I Am Such A Menace!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to read another article that vilifies cyclists.

Most such drivel blames cyclists for traffic jams and all matter of quality-of-life issues in a city because, if they are to be believed, we all run red lights and run over someone's grandma who's carrying a puppy or a kitten she just took in from the shelter.

Well, there's a new twist on this theme today, in the Washington Post blog.  It starts like this:

  Scenes of Washington life include pedestrians on the streets with headphones, or cell phones or perhaps a purse.  The city's streets are also home to bicycles and bike riders.  And every now and then the pedestrians and the bicyclists do not mix well.

Its author, Martin Weil uses this opener as a Jaws-style setup:  Just as some unwitting swimmer has a cut or barely-concealed body part (a breast, perhaps) that causes the shark to smack its lips and think "LUNCH!", those poor, innocent pedestrians' head phones, cell phones and purses are bait for bad, bad people on bikes.

A real menace 2 society!

Yes, Mr. Weil writes about a string of purse- (and head- and cell-phone) snatchings committed by...a guy on a bike.  Specifically, a young guy or adolescent male on a bike.

Well, I guess I'll have to watch for that when I'm off my bike and crossing a street.  But at least it's good to know that, as a middle-aged woman, I don't fit the profile of the perps Mr. Weil describes.

Now I'm going to tell you a secret:  That's the reason I changed my gender.  I didn't want to seem like the sort of menacing young urban male who preys upon unsuspecting pedestrians at busy intersections! :-)  Heck, I don't even fit the profile of scofflaw cyclists who run red lights and run over old ladies with puppies and kittens.  After all, I really can't bring myself to harm someone when I look at someone and that person is a mirror.

Drug Dealers, Rapists, Murderers...And Cyclists!

Donald Trump has labelled Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, rapists and murderers.

In my grandparents' generation, Italian immigrants were almost automatically seen as criminals and the Irish who came a generation earlier were viewed as drunken brawlers.  And Asians, particularly Japanese-Americans during World War II, were depicted as shifty and untrustworthy.

These days, when someone uses the word "thug", it's assumed that person is referring to a black male.  Likewise, "Arab" and "Muslim" are uttered interchangeably; both are used as synonyms for "terrorist."   

Now it seems that, at least in the meida, "cyclist" has become the new stereotype.  Whenever some drunk or distracted driver runs one of us down, we made the misguided choice of riding a bicycle--never mind that we were riding in a "protected" lane and the driver veered into it. But we are not, in those situations, labeled as "cyclists."

Instead, the c-word seems to refer only to those who are breaking the law--or, in one recent case, windows.

Now, I'll be the first to say that the pack who rode the wrong way on a Chelsea street--especially the member(s) who smashed the rear window of someone's new car and who smacked into a police officer--should be prosecuted.  The news reports I've seen and heard about it, however, seem designed to whip up as much hysteria as possible against anyone who pedals two wheels on this city's streets.  You can hear it in the way "reporters" (Where have journalistic standards gone?) elicit reactions from bystanders.  To hear them, cyclists are as much a menace to this city as MS-13 is to some immigrant communities.

To make a bad "report" even worse, the accompanying video, which purports to be a record of the rampage, actually has nothing to do with it.