11/19/14

Rides 11/19: "the grace? it was all right"- first draft

I watched another bicyclist put his hand on the hood of a woman's car. He didn't so much smack it as pet it, but maybe the way you'd pet a cat that's kind of a dick. (I do not own a cat.) The car was stopped in the crosswalk and remained there after the light changed and it was finally our turn to cross. That this happens, believe it or not, is not a rarity. That bicyclists or pedestrians sometimes take out their frustrations by angrily petting the hoods of cars is rarer, but it also happens. I didn't see the driver's reaction. Sometimes drivers get quite mad when you touch their cars. Sometimes cyclists and pedestrians get even madder and smack, hit, or wallop the hoods of cars, to quite an effect. I don't really know where this story is going- the story of not much happening after a driver blocked a crosswalk and a man on a bike touched her car- but it happened a minute before I was honked at for not hurrying across a crosswalk, so the two incidents, I guess, stick together in my mind.

Getting honked at is annoying. Getting honked at is not the same as getting punched in the face or the same as being run over or having a lawsuit brought against you for trademark infringement (I'll see you in court, Frito Lay! Chester Sharrow, the sassy sunglassed orange cat, is totally legit!), but like I said in the previous sentence, it's annoying. I don't care for it very much, nor does anyone else really, to the point where I'm pretty sure we should all just agree to get rid of car horns. I was honked at because I didn't cross the street fast enough. I was honked at because someone thought that his having to stop for an extra two seconds was worth more than my being able to cross the street at my preferred speed. And because he had an easily accessible horn. Side note: I, pretty much in almost all circumstances, refuse to hurry across a street, especially at unregulated crosswalks. There are some reasons for this, namely 1) hurrying anywhere is dumb, 2) I want drivers to fully stop and wait and not half-stop. This latter concern is not just out of pettiness. Crossing a street is, much of the time, when I'm the most vulnerable. If I'm rushing across the street and the driver is like 'oh cool, he's rushing, so I'll barely slow down' and then, let's say, I fall over or something falls from my bike or for whatever other reason something interrupts my traversing, then I'm not really in great shape. I'd feel much better about the whole interaction if I know that the driver is stopped. Drivers don't like this. I don't care. I genuinely do not give one tiny fuck if someone in a car has to wait an extra few seconds. 'BUT HE MADE ME WAIT TWO SECONDS!' someone might say. To which I might say 'what are you, a two year old?' [I think this is also why I'm hard on #CONFUSION.] It's time to stop lowering expectations, especially for adults who are operating potentially deadly multi-ton vehicles under government permission. Get over it.

When I left work, I saw a man wearing a hi viz jacket driving his red car down Nebraska Avenue. Finally drivers are taking visibility seriously. Next step, driver smart hats. Because here's the thing: in the sharing economy with the ZipCars and the car2gos and all of the 'rent your car at the airport when you're away on vacation' schemes, it's getting harder and harder to say exactly who is driving a car while it commits a traffic infraction. If drivers wore helmets with registration numbers on the back, then we can be sure to issue the tickets to the correct person and not just go by antiquated license plate technology. Venture capital please < pinches fingers together in mooching manner>.

Usual route downtown and then G Street to Macy's (really?) where I bought commuter jeans (really??? Yeah, I guess. I needed some new pants for winter.) and then down 11th to Pennsylvania and then the same route home as always. It was still quite cold. I should've worn thicker gloves.

Oh, hey, look a new Gear Prudence. It's about lights. 

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