Playing In Traffic

I had grand plans of keeping a tally on this blog of the number of stupid auto tricks vs. bad bicyclists vs. oblivious pedestrians. That idea’s kind of fallen by the wayside due to a lack of technical know-how on my part. (Anyone out there know of a widget I can get that keeps a running tab of stuff like this?) But I still do try and keep track in my head during my bike commute of which constituency — cyclists, pedestrians or autos — demonstrate the highest level of idiocy.

Yesterday morning on the way down Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge I had an epiphany of sorts. I was thinking how surprised I was that autos, or more precisely drivers, hadn’t risen quickly and overwhelmingly to the top of the list. The whole reason I started this blog was because I was convinced that was the case. But in reviewing the few posts I’ve actually written, and thinking about the rides I’ve done so far in 2009, it just didn’t seem that cars were responsible for an outrageous amount of stupid. Just then a few car lengths in front of me a new Civic slid out of the left lane into the right, without signaling/slowing down/seeming to look, and cut someone off in the curb lane. No big deal — it probably happens about 500 times a day on that stretch of road. Didn’t even get a honk of the horn from the car they cut off. And hence the epiphany. If that had been a bike instead of a Civic — if I had decided to move a few feet to the left and take the whole curb lane without looking behind me — there would have been horn blasts, glares, middle fingers, and maybe a bruise on my arm when a rear-view mirror brushed me. At the least.

So here’s the exegesis: We’ve just come to assume that during the course of driving you’re going to see stupid & rude behavior. And because it’s expected, and in some ways planned for, unless it’s really bad we don’t get outraged and pissed off by it. We don’t make comments on news articles about hit and run accidents. We don’t yell at drivers we see running lights, or not yielding for pedestrians in cross walks. And we don’t bitch and moan about spending on infrastructure that helps drivers. We see so much internally combusted idiocy on the road that we’re inured to it. It’s totally, and literally, unremarkable.

But we’re not used to seeing cyclists do anything, whether it’s stupid or considerate, lawful or illegal. So drivers are predisposed to think anything done on a bicycle is out of place and inappropriate.

On the ride home yesterday I tried to keep count of incidents involving drivers demonstrating behavior that, if done on a bike, would generate a hostile response. 30 minutes into my 50 minute home-bound commute I had seen 35 stupid-car-tricks, and stopped counting right there. I didn’t even get into Arlington. So the tally idea might die an organic death, because if I truly and honestly kept count the numbers would look out of whack and bogus.

Action items and/or take aways? Let’s be careful out there. Take the lane. Work to get more people on the road on bikes, so they’re not viewed as an aberration. And the next time a driver gives you grief don’t respond (you’ll never win). But maybe try to remember their license plate number. You may want to report it if you see them a few blocks down the street, turning without signaling, running a stop sign, or not yielding to kids in a cross-walk. You never know when useless information can come in handy.

Filed under: bike commute