So by now if you have not heard the story of the cyclist who lost his leg near CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, formerly the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, or as us ex-lifeguards from Trinity Pool called it, the place where all the crazies come from) you've been lucky. The story is, although most of the facts are still not available, the cyclist is in and out of surgery, there may or may not have been a robbery, there was a shouting argument (people who live on the street were woken up by it in the early hours of Friday morning) a cab driver then backed his automobile into a cyclist and rammed him between a poll (presumably a telephone or hydro poll?) and the cab. The witnesses said they heard the sound of bone crunching then screaming, by the time they got out of bed the cyclist was in a pool of his own blood on the ground and his leg barely attached. (It was later amputated.)
Alright, I honestly tried really hard to tidy that story up and get rid of the really gruesome details but even re-reading my own writing makes my skin crawl.
There seems to be an attitude among people in our culture that driving is a right, that car drivers should have an unobstructed access to the road, that cyclists and pedestrians are second class and that cars are borderline deities. Do we need to list all the faults with cars? Seems so:
- Automobiles are the ultimate terrorists, killing more civilians and non-civilians in North America every single year than anything else, including heart attacks and Al-Quedea.
- Automobiles are a HUGE emitter of green house gases.
- Automobiles are single biggest users of oil, a resource that I have documented over and over again as being in frantically short supply despite the recent drop in oil. (Just wait until the economy picks up, you think $1.50/L was bad, everybody has stopped developing new fields since the price drop.)
- Use of oil enriches the likes of Al-Queda because more oil use means more demand, more demand means higher prices, higher prices means more money to the Saudis who give some of it to Osama and friends.
- Automobiles promote obesity and laziness.
I am sure there are even more wonderfully bad things to say about cars. Not to say that the people who build cars at GM or Ford are bad, I am sure they are decent hard working souls, just like me. But somehow, one hundred fifty years ago humanity made do without cars and did alright, why do we need cars now? This whole expectation that driving is a right passed on from God and Henry Ford on down to us mortals is such an unhealthy attitude. I really don't know what to do? I'm not saying that cycling is a right and driving is not. Both are privileges, but at least cyclists are a lot less likely to kill anyone and besides when I eat too many beans for dinner, I am pretty sure I am not a big emitter of noxious gasses when I saddle up.
3 comments:
ALL, and I repeat ALL TAXI CAB DRIVERS SUCK! I've have NEVER, EVER had a ONE SINGLE good experience with a t/c driver who actually obeyed a traffic law, nor displayed any kind of respect nor consideration for other users of the road.
I have run in's with regular drivers, typically one or two per summer, sometimes even less than that. I count myself as one of the lucky ones. I can't say that I have a similar experience with a cabbie. They completely ignore all common sense and every form of street driving etiquette. I am hardly, HARDLY surprised by the number of them that get beat up. They deserve it!!!!
...and when you point out their often dangerous ignorance of common sense or courtesy - they go all righteous on you and start droning on and on about how WE don't follow traffic rules. Hahahaha - what a joke. A cabbie that thinks they know how to drive. Hahahahahaha.
As a cyclist, I will gladly admit that I break traffic laws too. No one is going to be a perfect operator, regardless of the vehicle, but there is a difference between a 2500lb car and 20lb bicycle. I'm forced off roads by the idiots who drive around in their cars like they own the city (and I ALSO include those drivers that SHOULD BE PROMOTING and RESPECTING cyclists, like police cruisers and City of Toronto vehicles in that list.) I ride on the sidewalk, because sometime I have no choice. I'll admit that I roll through stop signs, but guess what... newsflash, 9 out of every 10 times that I stop at a four way intersection (only busy ones, that is), the drivers don't stop either, so until a driver respect traffic rules, don't expect us to either. There's also a difference between us breaking a law and cabbies or drivers breaking the law and you're right when you say we are a lot less likely to kill someone while doing it.
As for the law. The law enforcers are a joke. It's no wonder cyclists take on a warrior attitude when it comes to riding in the city (incidentally, my word verification for this comment is "warier".) It's because we have no other choice. I've been in the trenches, I've seen some crazy things (from both sides of the battle), I've been doing this for over 20 years and all I have to say is that when people get behind the wheel - they turn in to idiots. As a cyclist, the best attitude to have is to "watch out for your own ass, because no one else will."
Ride like a soldier in a war zone, because that's EXACTLY what our streets are. (P.S. insert expletives where obvious since I really held back when writing this.)
TO THE CABBIE that ASSAULTED that cyclist - I hope you go to hell - F.U.
-EGC
(p.s. sorry Michael - I really hate Taxi drivers.)
No offence taken EG, I agree with just about every single word you wrote. You are preaching to the choir on that post.
Actually what provoked my tirade was the number of angry teens out there who are protesting the proposed changes to the highway traffic act that would require that they have zero blood alachol and not transport more than one other person who is under the age of I think 22 (unless they are driving family, i.e. brothers & sisters). A reasonable change, if anything I would say not nearly enough, yet to read what teens say online you would think the new law was a proposition to chop their legs off.
This expectation that driving is a right, in a word, that is the problem.
Forgot to add, don't forget to vote in the poll. :)
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