I’m back on the road again, riding my bicycle, like
thousands of other cyclists on these warm spring days. Every year about now many of us weekend
warriors dust off bikes that have hung forlornly in the garage since last fall. We squeeze into skin tight lycra shorts, sometimes not a very pretty
sight. We pump up the tires, fill up the
water bottles and then hop on our two wheeled vehicles and go.
Freedom!
We bike for lots of reasons: to get back into shape after months
of sitting still, to train for a charity ride (my main motivator), and to see
God’s beautiful Creation at 12 miles per hour.
When you bike on the open road, you drink it all in: the rainbow of bursting
flower buds, the sun dappled trees and the balmy breezes that blow you
along. Cycling can be truly idyllic,
amazing, and even miraculous: to transport one’s self very long distances and do
so with only muscles and lungs and wits and grit.
But every year when I return to the road, I bring a secret
fear, a haunting worry: that this will be the year I get hit by a car or a
truck. That one moment I’ll be wheeling along and the next I’ll be flying
through the air on my way to a nasty accident.
That what I risk as I ride is not just sore legs or sunburned skin but
my life too. My body. My safety. My future. I know I tempt the fates by
actually putting these words to paper. Maybe I’m becoming a nervous Nelly as I
age. Maybe my fears are unfounded.
It is only a bike ride, right?
Yet here’s the reality: take a little bike which often weighs
less than 20 pounds and then mix it up with a two or three ton vehicle
barreling along and every time, the bike loses. The bike
loses. Every single time. It’s not even a fair fight. No contest.
Every spring we pick up the newspaper or surf the net and read the first
seasonal story about a bicyclist killed in a collision. A college student on Commonwealth Avenue
crushed under a bus. An after work
cyclist clipped by the side mirror of a truck.
A suburban Mom and wife taken from this earth, when a driver decides to
text on his phone for just a second, and
in that blink of an eye, the biker dies.
The statistics are depressing. According to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2012, 726 cyclists nationwide
perished on the road, fifteen in Massachusetts
and beyond these fatalities are ten of thousands of injuries from
bicycle-vehicle encounters. There are
obvious reasons for this, like physics: big always beats small. Some bikers are hurt or perish because they
don’t wear a helmet, disregard traffic rules or take risks. Vehicles strike bicycles because drivers are
distracted: texting, talking, fiddling, eating, doing anything but keeping
their eyes on the road.
For me road safety all comes back to civility: the quaint,
old fashioned virtue which governs the best of human relationships.
Civility: having manners, being polite, following the rules,
and recognizing that the road of life is not just all about “me”; that instead
since we share a common road, it is our job to watch out for each other with
kindness and care. I know I risk sounding like a prim kindergarten teacher or
pontificating preacher. (Guilty as charged!) Yet the truth is that the
overwhelming number of accidents would and absolutely could be avoided if only
cyclists and drivers would just be more civil to one another.
For bikers that means we ride single file always, in a
straight line, as far over to the side of the road as safely possible. Ever seen a big pack of Saturday morning
cyclists clogging up the road, three or four or five abreast, acting as if they
own the whole road? They are rude. They are selfish, stupid, even arrogant. I
get to say that: I’m a biker too and when they ride like this, they make all of
us look bad. The cyclist who doesn’t use
hand signals? Runs a stop sign? Passes a
car on the left? They’re in the same
dummy club too. Some of my fellow
cyclists get hurt, are killed, because they fail to practice common courtesy
and common sense. End of story.
For drivers, civility means we bikers ask you to just pay
attention when you are on the road. Look
out for us. If you see us rolling up to
an intersection, meet our eyes if you can, so we can clearly indicate to you
what we are doing next. Give us some
space on the road. We are right next to
you. Use your mirrors. And please, PLEASE put down the phone. If you can’t see us, we are doomed. When we wave to you for letting us cross a
busy street, wave back to us. It’s our
way of saying “Thanks!”. And please don’t judge us by the actions of a minority
of reckless cyclists. Most bikers just
want to share the road, have fun, and then get back home safely. Remember that the cyclist next to you is a
real person, a life.
Cars and bicycles on the road: with just a little civility,
this can be a safe and fun season for riding.
Please watch out for us bikers and we’ll watch out for you too.
Thank you.
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