Ignorance is not bliss

Any blog post regarding the behavior of cyclists in DC invariably provokes a firestorm of hateful comments. Many of these presumably come from frustrated drivers who consider cyclists to be arrogant fools.

This tension between car people and bike people also rises when organizations like WABA struggle to gain more precious bike lanes (daring to insist that cars share the road). It's a lightning-rod issue, like dog parks. It brings out the haters like a plague of flies to a neglected terrier poo.

So allow me this moment to dive into all the rage, mix in a bit of my own, and perhaps pull a diamond or two out of the doggie-pot.

I'm a cyclist, so I'm duty-bound to despise all of you fat bastards in cars.

However, I have a brain. And a conscience. And a desire to stay alive another day, therefore I also despise all of you conceited shite-for-brains tofu-eaters on bikes. There's enough bad vibes to go around, so everybody gets a slice.

I've been a bicycle commuter in this area for ages. I never learned to drive a "car" until the age of 30. Why the hell would I? Public transit (usually) works fine, and drivers' ed was an elective class when I was in high school. I figured, might as well take classes that could lead to an actual JOB, versus learning to drive one of those car things.

At first I biked out of necessity but eventually discovered I was enjoying it. It's sneaky that way. Of course the exercise aspect isn't a bad thing either. It focuses the mind, makes the body strong, and keeps you in the world: in touch with reality rather than being stuck in an air-conditioned steel coffin with talk radio yammering like coke-addled weasels in your ear. Win-win.

After several years out of DC, I returned to my old town and my old habits, with a battle-worn but marvelous 20 year-old Bianchi racer. Its razor-thin tires have scorched the streets of Arizona, Colorado, and Maine, as well as DC. But for all the bike enthusiasm I've seen here, DC cyclists are the most pathetic screwheads I've ever seen.

Let the record show, via DC Dept.of Motor Vehicles' Municipal Regulations [link] -- Chapter 12, page 4. Specifically item # 1201.15:

No person shall operate a bicycle except in obedience to the instructions of official traffic control signals, signs, and other control devices applicable to vehicles, unless otherwise directed by a police officer or other person authorized to direct and control traffic.

Get that? As a cyclist on the road, you are traffic. Therefore, traffic stuff applies to you.

So why is it that I'm the ONLY F*CKIN' ONE out there who stops at red lights? And why is it that I witness a cyclist using hand signals, on average, maybe once a year? (To be fair, most car drivers don't know their hand signals either and would probably be baffled by this gesturing stuff, and would run into a tree while drive-texting blog comments to bitch about it.)

Seriously!

Here's three extremely relevant reasons for cyclists to obey these signals and signs (I mean, besides the fact that you're supposed to):

1. When some dipshit behind the wheel of a 1997 Ford Fiasco broadsides you into a building and shatters your spine (assuming you survive), you will have an iron-clad legal defense: you were right, the driver was wrong, and then you sue the SHIT out of them for all time, ensuring that their grandchildren are still paying for it decades later. NO MERCY! Make sure the driver bleeds more than you ever did! Mount his head on a goddamned pike at your front door as a warning to others: Watch for cyclists, you comatose gas-guzzling pissants!

2. By disregarding these regulations, YOU (cyclist) are TRAINING drivers of cars to distrust ALL CYCLISTS, which may cause them to drive offensively. Possibly dangerously. This means YOU (cyclist) are responsible for the asshole Ford Fiasco driver cutting me off in traffic. Because YOU (cyclist) have trained him to do this.

3. It's beginning to look like innocent cyclists assume that ignoring signals is OK, based on the overwhelming evidence from folks in expensive bug-suits who look like they should know better. So YOU (cyclist) are also training the next generation of cyclists to do the same thing. Killing by example.

More often than not, bustin' through stoplights and signs does NOT get you there any faster. I catch up with these people at least 80% of the time.

I'm not totally naive, I know urban cycling is a kind of insane warfare: You've got to keep aware of parallel-parked doors opening into you, evade double-parked delivery trucks on 14th Street and babbling mad pedestrians hot off a banana peel-smoking six-day bender, juvenile demons pelting bricks at you from apartments on 11th, AND THEN deal with some jackoff cyclist crashing behind you because he expects you to cruise out into an intersection against a red light like a self-righteous cockroach, etc. The temptation to avoid all that and get there fast, at all costs, is very real. It's a hard life out there for a cyclist, I get it. But more street anarchy won't help us get back to Utopia.

So is this a first? A cyclist hatin' on cyclists? If it wasn't clear that their behavior could affect my safety, I honestly wouldn't care how suicidal they are. But when a nation of drivers looks upon all of us on bikes with a unified hatred, everyone is to blame.

There. Now back to the happy stuff.