thediastema's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A rant, to get things moving again If you ride a bike in the Salt Lake City metro area, I'd like to alert you to a little-known fact: THE REST OF US HATE YOU. Okay, that's a blanket statement, yeah. Only those of us who ever attempt to walk, drive, or take transit anywhere really hate you. And we only hate about 60 per cent of you; that is to say, the 60 per cent who think, as Big Gay Al would say, that you can't die simply because you exercise. You are so mortal. You are particularly mortal when you're cycling outside of the bike lane, and on the wrong side of the street. And when you're weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic without any arm signals. And when you're using the crosswalk, against the light. And when you're just plain running the red. And when you turn left from the far-right lane, again, without your arm signals. You're delicate. No, no, you are. That light rail train can turn you into canned cat food without enduring worse than a couple scratches. That curb can make you sterile for life. The way you've got your ass up in the air, my front bumper could rearrange your body so you have one buttcheek on each side of your face. All it takes is one stupid move. You are loaded with stupid moves. By the way, not only are you mortal. You are also potentially lethal. If I slam on the brakes to avoid you running a two-way stop, and a Mack truck was half a car length behind me doing 45, I could find myself arranged on my steering column, shish-kebab fashion. So, yeah. When you cut me off without warning just so we can both slow down to a snail's clip, it pisses me off. Before everyone out there with a Schwinn and too much confidence cracks his knuckles and prepares a guestbook entry full of flames and death threats, I'd like to add that you don't get to bitch. If you're in the car lane, and you swerve into the bike lane just as I'm getting into my car, you don't get to bitch at me for opening my door. If you're riding four abreast up Emigration Canyon, you don't get to whine about me "breathing down your neck" when the only way to get out from behind you at all is to perform vehicular saltos down the side of the mountain. If you're creating a hazard for pedestrians by riding on the sidewalk, you don't get to bellyache about how they're "in your way" and you don't get to throw a tantrum about how the city's "bike unfriendly." If you're back and forth across the centre lane, you have no right to hock a loogey on my coupe for "crowding" you, because I wouldn't have "crowded" you if you'd been in the bike lane provided specifically for arrogant guys in spandex shorts who throw tantrums when they feel their "safety" threatened but can't be bothered to put on a helmet. And by the way, what is your cross-eyed 8-year-old doing in the middle of 400 East at 9 p.m. playing "chicken" on his BMX? Without a helmet, or knee pads, or elbow pads, or shoes? He should be inside playing with the gun you probably keep under your pillow. He should be in the garage experimenting with inhalents. He should be risking his life in the interest of survival of the fittest, but he doesn't need to be doing it where I have to see it, because if he were my little brat he wouldn't get a ten-speed until he demonstrated some kind of ability to judge the speed of an oncoming car. Because he wouldn't want to become a temporary hood ornament. Those traffic laws, those signs, those bright coloured lights? They apply to you! That body you're so proud of sculpting and balancing on a two-wheeled conveyance? Fits nicely into the lane with the diamonds painted in it! That fanny pack you insist on sporting in the year 2003? Can be crammed up your bum if you don't like it! Okay? That's how it is. Take some notes from the motorcycle crowd. Most of them actually grasp the concept of their own mortality. ~ETK 16:03 - 17 October, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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