Bike Cavalrywoman Declares War On Lazy Columns

If you need to crap out a column for one of Canada's newspapers, you have some choices. You can take the Wente path, and attack the big money liberal arts complex for the thousands of injustices (critical geography studies!) it perpetrates every day. But if you find yourself too ground down by Big Academia's clog heel to manage that, just write about bicycles.

R: My terror-mobile, temporarily not terrorizing some bipeds

Bicycles! There they are, the rulers of the road, nay, sidewalks even, each one to a man or woman clad in twin vestments of spandex and smugness. Please see this column by Rosie DiManno for proof, or perhaps the accompanying comments section, as there are literally DOZENS of anecdotes of asshole cyclists presented. Clearly, these thugs need to be stopped, or perhaps dispatched by streetcars, so the streets can be safe again. 

If the public safety aspect of these sort of columns doesn't grab you, think of the publicity. Complaining about cyclists is sure to net you many comments and even more page clicks, as the most rabid cyclists and cyclist-haters. So ka-ching, ka-ching, which conveniently rhymes with the ka-clunk, ka-clunk a cyclist's body makes as it is run over.

But let's return to the DiMannofesta: "... those who drive and those who pedal can wipe each other off the face of the city’s streets in this mutual roadkill rush to attrition and Toronto would be better off for it." For, you see, cyclists are "arguably the most sanctimonious breed on the planet: I cycle therefore I am divine." 

But nobody is more "divine" than an "ambulatory biped" like her, who walks everywhere. Everywhere, except when she's in a cab or on a bus. I'm not sure who will drive either of these vehicles once Toronto streets run red with the blood of drivers and cyclists. The roads will belong to the pedestrians then, or more likely, the rickshaws.

DiManno is also not entitled like those awful cyclists when she has to catch a bus on her street. "Public transit users need to either squeeze up against buildings or stand in the bike lane — which will get you a blast of invective from the cyclists." She just thinks she can use a lane designed for a flow of traffic as a bus stop waiting lounge: most certainly not entitled. 

In fact, cyclists are so awful that, DiManno tell us, "They have risen to No. 1 on my list of People Who Should Be Shot." Thanks to my intrepid reporting skills, I have found this very list:

Some might say that using violence for rhetorical impact as cyclists die on the streets is a tad... tasteless. They might even add that calling people who bike "ped-aphiles" - like pedophiles, ya know - isn't all that classy either. DiManno would probably come back and say that you don't know anything about taste, as you are probably a ped-aphile wearing a "stupid aerodynamic helmet." These helmets, by the way, will be the first thing online commentators will ask if you wearing if you do get hit by a car.

I am a sexual predator with a bounty on my head - I mean, a cyclist. I stop at red lights, make (often shaky) hand turning signals, and if I don't feel comfortable making a left hand turn, I get off my bike and walk it through through the crosswalk. According to DiManno and some of her commentators, I do not exist. And yet, I persist, not just in existing, but also in biking to work almost every day. 

I do so in the face of distracted pedestrians who wander into bike lanes or even just out into the road itself. I do so in the face of fellow cyclists, who salmon and shoal, pass suddenly without ringing their bell, and glide through red lights while I wait like a chump, or use the sidewalks while I brave the roads. I do so in the face of drivers who cut me off, open their doors without looking for traffic, barely give me a centimeter when they pass, or yell at me to get to the right when I'm in the left-hand side of the lane to make a left-hand turn.  

Not that I am a bright and pure beacon of perfect cycling myself. 

I have made mistakes on my bike. Turns out taxis can go into the bike lane to pick up passengers, so my apologies, Taxi I Yelled At Once. I tried getting around a bus once when I was impatient, and ended up in the wrong lane with nowhere to go. I have salmoned on small side streets, though if I do ever get an $85 fine for doing so, I'll remember with some bitterness the bike cops I saw going the wrong way down Augusta. And that driver who yelled at me for exercising my right to be in the left-hand side to make a left-hand turn? I probably did fellow cyclists no favours by calling her a jackass and screaming at her that I was making a turn.

Rather, in listing all of the things I have to deal with on the road, I want to show that there are entitled, careless individuals in every transportation class. And yet it's somehow always the cyclists who get put through the columnist grinder. 

Cars hit pedestrians: some people blame pedestrians for wearing dark clothes, or trying to rush the countdown. At the very worst I hear that driver is a problem, and they should never be behind the wheel of the car. But if one careless cyclist runs a stop sign and levels a pedestrian, well, all cyclists are dangerous, entitled terrors who must be checked immediately (perhaps shot on sight.)

What these columns like this miss isn't just a real solution, but the real problem. If we can't share the road safely and efficiently, then something is broken. Let's fix it. Rosie DiManno believes that the place for bicycles "should not be any North American metropolis never designed for bicycle-right-of-way." As if a city is a rigid structure, instead of a dynamic organism that can change and adapt. People can too. Build better infrastructure, apply the law well, change it if it doesn't make sense. Then educate drivers, cyclists and pedestrians on what is expected of them, and what others can do. 

But don't write another useless column like this one. Rosie DiManno: I might not yell GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY A--HOLE! as you stride through the bike lane and towards the cab that, as a 100% biped, you are somehow using. I will grit my teeth, and maybe glare, as I brake. But I will yell at you to GET THE HELL AWAY FROM YOUR KEYBOARD.