Go Ahead, Make My Day

When I can get a bicyclist to give me the finger I consider it a good day.

I’m not talking about the 3-speed Schwinn-riding guy in a t-shirt and shorts, I’m talking about the spandex-wearing, Tour de France-fantasizing folks on their elite $2,000 carbon-framed bikes who are too good for sidewalks and bike paths and see themselves as no different than motorists, yet have no qualms disobeying the traffic laws they’re bound, like motorists, to respect. You know them and you’ve seen them because once nice weather arrives and the streets are lousy with them like ants at a picnic.

So I’m out running a couple of errands today and I pull up at a stop light and in front of me, and right in the lane of traffic – and note I use “the lane” and not “my lane” because I’m willing to share the road, are three of these decked out bike riders. They’re talking and laughing and having a gay time sitting on their anal wedge bike seats in their skin tight biking shorts and when the light turns green: no movement. The bikers continue to talk and laugh. So I go into Tony Montana mode and turn into “Okay, you wanna play rough? Say hello to my little friend”.

Relax, I’m not a ‘road rager’, and my “little friend” isn’t an M-16 rifle with a grenade launcher, it’s my car horn and I do what any motorist does when the vehicle in front of them doesn’t see the light has turned green: I honk the horn and start inching up a little bit. And guess what? The bicycle guys don’t like this. Sure, they mount up and wiggle their butts down onto their pleasure seats and start pedaling, but one of them, the one in front and protected by the other two behind them, reaches up his right arm and gives me the finger. Of course this just makes me want to honk the horn again but I’m a person of restraint so I pass them without honking again, but not without a reprimanding head shake.

I don’t hate bicycle riders. I have a lot of respect for their commitment – financial and physical – to their riding; and in a small way I’m a little jealous that I’m not out there biking as well. But what I do hate is when they show no respect for motorists or for the laws of the road. As a motorist I pay a lot of money each year to drive my car on the roads and if I get caught violating the laws of the road the penalties are steep. Bicycle riders apparently believe themselves immune to those laws and by doing so, they turn themselves into hazards. Sure, there are bad drivers out there who are also hazards but I don’t think that’s an excuse or mitigates the risks that certain groups of bicycle riders create. They need to follow the laws of the road just like everyone else, and if one of them gives me the finger because of my gentle reminder, then that’s just fine with me.

Today is Labor Day which is a national holiday here in the United States to honor workers. It’s also a heavy shopping day and, at least based on what I’ve read, is second only to the day after Thanksgiving for retail sales. Ironically, this means that many of the people the holiday is meant to honor, not only have to work on their day, but they have to work longer and harder.