Immediately’s put up will likely be transient in remark of Columbus Day:
Sorry, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Streetsblog needs you to know the WON’T be observing “Columbus Day,” however they WILL be taking the day without work, thankyouverymuch:
In addition they take pains to enumerate Columbus’s many character flaws which embody being rapacious, being Spanish, and being Jewish:
“A rose by every other title would scent as candy,” goes the oft-quoted line from the distressingly hetero-normative “Romeo and Juliet.” Does the identical not maintain true for federal holidays? Name it no matter you need, finally you’re simply fucking off from work.
Talking of polarizing topics, the Web was abuzz over the weekend with this video through which a particularly agitated older Fred accosts a particularly relaxed youthful motorist over an alleged close-pass:
Alas, between the perspective, the Saab jersey, and the backwards Fred-waddle when he goes to rattle off the driving force’s license plate to the cops, he makes us look dangerous sufficient:
[Pro tip: don’t keep straddling the bike when you’re done riding.]
However then he says the phrase that can guarantee motorists will proceed to hate and harass us for all eternity:
“I’m using a motorbike, I’ve extra rights than you!”
Whereas I’ve principally given up now, I spent a few years actively combating the parable that cyclists are nothing however a bunch of entitled elitists, and now right here comes this man and undoes all of it in the midst of a single viral video.
And but I additionally really feel compassion for the bike owner, who clearly feels as if the world is out to get him. For instance, he tells the police that he feels extraordinarily unsafe as a result of there’s one other individual on the scene. We then see the opposite individual:
He seems completely terrifying.
And naturally anybody who rides bikes has skilled being handed too intently. Right here in New York individuals go you so intently you don’t even discover except you are feeling it in your arm hairs. Loads of us have additionally been hit this manner; I nonetheless take into consideration the lady who sideswiped me, despatched me sprawling, after which shrugged and stated, “I assumed I may get round you.”
Nonetheless, this doesn’t appear to be what occurred right here:
Because the story notes, the video doesn’t present the precise distance of the go, nevertheless it additionally doesn’t appear to convey something even remotely harrowing.
So is the bike owner right here the Lycra-clad embodiment of entitlement? Or is he only a man who, like all of us, has been topic to the aggression, indifference, and ineptitude of motorists and at last had sufficient? In line with him it’s the latter:
Although it appears extra like a bit of little bit of each.
Both approach, I submit this video as exhibit one billion of why confronting drivers isn’t value it. Neglect the go–after making an attempt to detain a whole stranger he’s fortunate to be alive.
