Why Don't We Do It in the Road -- New for the Hellbender Press

The new Hellbender is out, and an edited version of this "Toxic Fumes" is in it. (I recommend picking up the print version too; the edits add some funny to it).

 

Why Don’t We Do It in the Road

Traffic laws are made to be broken. Like bones

by Scott McNutt

So this guy comes zipping down our street on some souped-up mountain bike. He’s barreling along, he’s flying, he’s breezing, he’s free as the wind, right? He’s moving like he’s Mad BMX, the Road Warrior of the bicycling set.

He blows through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, loses control as he veers onto the intersecting street, brakes, slides sideways, pops the curb, skids five feet forward on the sidewalk, then – bang! – the brakes finally lock. The bicycle owner shoots past the bike’s handle bars, and he skids along another ten feet of pavement on his bare limbs.

This is called "environmentally friendly transportation."

Or maybe it’s called "recreational exercise." Whatever you call it, it’s pronounced the same way: "AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"

I went over and offered to help the fellow, but he shrugged me aside and trudged off, pushing his bike toward Broadway. I suppose he was obeying the unspoken code of "Be strong and silent and show no pain as you ride (or trudge) off into the sunset" shared by steed-riders, be the steeds flesh or steel. But in this case, there trudged a whole different order of brokeback cowboy.

On another occasion, I was in my car stopped at the same stop sign. I noticed a cyclist zooming down the hill toward me. I proceeded through the stop sign, turning left. Checking the rearview, I panicked because the biker was nowhere in sight. Could he have slid under my car or slammed into and sailed over the fence across the street?

On the verge of turning back to investigate, I slowed and craned my head around, looking for some evidence of his passing. And there he was, right in my blind spot, grinning like a bicycle-riding circus bear that’s just eaten its trainer. Not trifling with so trivial a thing as traffic laws, he had run the stop sign and drifted along beside my car. In cycling circles, I think it’s called "drafting."

Parts of him would have been feeling a draft after he smacked into the side of my car if I had acted on my impulse to wheel it around. Then again, it’s a Saturn, so he probably would have caromed off unhurt and proceeded on his way, leaving a major dent in the door (and my pride) to mark his passing. At any rate, so rattled was I that I slowed and let him waft past me.

No, this is not an all-bicyclists-suck-and-shouldn't-be-allowed-on-the-road rant. Bicycles have as much right to our roads as any other vehicle, and many bicyclists are far more observant of traffic regulations than are vehicleans. (Vehiclean: One whose lifestyle is vehicle-oriented. Wish I could claim to have coined it, but some wacky West Knox guy who wanted to build a vehiclean Mecca at the corner of Kingston Pike and Cedar Bluff Road a few years back owns that distinction.) Vehicleans suck too.

For example, probably one in five of the cars moving along Gay Street downtown fails to stop at at least one of its many lights. Some of the drivers are obviously out-of-towners, busily gawking at the wonders of our fair city ("Look, Ma! A three-story building! It's the littlest skyscraper I ever saw!"). Some, revving their engines and racing the minute distances between each signal, seem more concerned with showing off than obeying the law ("Look at me! I’m running the light! I’m defying authority! I’m ubercool! I’m superbadass! I’m- I’m running into the car ahead of me-!"). And some seem merely oblivious ("Is this my beautiful car? Is this my beautiful wife? Am I wearing pants?")

No, I’m not driving a glass car and throwing rods, either. I’m not a good driver. I have rolled through stop signs, turned right at red lights without coming to a full stop, pulled out in front of cars I didn't see coming and so forth. Just the other night I was driving down State Street and, glancing in my rearview mirror, saw an SUV zip in the "Out" ramp of the Promenade parking deck. Busy smirking at what a jerk the driver was, I failed to notice that I was drifting into the parking lane. I didn’t wreck - because someone had the foresight to not be parked right there right then. I can’t cast aspersions, much less rocks or rods.

But at least I know I’m guilty of bad driving. Others don’t seem aware. I have friends who boast of what bad drivers they are. That is, they explain how they have such superior road skills that they can ignore speed limits and other rules of the road, and it’s everybody else that’s the problem. Such talk proclaims "I AM A BAD DRIVER" as plainly as if they had stapled a sign reading "I cause traffic accidents" to their foreheads. But they are friends, so I don’t point this out.

And don’t even get me started on people who talk on their cell phones while driving. Enough has already been written about it. You can argue how great a driver you are until you’re Bluetooth in the face, but if you’re talking on a cell phone, you’re four times more likely than cell-phone-free drivers to become Mr. or Ms. Chatty-Chatty-Bang-Bang (according to a 2005 study: ww.msnbc.msn.com/id/8545779/).

But lately, it’s the Redflex cameras at intersections about town my bad-driving friends bemoan. "I know better than some stupid camera whether I ran a red light!" they bellow. "And if I did run it, it was because it needed running!" These diatribes generally peter out with vague rumblings about fascism, totalitarianism and "sticking it to Big Brother."

But if the cameras represent our Orwellian present, then the dystopia got the green light long ago, the first time somebody stuck a stop sign at a four-way intersection. And, as my friend Michael likes to say, "We started down this road when we let robots run intersections with their red, yellow, and green commands." Automated devices have directed our driving behavior for practically a century. So, the cameras aren’t the problem. Rather, it’s our inclination to put our own judgment above our agreed-upon social contract of traffic laws.

George Carlin accurately observed that we feel anybody driving slower than us is an idiot and anyone going faster is a maniac. He’s right. As drivers, we’re all a little crazy-stupid. If you don’t recognize that, well, you’re either crazy or stupid. The upshot is, whether a driver or biker, the more sure you are of your driving prowess, the more likely it is your driving isn’t as good as you think. To put it another way, the gap between our assumed and our actual driving capabilities is probably wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. And even then we’d probably still manage to dent the fender. In other words, we all suck.

So, whether bicyclean or vehiclean, we can all improve our driving, and one way to do that is to stop thinking we’re so great at it. We must use discretion and exercise caution. We must be respectful and careful of other drivers. We’d all be better off if, instead of road warriors, we were road worriers.