Bike Patrols Return to Tiffin

 

In 2010, US cities had recently begun, or would begin, bicycle patrols. That year, Tiffin, an Ohio city near Toledo, paused theirs. I cannot find a reason why, but Officer Cadin Emshoff may have hinted at one. A patrol person on a bike is more approachable to community members on sunny days.  But when it rains, not so much. On rainy days, he doesn’t ride. ‘“Done it once, not so fun, don’t think I’ll be doing it any time soon,” he explained.

Ironically, inclement weather is one reason why the bike patrol—which started in 1998–is re-starting. Recent storms have closed roads—to motor vehicles.  Bicycles can, however, navigate many of those obstacles.

The usual reasons also are part of program’s revival: crowd control at events like the Fourth of July parade, access to parks, paths and other places inaccessible to cars and the aforementioned community relations.

In another irony, Emshoff is one of the two officers who will patrol on two wheels. Chris Perry will be the other. Their mounts will be the same two bikes that compromised the patrol’s fleet twenty-five years ago. Pauly acknowledged that the bikes are “old” but “we have babied those suckers.” 

Bike Parking on a Small, Picturesque Street”

Some people complain that spouses, kids and other loved ones were “never home” because of their busy schedules.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.  Jobs and schools went virtual.  Within weeks, those same people were going crazy because those same spouses, kids and other loved ones were “always home.”

I think those families might include residents on a “small picturesque” street in North London.  Some have taken to Twitter and a local newspaper to complain about “unsightly and unnecessary” bike hangars that are “always empty.”

Then—you guessed it—someone ranted and railed against cyclists using those bike parking pods.

That led someone to quip, “I expect the residents of the small, picturesque street all to have small, picturesque cars that are wholly in keeping with the urban environment as it was originally built.”

To which yet another wag proposed making the bike parking docks more aesthetically compatible with the small, picturesque cars on the small, picturesque street.

They Make Us Less Human

 Recently, Melissa Harris-Perry recalled cracking open a watermelon and, finding it un-ripe, left it for her chicken to nibble. She watched them from her porch, her hair wrapped in a scarf.  “I was probably somebody’s stereotype of a Black woman,” she quipped.

Had she sported the kind of hairdo Jennifer Aniston wore during her first few years on “Friends” or a designer suit, someone would have accused her of trying to be White.

Likewise, I have been accused of “overdoing “ it when I simply dressed as a woman my age might and condemned for fitting the same people’s stereotype of a trans woman even, if I say so myself, I have done no such thing since the first couple of years of my gender affirmation process.

So, I had a sense of deja vu when I read about an Australian study in which 30 percent of respondents said they saw cyclists as “less human” when they wore helmets, reflective vests or other safety gear

Photo by Robert Peri

Why does this matter? If the history of racism, sexism, homo- or trans-phobia showsl us anything, people are more likely to behave more aggressively toward those they regard as not-quite-human, or less human than themselves. 

In other words, it’s easier to rationalize violence against someone when the victim can be reduced to a stereotype, or de-humanized in some other way.

The findings of the Australian study, however, show (even if it wasn’t the intent of the researchers) that cyclists are in a Catch-22 situation.  If we wear safety gear, we’re less human and violence or simply carelessness against us is justifiable or, at least, excusable. But if we aren’t wearing helmets and day-glo vests (or even if we are), we are blamed even if the driver downed a whole bottle of vodka and drove at double the speed limit.