P.E.: Asshole Bikers are Worse than Puberty

Let me preface this post with this statement: I am a biker. I have a totally dorky pink bike, with a matching flowered helmet, and I use it to jaunt around the city of Boston on pleasant days from April through October or November, substantially cutting down on commutes to certain neighborhoods.

Let me also note that, if I'm at an intersection and no one is coming in the other direction, I might occasionally go through, despite a light telling me not to. To give me the benefit of the doubt, much of Boston is incredibly bike-unfriendly; getting a little head start on a street that's way too narrow for both bikes and cars, where potholes are all over the side of the road so that your option is swerving into moving traffic or flipping over your handlebars, can be incredibly beneficial. To take that already doubtful benefit away, I realize that it's totally annoying to see bikers just blow off traffic laws in general, and I realize that, while 25-33% of the times I choose to ignore traffic signals/safety laws I am doing so to preserve my own physical safety, the vast majority of the time it's just to preserve my energy (why stop when I'm going uphill?) or my sanity (I hate this waiting thing).

So yeah, I'm occasionally a biking dick.

But at least I'm not that guy who's biking on the sidewalk, ringing his little bell to indicate that I, the pedestrian, should move out of his way. It's called a sidewalk because it is for walkers. And of course he's not wearing a helmet - if you're just way too cool and pretty to put on a helmet, I think you should be physically forced into the street. I can buy the "i'm just nervous about the street" thing to a degree, but the cut-off point is when you don't follow basic safety protocols - if you're too cool for those, then be actually cool, and risk your damned neck - or the age of 13, whichever comes first.

And then there's the wrong-way-down-a-one-way biker. I get it - going around is inconvenient. But cars shouldn't have to look for someone coming at them on a one-way street, for christ's sake. And when I'm biking the correct direction, your asshole shortcut means that I'm forced to swerve and run risks and generally be put out so that you won't have to live like the rest of the plebs. You ride a bike, not a magical mystery machine which projects its own protective bubble around you. It certainly won't protect you from my out-thrust arm, clotheslining you just as you pass me, blithely going the wrong direction down a lane hardly meant for one.

Yes, bikers get shat on, frequently, by the driving public. I have personally been party to I-don't-know-how-many idiots wandering around in the bike lane, or cars that forget they're cutting across a lane of traffic as they decide to suddenly turn right, right now, or randomly opening car doors, or people who just almost run you over for no particular reason that you can identify. I know a kid who, just a week ago, got hit head on by a van while riding his bike, thrown forward, hit AGAIN by the van, thrown forward onto the ground, and then had his hair run over by the van's tire (because he somehow managed to roll his head, formerly right-in-line-for-tiring, out of the way on time), only to be told that, because he didn't die, the van, which never even slowed down, wouldn't be sought by the police. I realize that, as a biker, you're doing your part for the environment, so f*ck the lazy, selfish slobs driving cars.

But you know what? You still need to obey the most basic of traffic laws, foot and otherwise, if not because you might die otherwise, then simply because not doing so makes you a huge asshole.

I'm off to go wait patiently at an empty intersection on my bike for a while, just for good measure.

-Posted by Jilly