In Cambodia and Laos, I didn't have to worry about the bikes I was riding. Nobody tried to steal them: not the people, nor the macaques (who will steal just about anything else, if it's edible) nor the elephants or other creatures.
I never heard anything about the sun bears, which are endangered. Now, black bears--which don't live in that part of the world--are another story.
Here in the States, you just don't know who you can trust!
(Somehow I don't think this is what Vittorio de Sica had in mind!)
How is this so complicated? Just like when a slower vehicle is in front of you, wait until there is no oncoming traffic and pass them.
Give credit to Shaun Jordan for exhibiting common sense (Some would argue that phrase is an oxymoron!) in assessing a new law.
That law is commonly called the "three feet rule", for the berth motorists have to give cyclists when passing them. This law was passed in Michigan, partly in response to the horrific crash that, two years ago, took the lives of Debbie Bradley, Melissa Fevig-Hughes, Tony Nelson, Larry Paulik and Suzanne Sippel near Kalamazoo.
(I must say that even though I've never been to Kalamazoo or knew the victims, and have written about them before, I still find it difficult to write about them!)
After that crash, politicians as well as everyday citizens spoke of the need to make the state's roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians. But the backlash against the new law is widespread, as it always is when motorists "lose" their "rights." As one Debbie Brown Donaldson whined, "This is sooo stupid! We need to slow down to practically nothing for a NON-motorized vehicle that isn't registered or licensed. Who the (fill in the blank) makes these rules?"
Well, Ms. Donaldson, what if that "NON-motorized vehicle that isn't registered or licensed" were a horse? Or what about any other animal--or pedestrian? Would it trouble you to slow down for them? Or would you run them over?
At least other commenters had more sense--and less of a sense of entitlement--than Ms. Donaldson. "Everybody that is up in arms about three feet. Honestly?" wondered another.
I could've been....a UPS delivery person.
Actually, I was, for about four weeks. The venerable delivery company hired me one holiday season: from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve. Back then, the company employed a lot of "helpers" during that time of year. Many of us were students, as I was. We didn't drive: We rode the trucks for a minute or two, leaped off, delivered a few packages, leaped back on and repeated a few hundred times.
I don't know whether UPS still hires extra help during that season. The pay, as I recall, was decent, but as my driver said, "You earn it." He was right: Even though I was young and in good condition (mainly from cycling), I was still tired at the end of a shift: I'd have just enough energy to ride my bike home. But it was, in some ways, a satisfying job, at least for those few weeks: People were usually happy to see us, and I got a few tips and gifts.
That driver, and our supervisor, suggested that I might want to get a driver's license and work for them permanently. Sometimes I wonder whether I should have: I understand the retirement benefits are good, and I could have retired by now. Then again, even if I had more desire to drive at all, I'm not sure that I would have wanted to do it all day.
If I'd been born a few decades earlier, I could have been a bike messenger for them. After all, I later plied the streets of Manhattan on two wheels, delivering everything from slices of pizza to documents pertaining to mergers, divorces and every other proceeding you can think of--and a few small packages with mysterious contents. (Well, at least I wasn't supposed to know what was in them. But, given their destinations, it wasn't hard to tell.) And UPS was in the bike messenger business.
In fact, that's how it started more than a century ago: a few young men delivered packages by bicycle and on foot in Seattle. Now, it seems that UPS is returning to its roots, sort of.
It's partnered with the Seattle Department of Transportation and the University of Washington in a pilot program to make deliveries in the city's downtown area, around the Pike Place Market. The program will involve e-bikes pulling wagons with detachable cargo trailers. Those vehicles remind me a bit of the tuk-tuks I rode while in Cambodia and Laos. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the designers were inspired, at least in part, by them: these containers can carry up to 400 pounds, and four adult humans (of Western size) can ride in the cab of a tuk-tuk.
According to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, the alliance will "help us better understand how we can ensure the delivery of goods while making space on our streets for transit, bikes and pedestrians." Seattle, like other American cities, has experienced an increase in motorized traffic in spite of growing numbers of cyclists, pedestrians and people who use mass transit.
While UPS and other couriers (including the US Postal Service and Fed Ex) can't be blamed for it, one could say they are vehicles (no pun intended) for it: According to a report from the World Economic Forum and Deloitte, in the decade from 2005 to 2015, the global total number of parcels delivered increased by 128 percent. Much of this increase, according to researchers, is a result of consumers increasingly having single items shipped at a time. This trend has been fueled, in large part, by retailers like Amazon and Walmart--who use UPS and the other carriers I've mentioned--who make it easy to order, and offer free shipping on, cheap items.
If the collaboration between the UPS, the city and the university proves successful, UPS says it will be expanded to other parts of the Emerald City. It could also be exported to other cities experiencing traffic congestion problems.
