I don’t know whether I should still allow myself to rant on my blog, but earlier today I was driving on a fairly major through street, which is clearly marked “ONE WAY.” Not only does it have the requisite signs posted, but it is so obviously one way that only an absolute idiot would fail to recognize its nature. So, where it intersects with one of Ann Arbor’s biggest through streets, I happened to be driving through the intersection (going straight, on the one-way street) when an absolute idiot of a bicyclist was suddenly headed straight at me, forcing me to veer suddenly out of the way into the other lane (where fortunately, no one was). I looked at her in complete astonishment, and as she sailed right into the dangerous intersection without stopping she just smiled a goofy smile from the “safety” of her goofy helmeted head. She kept going in her “having her nice day” way — utterly and completely clueless that she was not only endangering other people, but endangering herself. You would have to know the area to understand how insane this was, and I do not just mean cluelessly going the wrong way on a one-way street. The street she crossed is one of those huge commuter highway type streets where the traffic is fast and furious — more fast and furious because if you miss a light you will sit there for what seems forever. Not the sort of street to be playing chicken on by running a stop sign. Actually, now that I think about it, there might not be a stop sign there. And why would there be? It’s a one way street going the other way! They don’t have stop signs facing the reverse direction, and it would be a bad idea if they did, for it might make people think that they were allowed to be traveling in that direction.
Anyway, she could have easily been killed and she didn’t have a clue. I’m a pretty good judge of people and the look on her face did not indicate a deliberate, risk-taking scofflaw type. I’d actually have more respect for a bicyclist like that, as they at least know what they are doing, and they don’t waste time doing it.
And the more I thought it over, the more an evil thought crept into my mind. I actually have more respect for criminals than idiots, for at least the criminals generally know what they are doing. True, criminals should be locked up, but we’re talking respect here, not public policy.
I am unable to respect idiots, and I worry that there are more and more of them all the time. There are young people running around who have never been taught common sense, because neither their parents nor the schools have any to impart to them. Like that young bicyclist, they reach adulthood thinking the world is a safe place, and that no one would ever run into them.
I’m guessing that if she “thought” anything at all, she might have figured it’s the cars’ responsibility to get out of the way of bicycles.
All I can say is %$*&#!
Comments
16 responses to “HAVE A NICE ACCIDENT!”
Ann Arbor . . . Concordia (Geddes Road) grad here.
It was like that back in the 80’s. A2 rivals Berkeley in so many mind-numbing ways.
Glad you escaped the potential manslaughter charge.
“And the more I thought it over, the more an evil thought crept into my mind. I actually have more respect for criminals than idiots, for at least the criminals generally know what they are doing.”
The older I get, the less I am able to distinguish stupidity from evil. Well meaning stupidity can do limitless damage, whereas competent malice generally does harm in a limited fashion. Which, then, is the greater evil?
Your bicyclist will likely vote for politicians who promise to “make things safe” for bicyclists, reducing all our freedoms as a result. But she meant well, and that is all that truly matters, no?
What Leopold said. Assuming, of course, that she doesn’t get herself killed or crippled (and then of course, either her family or herself sue for millions and win against someone who had nothing to do with it – probably the city for not having bike paths…).
“I am unable to respect idiots…”
You had a post a while back discussing taking photographs in a ‘bad neighborhood'(and for the life of me I can’t seem to come up with search terms that will resurrect that post). To my mind the comments boiled down to ‘risk-taking and culpability’.
When I saw you railing against someone exhibiting what you considered to be a complete lack of ‘common sense’, it reminded me immediately of that post.
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G, I remember. You are talking about this post about blaming crime victims:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2010/12/the_wages_of_si.html
(Entering _ pictures detroit _ brought it up.)
I do think there is a big difference between women wearing slutty outfits (or photographers taking pictures in bad neighborhoods, or obviously gay men walking the streets) and bicyclists going the wrong way down one-way streets and running through intersections. Drivers are neither rapists nor criminals, and in that post I was talking about whether it is fair to blame crime victims for criminal behavior. Moreover, you have a right to walk around dressed in any manner you please. You do not have a right to break multiple traffic laws and subject innocent drivers to risks.
You and I may disagree as to what is idiotic, but I think riding a bike as this woman did is more idiotic — and I mean SUICIDALLY IDIOTIC — than wearing a slutty outfit or photographing ruins.
