The Hit Parade Continues

Seriously Boston Globe…you would publish this…really? Several people have sent me the link to the new Op-ed piece in the Boston Globe. I honestly don’t think this is worthy of much of a response, as it is one of the most poorly thought out arguments I have seen in a long time.

For those of you who don’t wish to waste 5 minutes of your life slogging through the op-ed let me summarize for you.

“cyclists are unruly, run red lights, slow down traffic, and we should ticket them and do lots of things to make there lives as miserable as motorists are”

My response would be: “WHAAAAAAAAA cry me a river lady”. Seems someone ate her bowl of shredded weep this morning. If you don’t like being in slow traffic why do you drive a car in Boston? You could take every bicycle in the city off the streets and it still wouldn’t make traffic move one bit faster. If you want to see the reason why traffic is slow, get in your car, look in the review mirror, see that person sitting in a car starting back at you…that’s the problem.

She then states that if the Boston city police ticketed every traffic infringement (cars/bikes/walkers) some sort of utopia would dawn in which cyclists would no longer exist, the streets would magically stretch out to the horizon, and she would be free to floor it going 100mph from point A to point B every day with nothing in her way. Of course in reality if the police did try to enforce traffic laws that is all they would do, because it is a shit storm of law breaking going on out there. Bike riders are no worse than anyone else, so the argument about how they flaunt the law falls on deaf ears to every other user group.

As far as the rest of the op-ed…well lets just say I am doubting the author has ever actually ridden a bicycle. If per some miracle she actually reads this I would be more than happy to take her out on a ride to show her just how much less road rage she would encounter when she is seeing this city as it was meant to be seen, by bike. Cruising through traffic, never having to look for parking, enjoying the sites and sounds of a beautiful city. I actually feel sorry for her.

Every day when she gets in her car she is prepared for battle, getting from one spot to another for her is a trauma, filled with stress and anxiety. We bikers know a different way, for us a nice bike ride can be relaxing and fun. We get where we are going as fast (more often faster) than people in cars, and yet we have fun doing it. Our calves look real nice too.

Someone pulled the old bait and switch on her. Car commercials promised her endless empty roadways where she could motor away the days free from obstruction and high on speed. Then as soon as she signed the contract BAM, tiny old fashion street layout, massive population sharing those streets, stop and go traffic, high gas prices, obesity, congestion, wars for oil, pollution, low resale value…the list goes on and on. We can only pity her, and hope that in her little raged out fantasy land she doesn’t end up hitting someone on a bike because she wanted to get to work 2 minutes faster.

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