Tolerance

If individuals from an ethnic minority, or the homeless, or women, or the disabled, or gays, or illegal immigrants, or legal immigrants, or children, or a religious sect, or the poor were targeted for random let alone systemic harassment there would be justified outrage in the media, officialdom, and the community as a whole.

Imagine the alternative. A well-dressed executive in his BMW loudly curses random women passers-by simply for their gender. A hard-working tradesman jeers gays because of some perceived affront to his sensibilities. An over-stressed soccer mom spits on an old man in a walker because he can't get across the intersection fast enough. A civilized society would neither tolerate those behaviors nor those who do.

Yet cyclists exercising their legal and constitutional right to the highway experience these harassments with alarming regularity... and there is silence, there is apathy and worse… there is tolerance.

When Beams Collide

Buried beneath hundreds of feet of pastureland, straddling the border of France and Switzerland, lies the world’s largest and most powerful scientific instrument… a “big bang simulator.” Seventeen miles in circumference, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider uses more than 3 million amperes of current to accelerate counter-rotating beams of protons to within a small fraction of the speed of light. These protons acquire mass as they approach relativistic speeds… the faster and faster the proton packets go the more massive they become as energy is converted directly into matter.

In just a few weeks high-energy physicists operating the big machine will coax the proton beams into head-on collision. Conditions at the heart of the accelerator will be similar to the extreme temperatures and energy densities that existed a tiny fraction of a second after the the moment of creation. By studying the debris from these collisions scientists hope to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of “everything.” They may even see traces of the elusive Higgs Boson, the so-called “God Particle” thought to give matter properties of mass.

But, there is the more remote chance that a microscopic black hole may be spawned. Most scientists dismiss claims of any real danger that the Earth itself could be swallowed up and plunged into the abyss of “spaghettification,” since any microscopic black holes would likely evaporate in a billionth of a second or less. But one can never be too sure. Best advice... on the eve of beam collision day, have a margarita or two and kiss your ass goodbye. Bottoms up!

UPDATE (21 Sep 08): The day of our extinction has been postponed at least a couple of months due to an electrical failure followed by a helium leak in the collider.

Lions and tigers and bears!

“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!

The Naked Cyclist

With gas hovering around $4.00 at the pump coupled with a growing concern for the environment many drivers are discovering the cycling alternative to cars. Then somewhere along the way these riders discover the sweeping sense of freedom that one gets from floating on two wheels -- a sense of freedom that comes close to that of flying without ever leaving the ground. Health, fitness, smiles and memories of childhood follow.

But cycling in Sonoma County can also deliver you to a dark and scary place -- a place populated by hostility, menace and official indifference.

There are few cyclists who have not encountered the angry, frustrated motorist who believes that cycling is a politically correct movement that further restricts the motorist’s ability to travel the highways unimpeded -- highways that are really “intended” for cars not bicycles. These spandex-clad bike riders with those funny mirrors stuck in their helmets or worse yet, those cyclists who sport knickers and messenger bags and ride single-speeds, have created one just more obnoxious obstacle for the harried motorist. “Just who do they think they are? Get off the road! Someone needs to teach them a lesson!”

Road rage against cyclists can range from flipping off the offending bike rider punctuated by a choice f-bomb; to “buzzing” the cyclist – veering to within inches of the bike’s handle bars at high speed with an intention to intimidate. Taken a step further, some deliberately touch or collide with the bike rider, often with tragic consequences.

Under state and federal law bicycles are vehicles and their riders have the same constitutional right to use the highway as do cars, trucks and farm tractors. They must obey the same traffic laws that apply to all. Yet there are motorists who through either ignorance, arrogance or a perverse sense of entitlement view cyclists as a nuisance to be restricted to the bike path or sidewalk. But it is when those motorists who pilot two to three tons of steel act out their rage against a 20 lb. bicycle that their impulse becomes murderous intent.

Cyclists are harassed, threatened, cursed and spit upon with uncomfortable regularity by drivers who feel compelled to show me their contempt and disapproval of my legal right to share “their” road. Friends have had cans and bottles thrown at them while riding the scenic roads of our county. A beer bottle striking you at 50 mph squarely between the shoulder blades is a sick form justice for the perceived “offense” of encroaching “their” highway and violating “their” sense of driving etiquette. And for some, frightening or hurting a cyclist is just plain fun.

Road rage with the design of trying to instill an apprehension that physical harm is imminent is committing assault under state law even if the offender doesn’t touch you. It’s an interesting commentary that if someone were to approach a pedestrian and aggressively threaten them it’s likely that the perpetrator would be spending the night in jail. Sadly, that’s not true with cyclists. Reports of police indifference to the harassment of cyclists are not uncommon. Officers take complaints and do absolutely nothing as I can personally attest. That kind of official indifference shows tacit tolerance for road ragers and further emboldens them. These drivers disrespect the law and violate the cyclist’s rights but most important, they are a deadly menace to society.

No bike rider should ever take to the roads of Sonoma County feeling naked in the face of harassment against cyclists or against anyone else for that matter. It is our duty to speak out against road rage and against those who tolerate it. We must hold them accountable for their actions or for their indifference before another human being riding a bicycle is seriously injured or killed.