Ironically, if a photographer gets mugged, or a woman gets raped, they’re a lot less likely to be successful in a lawsuit than the idiot bicyclist. Yet drivers are entitled to drive the right way and assume others on the road will obey the law. And even though no one has a right to rape or mug anyone, in practice the bicyclist is deemed more deserving of compensation.
Idiocy aside, it is monstrous.
In this setting, cars are the victims of idiot bicyclists. But even though I say that, I would not blame the idiot bicyclist if some predator seeking to rape bicyclists knocked her off her bike, grabbed her, and threw her into a van and raped her.
Seems like a good time to break out the classics:
http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/stupidity/basic.htm
“Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.”
You only have just the one cheery, dullwitted bicyclist in Ann Arbor? We have several hundred here in Portland; we’ll be happy to send you some more.
Oh, we have about a thousand or so of the other kind, too. For example, I stood on the brake peddle with both feet in the intersection — where I had the green light — to avoid killing the bicyclist riding through the red light from my right. He loudly called me an asshole by way of expressing gratitude for not becoming a big splat on the front of my car. I evidently was unaware that bicyclists in Portland are exempt from laws of God and man by reason of their extreme two-wheeled virtue.
You only have just the one cheery, dullwitted bicyclist in Ann Arbor? We have several hundred here in Portland; we’ll be happy to send you some more.
Oh, we have about a thousand or so of the other kind, too. For example, I stood on the brake peddle with both feet in the intersection — where I had the green light — to avoid killing the bicyclist riding through the red light from my right. He loudly called me an asshole by way of expressing gratitude for not becoming a big splat on the front of my car. I evidently was unaware that bicyclists in Portland are exempt from laws of God and man by reason of their extreme two-wheeled virtue.
Check your state’s vehicle code. California’s says drivers have a duty to avoid collisions; Michigan’s may have similar language. That means a driver is expected to not “assume others… will obey the law” but look first then proceed only when safe and legal yada yada.
Words to the wise: Even if the other motorist, bicyclist, pedestrian is disobeying the law, no matter how recklessly or suicidally, there’s a risk that you may be financially (and even criminally) liable if you didn’t look where you were going and collided with that other person.
I’ve had the unfortunate experience of observing a bicyclist run a stop sign and get hit by a car. She bounced/rolled across the intersection and ended up right at my feet, and proceeded to scream bloody murder and then went into shock. She lived though.
– Being a bike and motorcycle rider myself, I’m often shocked at what I see other riders do. I’m in the DFW area, and there is no shortage of bicyclists riding the wrong way on two-lane roads, against oncoming traffic, and often without the legally required lighting at night. What’s more, they seem to either be unaware that the rules of the road apply to them as well, or just don’t care. I’ve come to expect people on bikes, even ones who appear to be experience and regular tour riders, to run stop signs and disregard yield signs, as if they are owed a waiver from having to break their momentum somehow because their activity is more “green” or cooler than what the rest of us are up to.
I ride a bicycle and a scooter as well as a car and I confess to treating the entire road as my private path, but only when I’m alone. There is something very freeing about being in/on a tiny vehicle that will go almost anywhere, not that that excuses endangering oneself or others.
Jenny
I drive on the George Washington Parkway south of Alexandria quite a bit. I live at the south of Alexandria right there so I take my convertible (and dawg) for a ride down to Mt. Vernon and back on most nice days, I don’t drive it to work so it’s nice to be able to just drive.
It’s an old road. For NYers, it’s like the Taconic Parkway. 80 years old and small lanes. There is no real shoulder, the curbs are slanted and there’s a grassy expanse along each side, but no shoulder.
There is a bike-path that parallels the Parkway the whole way.
On nice days there always fools on bikes going up and down. You see, they don’t want to be bothered by the people walking on the bike path, so they get in the way of cars.
That’s not really stupidity, it’s arrogance and narcissism (DC is narcissist central).
So I was talking to a guy while our dogs were sniffing butts when his buddy came up and complained about the aholes on the GW Parkway who almost ran his bike off the road.
I said, trying not to say what I really thought, “That’s why I like the bike path, I hate the drivers in this area” in a not snide voice.
He got all mad, I was obviously a jerk, his time is so much more valuable than anybody else’s so therefore, screw ’em.
[…] that gets all the attention. However, I see bicyclists blow through stop signs, red lights, and going the wrong way on one way streets all the time, and I never see them get ticketed for it. I have had a number of close calls here in […]