Something I Never Dreamed

 I have moved from one place of residence to another—on my bicycle. I’ve carried, in addition to backpacks full of clothes and books, various kitchen items, a chair and desk.

But I never hauled what this cyclist has on his back:

Tour de Pothole?

 Once upon a time—when I was growing up in Brooklyn—one telephone area code covered not only the Borough of Hones and Churches, but also the other four boroughs of New York City.

Now there are seven.  Soon there will be eight. Someone suggested, only half-jokingly, that a pothole on Bushwick Avenue is getting the new area code all for itself.

If that were the cases, and every street crater got an area code, New York—and many other cities—would have too many area codes to 

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Members of the Nantwich Cycle Group are going to count all of the holes and cracks in their local streets —sort of. The Cheshire club is planning a ride to locate places where the pavement has split, heaved, collapsed or otherwise become a hazard. 

They hope to pressure the Cheshire Council East to make repairs.

Hmm…Maybe we should have a Five Boro Hole Tour here in New York City. I wonder, though, whether the Department of Transportation would pay any attention.

When We Become The “Other”

 What do you notice about this headline?:

Cyclist beats man with bike, critically injuring him on the Upper West Side

Leading with “cyclist,” to me, foments a bias—or sparks one some readers may have already had. I don’t recall news stories about cars hitting cyclists beginning with “Driver” or “Motorist.”

Now, some may argue about volition—the man who used his bicycle to attack another man seems to have intended it.  Why, I don’t know. 

While I suspect that the majority of car-bike collisions are caused by carelessness (such as the driver looking at a cell phone), confusion or poor conditions or infrastructure design, in more than a few instances, the person operating the vehicle clearly intended to cause harm.  Yet they are not identified first as drivers or motorists:  That person is portrayed as someone who just happened to use two tons of metal and a powerful engine to cause harm or worse to a cyclist or pedestrian.

Oh, and the way victimized cyclists are talked about—especially if they are dead—reminds me of how, not too long ago, rape and other sexual assault victims were thought about and treated: “What was she wearing?”“What was she doing out at that time of night?” “She had it coming to her.” And the perpetrator wasn’t identified as a rapist or predator, especially if there was a large gap in age or socio-economic status between him (I’m not being sexist; they usually were and are men) and the victim. That meant, too often, that he got off scot-free.

In other words, we, as cyclists, are subject to violence from people operating motor vehicles—or who throw debris in our paths, shove us off our bikes or attack us in other ways—far more often, I suspect, than we use our machines to cause harm.  Yet we are blamed when victimized—and “othered” when someone who probably doesn’t even ride regularly uses a bicycle to attack someone.