Simile when you say that...

A few weeks ago, a cyclist was killed in an altercation between himself and a motorist, and the following article appeared in one of the local indie newspapers. From the title, I thought that it would be about the the issues surrounding cars and bikes, and with luck, some ideas to help solve them.

When I read it, I couldn't believe how little it offered. The author is merely using the article as a shot in a class war between cyclists and motorists. Again and again, it is hammered home that cyclist=good, motorist=bad.

What is it about bikes that makes people sexier? I don’t care who you are, this
is universally true. Why do we say people “drive” cars and “ride” bikes? It’s
clearly the reverse.

In the first paragraph, my teeth are already set on edge by the odd claim and facetious word play. We are not allowed to disagree, for the author has already decided that it is a universal fact that cyclists are sexier, and that the words we use to describe the usage of cars and bikes are incorrect. By telling us what to think, the author sets the tone for the entire article.

“The more aware you are of being threatened, the more
desperate your reaction.... Speeding is a form of aggression.” So wrote Chögyam
Trungpa, in the somewhat self-satisfied tone of a Buddhist rinpoche.

It's difficult to be sure what angle the author is taking with this quote. We can't even be sure that the quoted statements have any relation to each other, or if the author just cherry-picked the quotes to support the argument the author is making (whatever that is). Since the man that was killed was a cyclist, perhaps he is trying to generate sympathy for him due to the fact that he acted violently to the driver of the car that killed him.

I don’t know if, as some say, Sheppard died because he was a
cyclist. But I am reasonably sure he is dead because people drive cars.

If only people didn't drive cars, the poor victim would still be alive. Nevermind that the victim was drunk. Nevermind that the vicitm attacked the driver. Nevermind that the victim clung to the car as the car sped off, so that the attack could continue. None of these facts fit the idea of cars=bad, so they are not mentioned.

Here’s an analogy: If I walk around pointing my index
finger, which I repeatedly flex and extend, I’m a weirdo. Add a loaded handgun,
it’s a shooting spree.

And here is the most blatant show of prejudice and elitism on the part of the author. What he is saying, in other words, is that allowing people to drive cars is exactly the same as giving a mentally unstable person a gun and allowing them to indiscrimiately shoot innocent people. Cars=mass murder. This paragraph is so loaded with emotional wording that I don't know where to begin.

I suppose it should be mentioned that the average reader of this local tabloid is ignorant of, and therefore fearful of, privately owned firearms, with handguns being a particular nightmare. Using this wording can be expected to cause a knee-jerk reaction amongst the regular readership, such that they cannot be bothered to think about the ridiculous comparison the author is making; more than likely the unreasoning fear of handguns would cause instant agreement with an argument of any description. The author could have used some other analogy to imply the danger inherent to cyclist in a bike/car collision (as the motorist would have little chance of injury or even damage to his car, while the cyclist will almost certainly be injured, and very likely killed), as I believe that this is the point that the author is trying to make.

But no, why talk rationally about the issues, when you can use sensationalism to show the virtue of cyclists, and the evil, corrupting influence of the automobile?

We don’t know exactly what happened August 31, but the
wealthy politician in a convertible walked away, while the “troubled” (i.e.,
underprivileged) Metis man on the bike died.

Let's not forget to bend this situation into an example of the class war between the haves and have-nots. What is the point of mentioning the victim was of First Nations ancestry? Are they accusing the driver of being motivated by racism? Why would it have even occured to the driver that he was Metis? What is the point of mentioning the wealth of the driver, or that he was a polititian? What do these things have to do with this fatality? And the driver certainly didn't walk away, he was arrested and thrown in jail until he could make bail.

Still, one may wonder what treatment by the law that the driver may get due to these things (money and political connections seem to be helping, as the driver has hired a public relations company and a highpriced lawyer, and had a shave and change of suits before he gave his public statement; the police were surprised that he was afforded this courtesy). Also, "troubled" does not automatically mean underprivileged. The victim may have been poor, but in this case, it means that the victim was wrestling with alcoholism and other drug use, which contributed greatly to this incident.

We don’t know Bryant’s mental state or what his actions
were, but in general the issue in car-bike spats isn’t anger, it’s the way big
technology facilitates indulgence and infliction rather than reflection and
reconsideration.

