This is a quick story about my day.
I live in Richmond, IN. If you’ve ever spent any time here, you know that from July-September is “OMG Road Work” time, and right now a number of streets are closed or down to a single lane as the crews shave away the old asphalt and lay down fresh asphalt. It’s only important to this story because it reroutes people and causes drivers to get antsy.
On my way home from a dog treats run, I ended up on North A Street. If you know Richmond, you know that North A goes along the north side of downtown, is three lanes, and while I think the speed limit is 35 (that’s what I go there) it’s sort of like the old west. I was somewhere between the corner at 16th and 9th streets when out of my perif, off in that “point guard seeing the wings” part of my visual field, I saw a man on a bike barreling down one of the cross streets. He didn’t even hesitate or look anywhere but straight ahead as he flashed through the stop sign.
I’m pretty good at momentum. I am 99% certain that had I not slammed on my brakes that young man, looked to be in his mid-2os, would have been all over my hood. But I’m a defensive driver and I saw him, so I slammed on my brakes and the guy who didn’t understand the law was okay.
But as he passed me, something really odd happened. He gave me the evil eye, and he swore at me, flipped me off, and he said “I have the fucking right of way” before resuming speed and heading toward Main Street, where I assume he blew through a red light and somehow survived.
First thing: this would have been the second time that someone on a bike not understanding laws collided with my car, and it shakes me up to think about it. The other time was about seven years ago, when on a blustery fall day I was in the crosswalk of a Michigan street, trying to see around a hedge, when a girl ran a stoplight and blasted into my car at an alarming speed.
I leaped out to check on her. Luckily, she was fine. Her bike, however, was destroyed.
The cop who came to do the arrest report took eye witness accounts and both of our stories. He told me that he could tell from the impact and the stories everyone told that I’d done nothing wrong, but if the girl were to press charges, I’d likely lose. I offered, because I’m a nice guy, to pay for her bike to be repaired, gave her my phone number, email and insurance info, and went on with my life. I never heard from her, I’m guessing because when she told her parents that she ran into a stationary car going way too fast through an intersection she got her bike rights taken away.
Now, back to today.
Yesterday I talked about knowing our enemies. Today, for a second straight day, I came face to face with absolute ignorance. And I don’t say that as an insult. I mean the word literally.
For some reason, this bike rider, who already was ignoring several things:
- No helmet
- No reflectors I could see
- Was riding in the middle of the street
But in addition to that, he had two very, very dangerous misconceptions he likely got from listening to other bikers complain:
- He didn’t understand that traffic rules apply to people on bikes, too. Stop signs mean stop. Even on a bike.
- For some reason, he thought that because cars are supposed to yield to bikers, the law effectively worked like the star in a Mario game; he thought he could just fly out into the street in front of me and not have to worry because he was on a bike so he had special bike powers.
I’m very, very glad I didn’t hit this young man.
But if you ride a bike, for the love of all things that matter, realize that you’re not somehow the apex predator of the roadways. Your bike should never, ever, EVER, ever be in the middle of the street, and the stops and signals that apply to cars apply to you, too. Likewise your right-of-way is over-written by the rights of a pedestrian, so if you choose to ride on the sidewalk or to pedal through a crosswalk, you have to make way for them.
Of course I’ve been hit, as a pedestrian, by a biker riding on a sidewalk. His angry retort was “you have to look out for things that could hit you.”
Not a bad point. Like, say, a car?
People have to do better. I don’t want to forfeit my freedom because someone doesn’t understand how to ride his bike, and I don’t want to have the death of someone on my head or heart because of weird bike-understanding.
But now we live in Trump America.