An Open Letter To A Select Few Bicyclists Of Victoria

"Can we have your liver then?" It was a question
posed in a Monty Python skit about organ donations. It should also be a
question posed to some of the bicyclists that treat our streets and sidewalks
like their own fantasy velodrome. I'm not talking about the conscientious
cyclists who wear their helmets, obey they traffic laws and try to avoid
road rash at the hands of Victoria motorists. I'm talking about the free
wheeling dufuses who careen through traffic; use sidewalks as liberally
as they use roads; and think a helmet is a place to stash gloves. To those
few, let's ask: "Can we have your liver then?"



We've all seen them. My personal favorite was an idiot who was making a
circle across all four lanes of Cook Street between Johnson and Yates. Downtown,
rush hour traffic and this fool is ducking and weaving through traffic without
a helmet and without an inkling of common sense. Again and again he circled
like a tub toy circling a drain. Then, the thought hit me: "I sure do hope
he's registered to donate his organs." I caught one ten-minute snapshot
of this guy's life. He probably does this all the time. That means that
the odds that he'll catapult over the handlebars or under the wheels of
a car are pretty good. When that happens, we can take solace that while
his brain will have been a write-off since long before such an incident,
those other organs were part of a well oiled machine that allowed him to
duck-and-weave through four lanes of traffic.



This sub-set of cyclists seems to have no concern for those rules of the
road, common decency or even their own well being. Cyclists have hit both
my wife and me. In my case, I was getting off of the bus. I stepped from
the platform to the sidewalk and immediately heard a "Watch out!" Silly
me. What was I thinking using a sidewalk for walking? Looking at it another
way, maybe bicyclists that speed down walkways are onto a good thing. People
with small cars and motorcycles should just jump the curb and enjoy an easy
ride. After all, pedestrians in Victoria are getting good at jumping out
of the way of bicycles. It's time we took it up a notch. Both of my aforementioned
cases of cyclist versus pedestrian were hit-and-run. In my wife's case no
amount of crude epithets could turn around this two-wheeled criminal to
neither answer for what he just neither did nor look back to see if the
person he hit was unconscious or dying. (P.S. I should probably apologize
to that guy's mother: what I suggested she did for a living was probably
unkind).



The ones I'm also fond of are the radical bicyclists. Not the ones who refuse
to let their feet touch the pavement between departure and destination (though
they are amusing to watch at traffic lights). No, the radical cyclists I
refer to are those that seem to find that cars have no place on the road.
Last year I watched three of them ride abreast in the cycling lane down
Blanshard so that they could talk while they traveled. Two of them were
taking up the right hand car and they had the audacity to thump cars and
shake their fists when cars ventured within striking distance. Just a reminder:
the road is for cars and bicycles.



Cyclists are unlicensed and anonymous subscribers of the Motor Vehicle Act.
If a car sweeps into the right hand lane to make a left turn you can at
least get their license plate number. If a drunk motorist ploughs through
friends and family, their license can be taken away. Cyclists are free to
drive as they wish wherever they want. Take away their license? What license?
Hike their insurance? What insurance? If there isn't a remedy to nuisance
cyclists, we can at least take heart in their hearts (and kidneys and retinas).
Remember cyclists: if you want to drive like idiots, please agree to be
an organ donor. At the rate you're going, you'll be going soon.



- Mike DeWolfe