What exactly is "big technology"? Are we trying to coin a new word? I've heard of big oil, or big pharma, or big agra, but there's no such thing as big tech. Large technology-based companies may try to assault your mind with constant advertising and other propaganda, but none of them, even lumped together, could be considered along the same lines as big oil. Our author seems to forget that technology plays a primary role in his cycling. Especially for the really dedicated cyclists, with the alloy frames and wheels and other hi-tech advancements. Hell, everything that we have is technology of some kind, from the screwdrivers to milk cartons.

Furthermore, if driving "facilitates indulgence and infliction" contrasted to biking's "reflection and reconsideration", it is an exact copy in a larger scale of the relationship between biking and walking. You can be at your most reflective and reconsiderative at walking speed, so perhaps the author should give up biking.

This leaves one cause of these almost
daily run-ins: cars themselves.

How are cars the cause of the run-ins? If the author is saying that driving leads to arrogance and sloppy operation, the same could be said of cycling compared to walking. Hell, even pedestrians have been caught with their heads in the clouds. Cars don't cause this problem. People's personalities and circumstances do.

Nor is the problem that cyclists “are blind
to the rules.” Believe me, you don’t survive downtown cycling if you don’t have
a system. Sometimes we roll through a stop sign (completely legal in Idaho, by
the way). Sometimes you don’t wash your hands before you eat.

Here the author tries to justify the blatant breaking of the rules as necessary to bike downtown. What the author doesn't seem to realize is that other drivers, be they cyclist or motorist, need themselves and others to follow the established (and therefore expected) rules do decide what to do in a fluid situation. When you start breaking the rules, you introduce uncertainty, which will increase the chances of an accident as the other driver tries to figure out what you are doing.

Not only this, but why does a cyclist get excused for breaking the rules, but not cars? As for not washing your hands, I'd pick another analogy. The one the author used to impress the idea that one sometimes breaks the rules also implies that one is willing to accept a high price for doing so, as eating with contaminated hands could lead, in the worst case, to death from food poisoning; it would follow, then, that death from not following the rules is fine with the author.

Finally, cherrypicking the laws of another part of the world just because you like them does not mean that they apply to the situation here at home. For example, there's legal brothels in Amsterdam, and carrying a concealed handgun in Vermont is as legal as carrying a concealed pencil. Would the author like to have those applied here too?

And in the rare cases when law-abiding does make sense, we
may still find it safer not to – since, as in abusive situations, what’s
expected vacillates wildly.

Oh, brother. If following the law in a given example makes sense, it cannot be safer to break the law; otherwise, it would not make sense to follow the law in the first place. And notice how the author compares motorist-cyclist altercations to abusive situations. Sorry, but wife-beating and child molestation are proper examples of abuse. Don't belittle those horrors by comparing them to traffic incidents, even fatal ones.

Seemingly reasonable calls for cyclists to bottle up their
“irrelevant” anger are really calls to ignore what’s swirling beneath this
disaster. They are above all an anxious avoidance of slowing down and looking
each other in the eye.

Again, motorists are the bad guys, unwilling to reach out to their fellow human beings, moving too fast to be bothered to make a connection. The exact same could be said of cyclists (especially the couriers), who zoom and weave around pedestrians with the same kind of disdain motorists are accused of.

Trungpa, whom I quoted at the top, drank considerably, lost
a tidy sum up his nose and died of liver failure before hitting 50. Did this
make him a sham? Or was it troubles developed while fleeing Tibet that shaped
him? In the end, I decided I didn’t care. The writings he left make it clear he
was on to something.

On to what? That speeding is a form of agression? Speeding can be an expression of fear, love, excitement, despair, and many others. That threats cause desperate acts? Only if you have no training in dealing with emergencies. Otherwise, threats can be handled with calculated responses. There are no insights to be found here.

From what we know, so was Sheppard. Now we’re called on to
seek truth in tragedy, to find something in all this to make a more humane city.
But we’re all moving so fast, and it takes so long to say – so it comes out as
“more bike lanes.”

And what exactly was Sheppard on to? Are you seriously trying to compare his life to that of a buddhist monk, even if they both had problems with drugs? What writings did Sheppard leave for us that would indicate, on any level, that he had put any thought whatsoever in to the mysteries of life? Why would the author ever try to imply such a thing, when the only reason that anything is being written about this man is that he was killed? Did the author even know this guy?

The author brings little truth to this conversation, and certainly finds no solutions; the "more bike lanes" line is the only part of this article that shows any insight or helpful reasoning. All the rest is blame for those evil cars.

Next entry, I'll put down some points I'd like to say about the issue of bikes and their struggle to be recognized as legitmate users of the roads.