Taking your life in your hands (or, in this case, handlebars)

I've been riding my bike to work frequently this summer. Mostly, it's because I love bike riding. Plus it's good exercise and less tedious than walking (I only enjoy walking if I am with a friend or if I'm listening to "Harry Potter" on my i-Pod. And I am already well into the 5th book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," and yes I already know how the 7th book ends, so don't worry about spoiling it for me, just because I am two years behind the rest of the reading population on the planet, so I really need to think about getting another audio book loaded on to my i-Pod.) But getting back to bike riding: there is also the added benefit of my feeling younger than my actual age, and very grateful that, as I approach the age of 60 (yikes!), I can still do this. And finally, there's the admiration I get from my co-workers and even from perfect strangers, such as the clerk in Kinko's today, a middle-aged (although probably younger than I), overweight man who told me, "That's really great that you're doing that." (It was probably the fact that I was wearing my bike helmet inside the store that tipped him off.)

I said, "Thanks--it saves on gas." Which is true, of course, but since my work is only 4 miles from my house, that means...let's see...I really hate figuring out anything mathematical, but if I drive 8 miles a day and gas is $4 a gallon, and a train leaves Chicago at 4:42 PM and another train leaves New York at 8:22 AM...well obviously I am saving money, I have no idea how much, and I don't really care. Like I said, I do it mainly because I enjoy it.

But then there's the Dark Side of bike riding. And I'm not talking about minor obstacles like potholes. No, the real problem is DRIVERS. What is it that makes drivers think that whenever someone on a bicycle is in the vicinity, the normal traffic laws are suspended? There are the drivers who ignore the "NO TURN ON RED" sign and nearly run right over me as I'm crossing the street. They look to the left to see if there's any traffic, but apparently the idea that someone could be moving about the city WITHOUT A CAR has never crossed their minds. I've had to learn a whole new set of survival techniques just for crossing the street. It's not enough any more to just "look both ways," as your mother taught you. Now, when I am attempting to cross the intersection and a car is about to turn right, and I can see that the driver is only looking to the left, I ride up to the car and bang my fist on the hood. When the surprised driver looks up, I give him or her a meaningful stare and point to the sign and yell, "NO TURN ON RED!" Usually the driver just looks at me blankly, like I'm some sort of wierdo. Which may technically be true, at least in this case, but that's not the point, is it!

Then there is the "Stop Signs are Optional" rule, which evidently means that if the only traffic coming across the intersection is a pedestrian or a person on a bicycle, stopping is not required. The driver doesn't even need to slow down more than a token amount, just enough to show that he didn't "blow" the stop sign: he saw it just fine, but he figured that since he wouldn't sustain any damage to his car if he only hit a person, as opposed to another car, he could just keep going. Today I narrowly missed being hit by just such a driver, and as I slammed on my brakes and he breezed through the intersection, I yelled, "You have a stop sign!" He honked his horn and calmly extended his middle finger out the window as he drove on.
But even though I've been riding my bike all summer--and for approximately 50 previous summers--today I encountered a completely new hazard: a humongous tow truck, towing a humongous SUV, driving the WRONG WAY down a narrow one-way street. I spotted the truck at the intersection, with its blinker on, and the driver looking to the LEFT, and not seeing a single car coming, which was not at all surprising because he was LOOKING THE WRONG WAY, just before he made the turn. So, naturally, clinging to my silly notion that drivers should actually obey the traffic laws, I yelled to the driver, "This is a one way street!" But he turned anyway and drove right at me, and I had to zoom in between two parked cars to avoid being flattened.
So to conclude today's Basic Bicycle Safety lesson: I've now added "Humongous Tow Trucks Driving the Wrong Way Down One-Way Streets" to my list of Things To Look Out For While I'm Riding.

Tomorrow's lesson will cover People Who Fling Open Their Car Doors Just As I'm Riding By.