Rhymes with "Bubonic"
After having spent the last few nights biking home after completing the evening shifts at work, I have observed one of the many quirks that driver seem to acquire. Namely living in deathly terror of pedal-bikers. Now I understand that those of us on bikes have much to worry about cars. After all, if it came to a jousting match, would you be placing your money on the guy with 16 gears and a small fibre-glass helmet, or the large metal behemoth that may mistake running you down for a speedbump?
Yet for as much as bikers should (and I say
should, since I have seen how kamikaze Toronto's bike couriers are) remain wary of the large motor vehicles flying past them, it is still amusing to see the great lengths drivers will take to avoid a bike as they pass it. The road I bike down has no special bike line, so for the most part, I bike either on the outer white line, or as close to the sidewalk curb as I can without scratching my pedals on the cement.
The cars, on the other hand, will frantically veer aside from me. Even when they're in the middle of the laneway, there's a safe half-car-length between me and their side mirror. Yet the drivers seem terrified that this distance is too close for comfort, and so they hug the yellow line as close as possible. There I am, biking along, and cars that were travelling in straight line curve wildly around me like their car and my bike were two strong magnets of like polarities.
Admittedly, this makes me feel a little rejected and lonely. Don't they like me? Don't the drivers of those cars feel that they can share the road with me? It's somewhat alienating to have all the traffic on the road try to squeeze as far across the road as possible from you. I half wonder if I've somehow contracted the Black Plague, but it comes and goes only when I'm on my bike, and everyone else but me knows this.
Perhaps it's my body odour. Perhaps not, since I'm revelling in the "Axe effect"...though so far that has only managed to get me into precarious situations involving me, an elevator, and a herd of kids who, as it turned out, were all horribly allergic to my Axe deoderant spray.
Today's Discovery: http://silverhammer.sorayume.net/error.htm
posted by Phillip at 7:40 PM
