Do I sound like one of those two-wheels-good, four-wheels-bad guys? I’m actually not. There are plenty of bikers who sorely test my nerves, cruising along with their ear buds in or chatting on their phones.[26] They’re just as hazardous as those kamikazes who charge down the lanes as though in the final stretch of the Tour de France.[27] And did I mention the deliverymen “flashing” against traffic because it’s the shortest path between two points? Unsafe at any speed.
Bikers won’t like this, but I’m going to say it anyway: for too long, we’ve been able to exist in a sort of world, neither pedestrian nor vehicle, which has meant ignoring the rules and getting away with[28] it. That’s changing, as I learned the other morning when a cop came from behind to ticket me for spinning along an empty sidewalk on Canal Street.[29]
“You didn’t hear the siren?” He asked, swaggering out of his car.
“You were chasing me?” I asked doubtfully.
“It’s against the law to ride on the sidewalk.”
I had to say that I was deeply sorry for it. The admission saved me $75. More important, it prompted a grand experiment that involved my following the rules of the road. You’d be surprised how difficult this is. Sitting at a red light when there’s no traffic entering a crossroad makes you feel incredibly stupid. So it’s probably true that bike-car relations won’t improve without the threat of tickets at the other end. That means fining drivers who disregard bike lanes and, yes, doing the same to us bikers when we flout the rules.[30]
【我的自行车日记:不一样的精彩】相关文章:
最新
2016-10-18
2016-10-11
2016-10-11
2016-10-08
2016-09-30
2016-09-30