Why I Hate Drivers And Cyclists, Plus A Bonus Stupid Tough Guy Moment

These were done from other artist's works and from photographs.

Sigh.

There's an old Peanuts cartoon where (I believe) Linus cries out, "I love mankind, it's people I can't stand!" I'm the exact opposite. I can't look at a crowd without contemplating extermination but almost every person I've known I've been able to regard with affection and respect. If only I could make up my mind...

So yesterday I was walking to the comic store when I had an unpleasant experience. I walk pretty much everywhere. For reasons that will probably become clear to you I simply do not drive. Never have, most likely never will. And as a lifelong bicycle rider and pedestrian I've developed some pretty bad feelings about the whole idea of letting bald chimps control rapidly moving chunks of metal.

As a result, I'm pretty careful most of the time. So yesterday I was standing on a corner, waiting for the light to change. It did, I stepped into the street and immediately a car pulled directly in front of me, passing less than a foot from my body. I reflexively punched the passenger side window (thank god the car was so close -- I didn't have room to get in a solid blow and the last thing I need to do is pop another fucking knuckle) and the car whipped around the corner.

I turned to watch it and saw the driver pull over and start to park. At this point I'd entered into what I think of as a fugue state. This happens when I feel physically threatened and it might actually be a fugue state -- I haven't had it diagnosed. Sounds are very soft and language is just another sound and all that I'm thinking of is physics -- the movement of objects through space. The objects in question being my body and the source of the threat...

It's weird and disturbing to experience that condition. Afterwards it makes me feel like a shitty person because that semi-conscious state makes it difficult for me to exert responsible control over my behavior. It makes me feel as if I'm not really a person -- as if I'm just a potential event.

So when I see the car pull to the curb I turn and start drifting toward it. And as I approach the car pulls away from the curb and drives off and I come to and start cursing myself for losing it and cursing the driver for almost running me over.

A block later I've just started getting my nerves calmed down when the car pulls up next to me and the driver rolls down the passenger window.

"You wanna fight? You wanna fucking fight? Cause I'll get out right now if you want to fucking fight."

(Please note that at this point the engine was still running, which I interpreted as a signal of, shall we say, compromised intent. The gentleman in question might have had military or martial arts training -- but based purely on first impressions the idea of a fight between us was pretty damned silly. So he was actually showing a respectable degree of physical courage here, even if he did have to wind himself up to it.)

I lean in the window and speak in a clear, loud voice. Not quite shouting but not far from it. "You almost fucking ran me over, man. You just whipped right in front of me like you weren't even looking."

"I had the light!"

"No, you didn't. I was crossing in the crosswalk looking at a little green walking man."

"Well, you must have been looking across the street because I had the light."

I took a breath.

"Look. If it went down the way you say then I was wrong and I apologize. But it didn't. You weren't looking where you were going and you almost ran me over!"

"I'm a good driver! I look where I'm going!" He gestured to a child's car seat. "I have a kid!"

What that meant I do not know. Another deep breath, followed by the assumption of a diplomatic tone. "I didn't say you were a bad driver, I said you almost ran me over."

He deflated a little -- or maybe he just realized that he might not be acting the way he really wanted to, or that I wasn't acting the way he expected me to. "Well, if what you say happened is true then I apologize." Then he glares at me and gets excited all over again. "But you don't go fucking hitting people's cars, man!"

"Your car came this close to me, dude," I said, and held my fingers a few inches apart, then thumped my chest over the heart and made a panic-stricken face.

And the tension left his face. "Okay," he said. "Okay." And he held his hand out and we shook and he drove off.

I don't think he was a bad guy and I think he mostly believed what he said -- I hope that he had at least an inkling of the notion that I was in the right. I'm glad we talked it out and I'm glad that I was able to avoid being a complete asshole. I'm extra glad that I didn't get into a fight.

But.

This is the second time in the last week a careless driver has come close to hitting me in circumstances where I've clearly had the right of way -- the other one was a young woman with a cell phone whose expression of sheer terror when she looked up and realized how close she came to creaming me was quite gratifying in a mean-spirited way.

I am sick of it. And when the guy who almost ran me over made his statement about not punching cars I almost lost it right there. How am I supposed to communicate to a driver that they have done something grossly, life-threateningly negligent in a way that makes them actually take notice? If I hadn't punched his car -- and I reiterate, it was a purely unconscious reaction -- he would have had no fucking idea that he had come very, very close to killing or injuring a pedestrian. I honestly think he was more upset about my striking his car than about any other aspect of the situation. What the fuck, people? If you care that much about your car, if you don't want to know when you've made a serious mistake, you are defective.

Cyclists, while certainly less threatening, are far worse in terms of attitude and behavior.

One of the reasons I stopped riding my bike was that I was finding it tiresome to stop at a stop sign and have a series of cyclists zip past me right through into traffic.

Once last summer when I stopped at a stop sign a truck crossing the intersection stopped and the driver yelled out his window, "That's the first time I've ever seen a bicycle stop at a stop sign! That's beautiful, man!"

And that's when I realized that one of the reasons drivers get so squirrely at intersections is because they're expecting me to just shoot through and they don't know how to deal with someone on a bicycle who at least tries to obey the law.

There's been a new trend I've noticed lately -- cyclists talking on their cell phones. Sometimes they're in traffic, sometimes they're on the sidewalk. They never wear helmets. Why can't we just harvest their organs now before they get all bruised?

Why aren't I allowed to club cyclists on the sidewalk right to the fucking ground? Why don't they call out or ring a bell when passing from behind? You know who's the worst for this? Bicycle cops. Go figure.

It seems as though everyone on wheels has a sense of entitlement. They all think they're special bunnies and everyone else is wrong. Wrong and IN THEIR WAY.

I'm at the point where I don't really believe in good drivers or cyclists anymore. No matter how nice a person you are the odds are pretty good that when you are operating a vehicle you are going to act like a jerk every so often -- but when being a jerk means threatening the lives and well-being of the people around you, well. That's a little past carelessness. People aren't fit to drive and the death toll on the roads bears this out.

It would be just ducky if there were enough pedestrians to be able to organize and politicize -- but there aren't. There just aren't.

So all I can do is hate. Look at you in your cars and on your bikes and on your skateboards fucking risking lives for the sake of a moment's convenience or a sense of power or entitlement or territory or out of sheer stupidity -- hell, I don't know what motivates the steaming monkey-mass as they steer blindly with one hand while sucking down a coffee and yapping on their cell phone.

Just know this. No matter how I might feel about you as individuals as contributing factors in this situation I hate you and I fear you -- and one of these days you'll probably run my ass over.