The Bike Lane Didn't Get Her There Safely

 Some who read yesterday's post might believe that I'm becoming (or already am) a whiny ingrate. But even in a relatively bike-conscious country like the UK, simply building bike lanes--even "hardened" ones--isn't enough to ensure the safety of cyclists.

Last Friday afternoon, Trish Elphinstone was riding on a designated bike path--one that is physically separated from the road it parallels.  A driver steered a black sedan across that barrier, clipped Ms. Elphinstone's front wheel and sped away.

The lane where a driver steered into Trish Elphinstone's wheel.  Google image.

The encounter left her with swelling on her shoulders and knees, in addition to a "face matted with blood" as a result of a cut above her eyebrow.  Needless to say, she spent the rest of the afternoon in an emergency room rather than the meeting she was riding to.

She admits that it's "ironic" that the meeting she missed was about road safety.  You see, just last month, she was elected from the Labour Party to represent Rose Hill and Littlemore in the Oxfordshire City Council.  She narrowly defeated Michael Anthony Evans, an Independent politician whose platform included staunch opposition to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and traffic-calming schemes, which he described as a "blunt instrument that divides neighborhoods."  

One might assume that he opposes bike lanes and anything else that might encourage people to cycle for transportation, or at least get out of their cars.

I'm not saying a conspiracy was involved when that car clipped Trish Elphinstone's front wheel--and kept her from a meeting on traffic safety.  But...

Delivering Hate And A Death Threat

Yesterday afternoon, I hopped onto Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bicycle, and pedaled with no particular destination in mind.  I simply wanted to spend an hour or two riding before the rain came and I had to get back to work.

After zigging, zagging and looping through "Hipster Hook" and eastward to the closest thing this city has to a stetl--the Hasidic enclave in Williamsburg--I found myself riding down the unprotected bike lane on the left side of Tompkins Avenue, a one-way southbound street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.  Although the lane is nothing more than lines painted on pavement, I'd had no issues during previous rides along its length.  In fact, I rather enjoyed it because it passes a park and some of the most colorfully-decorated stores and cafes you'll see in this city.  

Note my use of the past tense.  It doesn't mean I'll never go back; it means only that the string of pleasurable rides was broken.

Between Madison Street and Putnam Avenue, a USPS truck parked in the lane, on the left side of Tompkins, probably to make a delivery.  Those trucks often take up more than the width of a lane so, perhaps not surprisingly, there was a traffic "bottleneck."  In that queue was another USPS truck, just a couple of vehicles behind me to my right.  The driver seemed to lean on her horn as she shouted out the window--at me, it turned out, even though I waited behind the parked truck so she could pass.

Well, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.  She veered her truck toward me and yelled racist, "Fuckin' white tranny bitch!"  (Hey, she scored a trifecta:  racism, sexism and transphobia, all in one!)  At the next intersection--Jefferson Avenue--she pulled over to retrieve mail from a box.  I stopped and yelled, "What was that all about?"

"Mind your own fuckin' business."

"I am.  When someone tries to kill me, it's my business."

"Fuck you, white tranny bitch!".

Since USPS trucks don't have license plates, I snapped this photo of the truck number.  Then I took a photo of her, from the side, as she came out of the truck.  Proud of herself, she posed for me.

I have filed complaints with the USPS and the local NYPD Precinct.

Driven By Double The Hate

A White guy knocks down a Black man, spits on him and calls him a racial epithet. 

I think that most people would agree that it sounds like the outline of, if not a hate crime, then at least a hate-fueled act of aggression.

Now, put the Black man on a bicycle and the White guy behind the wheel of a pickup truck.  Oh, and the White guy knocks the Black man down by reaching out and grabbing the Black man's arm while he's riding his bike.  And, for "good" measure, when the Black man pulls himself off his bike, the White guy drives his pickup truck over it.

I think most people would still agree that it's a hate crime.  So would I, but I would say that it's a hate crime on more than one level.

In saying what I have said, and what I'm about to say, I do not mean to minimize the hostility and worse too many people face for no other reason than the color of their skin.  But, even if that White pickup driver hadn't yelled a racial epithet, I would still classify his act as a hate crime, or at least a hate-motivated act of aggression.

Well, for one thing, much of the intentional aggression drivers commit against cyclist is fueled by hatred, or at least resentment:  We are often accused of "taking up space" on the road when a person on a bike doesn't even occupy a tenth of the real estate or air space a car, let alone a pickup truck (which, too often, is carrying nothing but its driver) fills.  Also, cycling--like almost every other act--has taken on political undertones in this polarized environment:  We are seen as avatars of environmental consciousness and sustainability and, therefore, a threat to the fossil-fueled economic and social structure.

