On A Late Season Ride

Aside, sorry this entry took so long to post. In fact I have almost finished writing up the next entry already! I have just been awfully busy, so while I can still steal the few minutes each day to write and tweak my entries, the actual time it takes to post these things is just not there anymore. (Notice I am posting at 1am on Sunday!)

The weather in 2009, in Toronto, has been, to put things mildly, bizarre. In July it was so wet and cold they could have renamed that month April, version 2.0. August was hardly any better. Then September was the driest month in something like 40 years! After the rain that was the summer of 2009 I spent so much time on Erin in September that by the time I crashed I could hardly keep my eyes open I was so exhausted. In one very small sense, the crash was a good thing, it forced me to catch up on my sleep.

October was warm, possibly warmer than July and right though what ought to be a very rainy November I was enjoying rides almost every day. Even on my Birthday I rode Erin to work, now granted it has become cool but the weather is still pretty decent. Occasional rain I can handle, but the weather in July was enough to drive me insane. Although I cannot complain now, what riding I missed early I made up for late. That I am still riding Erin in December is remarkable, amazing even.

Anyway a couple days ago I was riding home from work on Lower Simcoe. Now normally Lower Simcoe is a great road, there is a bike lane, very little traffic and well the only other options to cross the railway tracks near the lake suck. But this day the Buffalo Bills were playing a "home" game at the Sky Dome, excuse me, Rogers Centre. Traffic on Lower Simcoe was a disaster, complete with an abundance of lousy taxi drivers. Question, what is up with cab drivers? Are they physically incapable of not driving aggressively, or yielding now and then?

Well one cabbie was driving in the bike lane. And I don't mean, he was about to make a right turn and he cut into the lane, no, he advanced a good 50m in the bike lane before I managed to get around his vehicle, bang on his windshield and scream blue murder at him. An ugly exchange with a great deal of swearing followed with a call by me to 911, sadly I do not expect anything was actually done. But I so inconvenienced the taxi driver, I stopped directly in front of him and stood my ground, that I suspect he did not use the bike lane for the rest of that hour (it was about five minutes to 5.)

The next day I was driving, don't ask what I was thinking, I honestly do not remember my excuse for using the killing machine. Anyway there was a green light, a four lane one way road and due to construction only two open lanes, one lane had a parked car. Well to make the green light I pulled into the parked car lane, made it through the intersection and well into the next block where there was a long train of taxi's, and not one of them would let me in just to get around the parked car. So I simply forced my way in and got... A lot of honking and swearing from a cabbie, I made the biggest toothiest grin I could and waved back at him. Then, on the next green light, the car in front of me though hardly moved, managed to get just far enough for me to squeeze around the parked car, but in honour of the honking taxi behind me I just sat still and finally moved off and made my right turn when I felt good and ready - and my pulse had slowed. For all I know that cabbie is still, I hope, where he cannot hurt anyone, trapped in a horrific traffic jam.

The fact is there ought to be a war, a war on taxi drivers. They are reckless and aggressive. They have no respect for the rules of the road or the people they must share the road with. I would love to see better enforcement of motor vehicle legislation against cabbies, but somehow I just don't think that is going to happen soon, which is worse than a shame. Just over a year ago a taxi driver took a man's legs off, and somehow I don't think this gong show, that is driving in Toronto, is going to end anytime soon.