Bicycles are not toys

Regular readers will know that I do not drive, nor do I have a license. If I wanted to, I might be able to get a driver's license...my vision is just barely acceptable for the purpose...but I don't want to. Mostly because my vision is just barely acceptable for the purpose. I have convinced myself, and raised that conviction to an ironclad certainty, that sooner or later (probably sooner), I'd kill somebody and/or myself behind the wheel of a car.

Driving, that thing the civilized world takes entirely for granted, scares the shit out of me. I mean that quite literally. If you put a gun to my head and told me to drive a car, I might be able to do it for a time, but I would soil myself in the process.

As you can imagine, my lack of a driver's license has impacted my life in many ways, some of them unexpected. It has of course limited my pool of potential employers (I'd make a hell of a retail sales rep, but for my inability to get from store to store); it has dictated exactly where I can live (a public transit route is of paramount importance); it has affected my ability to shop for groceries or anything else. And let's just say again how lucky I was to find my wife. There are a dozen dozen reasons why, but for the purposes of this blog, a big one is that she's willing to cart me around. I don't think there are many women out there who'd have no problem doing all the driving, let alone women with Eva's pedigree.

I live approximately seven kilometers from where I work. It's not exactly walking distance (though I have walked it, once). It's about a ten minute drive. Unless you're on a bus: then, depending on time of day, it's anywhere from 35 to 75 minutes. The bus ride is an inconvenience that I simply factor into my life. I imagine it's a tiny bit like the way parents of small children must budget triple the time they once did to complete any least task.

I can bike it in 25 minutes if I push myself, and if the wind co-operates. (It rarely does: one of the axioms of cycling is that the wind is always against you. Another is that what goes up never seems to come down.) Weather is an issue, too: I've yet to see a rainproof bicycle. My bike has fenders, of necessity: I don't particularly need a stripe up my back. But for some reason, there doesn't seem to exist a bike with (a) fenders and (b) thin, ten-speed type tires. My bike is a clunker. A nice clunker, but a clunker. Spandex-bedecked people can coast by me while I pedal in top gear.

I don't mind getting wet on the way home--a little water never hurt anybody--but being as I work in coolers and freezers, even a chance of rain in the morning means Eva gets to drive me in and I get to bus home.

The route to work is an easy ride, for the most part. There are bike lanes for the first three hundred meters and the last fifteen hundred. Another two klicks are on residential avenues. The rest of it is on a major artery, and it's here that I've had a few close calls.

Nothing too close, I hasten to add. I've only been run over once, and that was by a uniformed police officer: it was also entirely my fault. But I still get the odd motorist who either doesn't see me or doesn't care that I'm there. Cyclists call it a "brushback". I'd personally rather experience baseball's version.

Despite occasional nerve wracking moments on the roads, I absolutely refuse to ride on the sidewalk. The vast majority of cyclists I see are on sidewalks, and I have nothing but disdain for them. I want to shout out first time without the training wheels, buddy? every single time. They don't call it a "sideride"...the only bicycles that belong on sidewalks are the toys of six year olds.

The law, incidentally, backs me up on this: bicyclists have the same rights and duties as operators of motor vehicles. I've had more than a few drivers tell me to get back up on the sidewalk "where I belong", and my reaction to those drivers is strikingly similar to my reaction when I see cyclists who think they belong on sidewalks.

Every once in a while, I read a story like this one that chills my blood. Here's the official report (bold mine):

"THE CYCLIST WAS WEST BOUND ON MS50 NEAR THE TRULOVE LOOP INTERSECTION. V1 WAS WEST BOUND ON MS50 APPROACHING THE CYCLIST FROM THE REAR. THE FRONT OF V1 COLLIDED WITH THE REAR OF THE BICYCLE. THE IMPACT THREW THE CYCLIST INTO THE AIR BEFORE LANDING ON THE HOOD OF V1 AND ONTO THE WINDSHIELD. V1 CONTINUED FOR A FEW FEET BEFORE COMING TO A STOP. THE CYCLIST WAS THEN THROWN TO THE ASPHALT WHEN V1 STOPPED. THE DRIVER OF V1 EXITED THE VEHICLE AND OBSERVED THE CYCLIST WHILE TALKING ON THE PHONE. D1 THEN REENTERED HER VEHICLE AND RAN THE CYCLIST OVER AGAIN BEFORE BEING FORCED FROM HER VEHICLE BY WITNESSES. V1 CAME TO FINAL REST FACING WEST IN THE WEST BOUND LANE ON MS 50 JUST METERS WEST OF THE TRULOVE LOOP INTERSECTION. THE CYCLIST CAME TO FINAL REST NEAR THE RIGHT FRONT TIRE OF V1."

When will it be my turn to face a psychotic driver?

Driving is already off limits to me, by my own choice. I can't allow that niggling fear a foothold in my mind, or I'll end up housebound.

The fact is, for me and people like me, bicycles are not toys, whatever drivers may think and however many may think it. A bike is a perfectly legitimate means of transportation, and I'm entitled to ride mine on city streets.