool, if we were in mid-July, but for early April you can’t hope for much better. Light breeze, sunshine, mid-40’s on the way in. It looks even better considering the weekend looks sucky.

But on to the main event… 4 — count them, 4 — note-worthy incidents this morning.

It took me all the way into Harvard Square to find the first culprit. Newish, bright blue VW Golf (I think — sure about the blue, though) puttering along in the right lane when, with nary a warning, it stops in the main lane. It wasn’t in the bike lane right then, but we’re all smart enough to know that stupid behavior never stops with the initial incident. Sure enough, as soon as I start to pass — in the new, well-marked bike lane — the passenger side door gets opened, and Mr. Oblivious leaps out. Hope he appreciated the non-obscene comment I gave him. I doubt it led to any realistic epiphany on his part.

15 seconds later, after getting through the stop light in the Square, when a flock of pedestrians are perched in the bike lane, all looking to jay walk across the road. Heaven forbid they take a step back out of the travel lane. I wonder if they would have if I had encased myself in a metallic shell with fake headlights. We’ll never know.

And the first two-fer of the blog! Stopped at the light on Comm Avenue at the end of the BU bridge, when a CO spewing 1st generation mo-ped pushes his way between me and the car on my left. And I do mean push. There was hardly any room there, and he damn well was going to take it. Because you know he was going to be faster then a stupid bicycle when the light changed. Well he was right, he was faster off the light. No surprise there. But I was (slightly) surprised to see him make a blatantly illegal right turn — closer to a U-turn — onto Montfort. Where are police when you need them?

A brief aside on the sudden popularity of scooters (and 1st generation CO spewing mo-peds): I’m all for getting around town in more fuel efficient ways. And there is no need for a full-blown car to accomplish most inter-city trips. (Although having access to a nice sound system with a 6-disc CD changer might get me to cut you some slack.) But the bottom line is, once you put a motor on it you’re dealing with a whole different set of rules. You can’t use the bike lane. You can’t ease up on the right side of cars at stop lights. Signaling a turn is mandatory, because what you’re riding weighs a lot more than a bike and is going to cause a lot more damage if you hit someone. Not that drivers pay any attention to this last one. So no, you don’t get the best of both worlds on a Vespa. You’ve made a choice to play with the other hydrocarbon consumers. You’ve got to play by their rules.

So the score for today: Autos 1 Pedestrians 1 Scooters 2

Filed under: bike commute, Harvard Square, scooters, Vespas