It seems to me that drivers who live in the city know how to behave around cyclists. Drivers from the boonies have no clue, consider the following.
Yesterday I had an appointment after work, when the appointment ended, around 5:15, I had to ride home, I decided to take Queen Street from Church to Woodbine, it is a route I have taken before, I can get across Queen faster than a car and it is the most direct route home.
Well as I was riding East a Blue VW Jetta, license BBLM 728 bought from Cedarbrae in Scarborough literally started to crowd me out of the lane I was riding in… twice! (Once around Parliament Street, and a second time around Broadview.) I caught up with the Jetta at Leslie and when I confronted the occupants, there was a passenger as well as a driver, they were upset that I had the audacity to… wait for it… touch their car. When I pointed out they almost killed me, the passenger’s response, was the thoroughly clichéd line “who cares?” Well not being one to miss a chance for a good cliché, I walked my bike to the front of their vehicle and pointed at the license plate and said “BBLM 728, I’ll see you in court.”
My next stop was the local police station where I filed a full report. In the spirit of over used lines: Let the word ring forth, from this time and this place, you are a driver and you put my life at risk, you can explain yourself to an Ontario Justice of the Peace in traffic court! That does not quite have the ring of Kennedy’s “bare any burden in the defense of liberty” line does it?
The part about that whole ordeal that really bother’s me? The fact that to the people in that car, my life meant less to them then the exterior finish of their vehicle. They yelled four letter words at me and told me what they thought using language that has no place in polite, or any other society for that matter, and when I pointed out that they put my life at risk it did not dawn on them that the is a difference between the paint job on a low end VW and the life of a human being.
The truth is, some people love their cars too much. I wonder what such people are going to do when the gas runs out.
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2 comments:
Way to go Mike! - similar thing happened to me last week - I was too pissed off to get their plate numbers. Who the f*#k do these people think they are? Their priorities are all in the wrong place. I can say without a single doubt that more than 90% of the people I encounter in cars on Mississauga and Etobicoke roads don't give a s#it about cyclists.
Hey Eric, you know the cops were really surprised when I got all the details of the car right. The thing is I've wanted to do that so many times before that now when a car driver really starts to piss me off I start trying to memorize the licence. (It probably helped that I had to read the licence out when I was saying 'I'll see you in court...')
I have to admit though, most Toronto drivers seem to be a lot better than just a few years ago, maybe its the high gas prices? But you really only need one asshole to spoil an entire day.
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