“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” chanted Dorothy and her friends as they hustled through the dark forest on the way to the Emerald City. Cycling is like that. You follow the road… ok, so it’s not yellow and it’s not brick. Instead, there are these little white stick men, each so-correctly sporting a little helmet leading you though the “safety” of white lines painted on the asphalt. A safe lane to follow… sometimes eyed menacingly by creatures of the urban forest who will do you harm.
So who or what worries me on the road? Are they the cranky, snarling apple trees? Nope… I can jam faster than they can. Or, maybe the fez-capped flying monkeys? No way… toss ‘em a Luna Bar. I’m scared of that guy in the SUV who wants to beat the red light and crushes the accelerator.
You patiently take your lane... waiting for your light to turn green. It does. You stand on the pedals and just then a blur of metal goes flying across your path… a chick on a cell phone in a Honda. She’s oblivious to you. She sees her light go from yellow to red but that’s not for her. That’s meant for the guy behind her. She’s gonna scoot across the intersection and as long as she presses that phone to the side of her head, stiffens her neck and keeps her eyes focused straight ahead then she can’t see anybody and nobody will see her! That’s leads to road-kill. Don’t let it be yours. When your light turns green that means look left, look right, look left again… oh my!
