11 December 2007

Freakin' Cars Redux, Again.

So In the past I've shared my complaints of motor vehicles in Freakin' Cars or even Freakin' Cars Redux, but today I am going to once again take a quick moment to fulminate on the ignoramuses that I have the misfortune of sharing the road with. I still cannot get over the fact that if you put a person, a body, on a machine like a bike, people suddenly turn into an ass. They forget what (if anything?) they learned in drives education about how to share the road with a bike. We've all heard the horror stories, and frankly I don't really want to hear anymore because I swear I may just stop riding all together if I do. Anyway, my bigger problem here is I've come to the conclusion that people just generally have no idea how the heck to drive.
Example: We recently had an ice storm. This is no big deal, we have about one a month minimum from November through April on average. The problem is that every year, every person completely forgets how to drive in said weather. Then, we have snow, same problem, but exponentially worse dependent on the amount of snow. So traffic is at a standstill at the guy who has four wheel drive, and fails to realize that all four wheels still take a longer amount of time to stop in the aforementioned weather. Cars go careening through peoples yards, turfing them (yes I saw this), and into things like fire hydrants, phone polls, and the like. So it pretty much goes something like this:
Fall - Rain, wet leaves, cold, wind. People hydroplane and slide on leaves.
Winter - Ice and rain cause people to drive like morons, sliding everywhere.
Spring - Rain, torrential rain, and wind. See the results of fall and winter combined with drifting from wind.
Summer - Still have yet to figure it out. The ground is dry, and people still suck. Maybe the UV from the sun ruins their brain?
Moral of the story is, I wish there weren't so many cars.

7 comments:

Will said...

One thing about riding in France - people drive like idiots too - but they really respect cyclists.

Pedaldork said...

Hey CP well I finally got my blog up and going. It's at www.aomcycling.blogspot.com Not too much cycling related stuff yet. It's dumping snow here in Eastern Arizona right now so it's mostly indoor stuff.

Anyway, I was reading your post on the subject of Cancer and wanted to share a site with you (if you haven't seen it already. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html

This guys attitude is amazing. Unbelievably strong. I think we could all benefit from his strength.

Harp said...

I hear ya man every time I'm in the street and hear a car rolling up on me I'm just waiting to get hit.

Cycling Phun said...

Pedal: Yup Yup! Saw that you got it going, added it to my sidebar! I'll have to check out the story.
Harp: Yeah, I hear the RPM triple and get a lump in my throat thinking "is this it? Is this how I'm going to die?" Isn't it sad that we feel like that?

Cycling Phun said...

Will: Sorry, bro. Yeah, I can only imagine how nice it would be to have respect.

Pedaldork said...

Have you seen the Italian Road Bike Mirror. I've never been one to use a mirror on the road but the older I get, the more fearful I get of getting smashed. Not to mention I now have to think of more people then just myself. I don't want to leave behind my wife and two boys. Here's the link to the mirror: http://www.aspirevelotech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=RBM_1001&Category_Code=MIRROR

I just ordered two of them. I'll let you know how they work.

Cycling Phun said...

Oh, now that's just cool. Hey John! Work on getting those for Spin, yeah? I'd snap one up!