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Hey, bike riders, let’s be friends. I may drive a car, but that doesn’t make me the enemy. So let’s figure out a way to share the road – nicely.
For starters, check your attitude.
Bikes may represent truth and beauty, but many of us drive to transport small children, large objects or elderly parents. We’re not all supersized egos bent on hogging the road.
We have some things in common, ya know, like we all have to to obey traffic rules.
Don’t give me that sneer when I can’t get out of your way while you’re riding the wrong way down a one-way street.
I vow never to open the car door on the driver’s side without checking for cyclists coming my way. I’ll stay out of your bike lanes, but you have to stay inside them, which means that riding side-by-side with your pal is a dangerous no-no.
Promise. When I’m making a right-hand turn, I’ll look in my rear-view mirror. I’m not going to mow you down. But signal, will ya? Knowing you’re turning right, too, lets me get on with it.
While I’m waiting for pedestrians to cross when I’m turning right, you could go around on my left. No, I’m not looking for cyclists heading toward me between the pedestrian white lines, so try walking your bike at crosswalks. That is, after all, the rule.
Unless your life is at stake, there’s really no point in pounding on the hood of someone’s car when we’ve done something dumb.
The people who threaten your lives in this way are either jerks, who’ll only get pissed off – and then who knows what could happen? – or really bad drivers who won’t have the slightest idea what they’ve done wrong and could plough into something or somebody because you’ve scared them half to death.
Oh yeah, and you can’t have it all ways. You don’t get to be cyclist and a pedestrian. Stay off the freakin’ sidewalk.
That way, we can all live together in harmony.
susanc@nowtoronto.com
