Now that I am commuting again in Seattle, I am reminded of a couple of traditions here that seem to exist nowhere else. The first one is one of the more pleasant things that I had forgotten about – people let you in.
That’s right. While no one in Seattle may even think about it, “letting you” in is something people in Florida will never, ever do. In fact, they will go out of their way to close the gap between their car and the car in front of them, leaving you absolutely no chance to pull out or move over.
I had forgotten about this fact until yesterday. When I got home, Jananarama had mentioned that she was trying to pull out of a small driveway on our busy thoroughfare here, Aurora. It was right near the light and the cavalcade of cars coming down the road looked hopeless. But sure enough, she was let in right away. The same thing happened to me in downtown Seattle last night as I pulled out of the Westin garage. A long line of bumper to bumper traffic and whoosh, someone let waiting for the light let me in.
Man, I’ve missed that. In Florida, you can be having a heart attack or giving birth and no one will let you take a cut. I’m not sure where or when that practice came into being, but it was never one of my favorites. Maybe it’s an East Coast thing.
Of course, when I was in Florida I got used to never giving the right away to any pedestrian or bicyclist. That too is tradition. In Seattle, pedestrians don’t really care if the light is green, yellow, red or blue. They will cross when they think they have an opportunity and you’d better pay attention as a driver. This is a pedestrian and alternative transportation centric world here. Busses will pull out right in front of you, pedestrians will cross against the light and bicyclists really do think they own the road.
As a one time bike fanatic I can appreciate their love of their two wheeler. I still think you look a bit like a dork wearing a helmet as a grown up, though. I still refuse to wear one. It’s a matter of principle for me. I know that may surprise some of you, since I don’t appear historically to have any principles at all.
As a former bike nut, I followed the rules of the road religiously. I used my hand signals on turns, moved with the flow of traffic… you know the drill. But here, bicyclists seem to think that they really do own the road.
For the past couple days, I have arrived in downtown Seattle at the same time as a couple of the bike nuts. We are all heading down 5th Avenue under the monorail. For some reason, they think they are cars. They will come to a stop at a light in front of you, in the road.
Of course, when the light turns green, they can’t accelerate worth shit. So you slog along in your car, waiting for them to pull over to the side a bit so you can get by. They don’t. They just continue down the road like they own it, even though they can’t seem to move at the same speed as the rest of traffic.
Floridians would call these people speed bumps. Floridians would just drive right over them because in Florida, cars own the road. Bicycles are for children and really old people who still wish they were.
Now, before the bike nuts jump on me, I was riding a bike long before it became fashionable. I rode the roads. I was one of you. However, there was a difference. I yielded to traffic that could go faster than I could. I would pull over to the side and let cars pass me.
Shocker, huh? But in the world of transportation, there has always been a pecking order. At sea, powerboats yield to sailboats but sailboats yield to ferries and freighters. It’s all about who can change course the easiest. A very simple rule of the sea.
On land, there seems to be no rules here. On more than one occasion, a bike nut has almost become a hood ornament, not because I haven’t been watching out for them, but because they seem to either be oblivious to the rules of the road or they simply think they can follow their own set of rules.
I love to follow my own rules, of course. You know that. But not when it endangers someone else. Countless times I have seen bicyclists shift from being a “vehicle” to a “pedestrian” and back again to suit their whims, going crosswalk on me when moments before they were just behind me on the road. Just as I am about to make a legal free right turn, they zoom up and cross in front of me on the crosswalk. WTF?
I know that if I decided to take my car off road and cruise down a sidewalk on a whim I would be on the evening news. Give me a break people. I know you’re trying to be all green here, but remember that a 3,000 pound car against a 20 pound Raleigh isn’t going to be much of a match up. I will crush you, I will break your bones and you will wish to God that you had taken the bus that day.
I am more than happy to share the road with you. It’s a road I don’t own and neither do you. So if you see me behind the wheel coming up on your boney ass and you think your little two-wheeler has all the rights of my car, think again. I will be more than happy to cut you some slack, but if you try to cut corners, the same corner I’m using, you may end up as a Saturn hood ornament.
In the Emerald City, waiting for someone to let me in,
– Robb