From Bike Cleveland

That is why the incident I mentioned, which took place in Palo Alto, California last week, is, to my mind, a hate crime on two levels: While the driver verbalized his hatred of someone with darker skin than his, it's impossible (for me, anyway) to see how someone who's armored with a three-ton steel shell is acting out of anything but hate if he (or she or they, let's be fair) deliberately attacks a cyclist.

So, while I hope that driver gets the punishment he richly deserves for attacking someone who is of another race, I wish he could also be charged with acting out of the hate that motivates any act of--let's call this what it is--bullying.

Cyclist Struck By Hate

It’s one thing when a motorist strikes a cyclist accidentally.

It’s something else when done with intention.

But I’ve heard of few things more despicable than this:



The driver not only drove into a Black Lives Matter protester on a bicycle intentionally; she made a point of expressing her hate.

The latest report says the cyclist’s injuries are not life-threatening. But he may have emotional scars that will take a long time to heal, if they ever do.

I am no lawyer, but I reckon that the woman should be charged, at the very least, with assault with a deadly weapon.

From Her Saddle To A Seat On The Board?

I'll admit I've flipped off, um, a few drivers in my time.  More than likely, anyone who's cycled in New York can say the same thing.

I'll also admit there were times I could have been more temperate.  But I'll also say that there were times when said motorists deserved my wrath.

A woman we saw back in October could say the same for someone who passed her:





That is how she greeted El Cheeto Grande.  As a result, she lost her job.

Juli Briskman's suit against her former employer, Akira LLC, was dismissed.  She then saw two options:  Keep on fighting an uphill battle in court, or try to change the laws herself.  "After lots of conversations I decided I would be more effective on the board," she recalls.

She's talking about the Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, where she lives.  She plans to run in the Northern Virginia locale where the Board is mostly Republican but voters often choose Democrats, as they did for Hilary Clinton in 2016.

People have told her that even though his views aren't hers, she should respect the office of the president.  She disagrees, saying "I think the Constitution grants me that privilege" of expressing her opinion as she did on that day while the President headed back to the capital from the Trump National Golf Course in Virginia.

Would you vote for her?  I would.

What Would They Say To Each Other?

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

By now, you've probably seen that saying on more than a few bumper stickers.  You might have even heard it.  

Just for fun, I've asked people who said it first.  The answers have included almost every kind of woman imaginable, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Marilyn Monroe and Gloria Steinem to Kim Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian?  I'm not even sure "seldom" is in her vocabulary!

I confess:  Until I knew better, I would have believed that Eleanor Roosevelt uttered it.  For that matter, I could have believed it came from Sinead O'Connor or even Madonna.  But, alas, the pithy quote spilled from the pen of an academic with whom even I wasn't familiar. (Shh..don't tell anybody!)

She is none other than Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer-Prize winning historian.  That saying, however, was not part of the work that would earn her acclaim:  it was tucked in an article she wrote as a graduate student.  Ironically, some three decades later, she would use that aphorism as the title of a book, precisely because it was everywhere.

Now, I must say, with all due respect to Professor Ulrich, I generally try to behave myself, and even try to resemble a lady, at least in some ways.  I also must say that I am constitutionally incapable of being so well-behaved at every moment.  Yes, there are times when I "lose it" and use words graduate students rarely use in papers they're trying to publish in the hopes of becoming professors.

I won't repeat those words here.  Fortunately--for me, anyway--most of the drivers (and errant pedestrians) who were at the receiving end of my "good old Anglo Saxon words" never saw me again. 

Let's face it:  When a driver who's texting almost kills you, it's hard not to yell and curse.   Those "four letter words" are most accessible when we're under stress and in danger, especially when it's caused by someone else's negligence or stupidity.  

But what if bikes and cars could talk?  What would they say to each other in such situations?

That question isn't as fanciful as you might think.  Trek is partnering with Ford and Tome Software to come up with a bicycle-to-vehicle (B2V) communications system that alerts drivers to bicycles that might be ahead of them in dangerous areas of the road.  

One thing I find interesting is that the partners are trying make their system "brand agnostic", so it's not tied to one platform or product. (And we can't have Net Neutrality?) For the next year, he will be working at the Mcity autonomous vehicle test site at the University of Michigan to develop software that can go into bike and car accessories and apps.

 "This is something that will absolutely save lives if we do this, " says Tome founder and CEO Jake Sigal.  

I don't doubt him.  I just wonder what he will have bikes and cars saying to each other in a B2V communications system.  Will they be well-behaved?