Car-Bike Politico

My oh my. Cars, or people in them. Which is worse?

Surely Joe Blow isn't a bad guy. Certainly Jane Doe is just trying to get to where she needs to go like everybody else. Both of these people probably have loving families, a good education (though in Los Angeles there is a good chance that isn't true--but anyway, on with my anecdote), they might be young and reckless from time to time, or they might be old and doze off...surely not a crime? But we give these people cars, we enable them to be responsible for something huge, something fast, something heavy, something that could kill, something we civilians really don't know much about.

Cars, cars, cars. I don't know anything about cars. I mean how it actually works, mechanically. All those parts, etcetera. That's why most of us get ripped off by the mechanic. So why should I be allowed to drive one? I press the gas and it goes. I press it harder and it goes fast. Sometimes I change the radio station or put on the A/C, for a moment taking my attention off the road. Once or twice I have even talked on my cell phone while driving.

Why should I? Why do they let me? Why does anyone allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry to be responsible for a car? Sure, it's illegal to drive drunk, it's illegal in most places to talk on your cell phone while driving, but that's not gonna stop a drunk person from getting in the car. No alarm is gonna go off if drunkie opens his car door to get in. The car isn't gonna be like, "Sorry, Joe, you're too drunk, I am not going to unlock for you." It's only illegal when the person gets caught, and generally after a major accident where someone is already in the hospital or dead. It's all after the fact, but it doesn't stop stupidity while driving from occurring.

We all know, "yes, cars can kill you," but it's a far removed knowing. It's the kind of "it won't happen to me" sort of knowing. Your mind knows it but your heart really doesn't until it happens to you. Now I have never been in a car accident, but I have been hit while on my bike, thank God I didn't get hurt and the guy was going slow, but being outside of the car really opens your eyes to how big and scary they actually are. They're loud, the draft sucks you in a little if they pass at high speed, of course when you're in the car you're sitting in a nice plushy seat with the A/C going and maybe some of your favorite tunes, and one ton of steel encasing you to drown it all out. You don't even realize how loud and scary they are. They are very jarring if they pass too close. The car industry has really made out with this invention, let me tell you. Inside the car it is quiet, outside the car it is loud and deadly. But keep the inside as comfortable as possible and nobody will ever realize they are driving a deadly machine.

Commuting by bike has really heightened my awareness of the road, both as a cyclist and a motorist. Now, whenever I drive, I slow down when I see a cyclist and wait until it is safe to pass, and pass them wide. I don't squeeze them out of the lane, or speed up as I pass as if "getting it over with" will be safer for them, because it isn't. Some motorists actually believe that if they speed up as they pass you that somehow that's better for you. I check behind me to see if a cyclist is coming before I open my car door. I don't swing the car door open. I don't creep up constantly while making a right hand turn, edging into the pedestrians with my 'vroom vroom' sound.

Last night I was riding my bike home on my way back from an audition, and someone in an SUV sped up to pass me and then stopped right in front of me. I had to stop. I almost cycled right into the back of his car! I couldn't pass him because he had a huge SUV practically sticking into the left lane and throngs of cars were in that lane. If I tried to go they probably would have honked up a storm or hit me out of road rage. So I had to dismount my bike, get onto the sidewalk, and pass his car that way. He was parked in a loading zone. Apparently he just got out to talk to somebody on the sidewalk at a restaurant. Why would anyone speed up to pass someone and then one second later pull right in front of them and park? It's because the cyclist is psychologically invisible to most motorists. To the motorist, only other large cars moving at high speeds are worth noting. Mainly because that's 90 percent of what they see when they are on the road, other traffic. They see the person on the bicycle, but it doesn't stick. They think once they pass the cyclist or the pedestrian that said person is no longer there. It's selective car-memory.

I am going radical here. In a smaller surburban setting, the car is fine. There is rarely traffic and the risk of accidents is lower. In small backwater towns, like in certain areas in West Virginia, for instance, you can drive for miles and not see another car. There, people need their pickups, their SUV's, their tractors, to carry cargo and transport themselves. But in a city? In a city, there is no excuse. In a city, the car is an expression of the utmost human laziness and carelessness. It pollutes, it kills, it fosters arrogance and stupidity. And yet we continue to drive them.