HEY AWESOME

[spatch]

1. The Great Gatsby is a story about a circus clown who falls in love with a one-armed stenographer and, after getting married on a Graaf Zeppelin, must team up to fight Bolsheviks on Easter Island.

2. It's perfectly legal and totally okay to, when you ride a bike down College Avenue, zip right between a double line of cars stopped at the Store 24 light and heydily hoidily zoom through the red light into the middle of Davis Square.

3. Curt Schilling is a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

One of those statements is true. One. Though I'd sure pony up money for that first story.

I watched the incident in #2 happen this morning. At the risk of stuffing this little feller here full of straw and waving him around angrily, I wonder if Mr. Wonder Biker is the same type of fellow who complains that cars don't treat bicyclists with respect. Would we have seen an angry, indignant post in davis_square today had he clipped himself on someone's side view mirror or been cussed at by a driver in the line? Or would this guy, who's already shown he doesn't give a tinker's damn, have taken a header and then picked himself up, brushed himself off and started all over again?

But facts is facts, and if you're on a bike you obey the same traffic laws as a driver.

I'm growing increasingly curious about observing these idiot riders as there is a bicycle coming my way and, honestly, I grew up in towns with hills and almost-paved roads with wide shoulders and an infrequent number of automobiles coming by. This kind of urban riding annoys and unnerves me, and I want to enjoy nice happy fun ride time, but I don't want to be lumped into the same category as Tommy Trafficlight there to whom the rules of the road apparently don't apply. Also, I have a severe and distinct phobia of side view mirrors.

Luckily we do have a nice system of rail trails around which I believe I'll be enjoying now that the weather's nicer.

Comments

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

I almost never run red lights. When I do, it's because I'm not metallic enough to trigger the sensors or because it's 2AM, and I am dead tired, not that that excuses it.

That said, I'm pretty sure splitting the lane is allowed, though I'm not positive. And, while bikers tend to be more obvious about it (that is, they run the red when the light has been red for a while), I'm not actually convinced that more red lights are run by bikers than by drivers in this town.

It's still stupid. And i *hate* it when I get passed at a red light, only to pass that biker before the next red, where they pass me again, etc etc etc

[spatch]

I don't think there's anything against going between the row of cars like that, but it was strange to watch because I thought he was fully going to stop in the middle and that sounded even stranger.

Stopping, looking, proceeding at least show common sense. Flying out into traffic shows you live life on the edge, baby, you're a rebel and you're doin it for the kicks!



ps your avatar mentioned hanging out sometime and I think that's an absolutely swell idea only I cannot find a working contact info

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

Pedant-girl checking in to point out that most highway traffic codes do prohibit lane splitting by any type of vehicle - even a people-powered one.

- someone who has to hang out in boring traffic court sometimes, but it's okay because I get paid for it.

[tablesaw]

I was under the impression that California was the only, or one of the only, places in the U.S. to allow it.