Recently, I started to hate Philadelphia drivers. When I'm driving, they are assholes. When I'm riding my bike, they are assholes. When I'm walking, they are assholes. (I have friends that drive in Philly, I don't hate them, but I might still hate their driving skills, or lack there of.)
As I was dodging flying trash on the Spring Garden bridge yesterday, pet peeve number one was fully visible in my lane. For those of you who have never seen a road, all have at least one lane dedicated to a car, and in Philly, most have a bike lane. Cars cannot fit in the bike lane. But they insist upon using the bike lane as a turning lane, or just somewhere to drive because its there. Then, they honk their horn as you go around them at a red light and sit in front of them because it takes you 3.5 seconds to get pedaling when the light finally turns green, and they could've accelerated in 2.5 seconds. Assholes. Oh, they also honk if they are turning on red. Because they can't if my bike is squarely in front of them, almost touching their bumper (I am talented, yes). HAHAHAHAHAHA WELL IF YOU WEREN'T IN MY LANE YOU COULD TURN. [Insert evil laughter here.]
Red lights aside, stop signs are optional in Philly. [Note: In Philly, the rules of driving are very loosely enforced. For example, Red Car and Blue Car are driving right behind one another. Red Car runs red light, Blue Car forgets a turn signal. If there's a cop, and he decides to care, he'll stop the Blue Car for forgetting the blinker, not the Red Car for running the stop light.] Bikers know that pretty much everything except a red light that has been red for 5 seconds is optional, and they watch the cars accordingly to adjust their actions. Let me draw a scenario (brandishes pen and paper).
Stop Sign Scenario: I am biking west through an intersection. A car is driving north through said intersection. We both have a stop sign. They got there 5 seconds before I did, so I slowed to let them pass. Then, the driver starts FREAKIN OUT. I can just hear the wheels start grinding in their heads. "What's that weird looking person doing on that contraption? Oh emmm gee!?!?! Are they going to stop? Why aren't they wearing a helmet? I was gonna roll through this intersection, but now I'm not so sure. What if I hit them?!" By this time, I have had to stop. The car insists on waving me through, I have to get back on my bike, start pedaling (usually uphill), then the car zoooommmss by because they are pissed they were at the stop sign for about 15 seconds.
The above makes me angry for two reasons. First, the driver insists upon staring at me like I'm going to hurt them when I am clearly giving them the option to go first. Second, the driver gets angry and speeds up and sometimes honks even though I clearly gave them the option to go first. Thirdly (I know, there were only two reasons, but I thought of another), it takes a lot of energy to go from stopping to going. Its called momentum. If I can just slow down, its so much easier to speed up. But going from stopping to going, much harder. It's science! Physics to be exact!
The moral of the above story is, cars, if you are going to say "fuck you" all the time, keep saying "fuck you". Because once you start being nice, it i unexpected, and unexpected = not good.
This episode of Stooptime may be continued...
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