We are still on the fringe, sorry to say.
We all have lots of tales of rude behaviour and ugly altercations between drivers and cyclists. These are easily discounted as being products of, hopefully temporary, road rage, stemming from other problems people might be having.
We can learn a lot more about what people really think when we have the rare opportunity for a civilised roadside discussion.
Yesterday, I was riding home from downtown the the dark and light snow. Lo de do, lo de do.
The most dangerous part of my western waterfront commute is on Lakeshore in Mimico-by-the-Lake area. I got the right-hook there two years ago. And last year I got yelled at in a most foul way and then deliberately right-hooked for "being out in the middle of the road."
Anyway so yesterday I was moseying along on Lakeshore Boulevard there going west, and to my great discomfort wound up slowly passing a streetcar, indeed parallelling it for a while. I typically take up the whole lane in these circumstances, but this time I didn't, and a small white car sqqquuueeeeeezed between me and the streetcar. I was forced into the door zone of the parked cars. It's a busy commercial area and I've been saved from being doored only by not being in the door zone there many times, so this was very scary.
When I caught up to the car at the light, I looked in the window and made a sign with thumb and forefinger trying to show a small space. He rolled down the window. I spoke first.
-- You squeezed by me pretty tight back there.
--Yeah I didn't want to hit you, but I only had a tiny space between me and the streetcar.
-- But if I were your sister, would you have tried to pass me there, or would you have waited five seconds?
-- If you were my sister, I'd tell you not to do this, it's too dangerous. I'm a biker too, but this is crazy here. Why aren't you on the path?
-- What path? There's no path here.
-- The lake shore path!
He motioned back toward the Martin Goodman Trail, which, in fact, I just came off of. He must have thought I was out for joyride, and didn't consider the fact that this was the route I needed to take to actually go somehwere.
-- I'm going home!
I pointed west, away from the trail.
-- Well, good luck, I hope you make it.
There were no obscenities, not even any ill will. The exchange was civil and even informative.
I learned that this apparently reasonable person believed that I shouldn't be there on a bicycle. And he even said he was a cyclist. And he had some sort of European accent, so I would have thought he'd understand that bicycles are for transportation.
Note that this was not a winter-cycling issue. The situation I was in exists all year round in that area. I would love to have the Martin Goodman extended through there so I wouldn't have to deal with that madness. But until then we have to share, and I will do the best I can, but sometimes, yes, I will pass a streetcar, and cars will have to wait behind me. It's just the way it is.
So I think we were all acutely aware that there are assholes using many forms of transportation out there, and it's very easy to dismiss them. But it's really disappointing that apparently normal people, who may even ride bicycles some of the time, really don't understand that riding a bicycle for transportation is a reasonable thing to do, and that sometimes we will need to use the same space, and that the priority is for everybody to get through it safely, even if it takes another five seconds.
So the bad news for the day is that there are all kinds of people out there, who don't yell and scream and honk, and you may even be happy to share a coffee with, who just don't get it. This is someting the city could work on fixing, but I think we can pretty well expect it to get worse, not better, in the next four years.
Let's be careful out there, but definitely be out there.
Jody Levine
I guess you're satisfied knowing the driver calmly and politely risked your life(how European??). Obviously they knew it was quite dangerous to you for them to pass. Good thing you're a guaranteed nobody to him/her because nobody they knows rides a bicycle on the road.
Sounds like driver pulled the ol' switcheroo on you or did you shout to him "Thanks to you i almost didn't make it home." right at the end as he drove off.
My advice, never, ever talk or signal to a motorist who has done something like that. I do mean ever... i have heard too many stories that start with "so i rolled up to his window" and it all ends in violence... unless you don't mind getting hurt to prove your traffic point.
Anyways - Merry Christmas!!!! I hope you were at least wearing your pink button! ;)
If you can engage a polite person politely then it does help.
Erecting additional barriers as dances suggests is bad for everyone. Simply accepting that it is dangerous to converse with someone (someone whose vehicle is stopped) is, well, sad.
Despite what you read here, people in cars are for the most part NOT evil or out to get you. If you can control yourself in all likelihood they will control themselves too. If there is no outward sign of hostility then in all likelihood no significant hostility exists.
Good for you Jody, be careful but be engaged. Don't close yourself off like dances here, who wonders occasionally why so bitter with the answer staring dances in the face.
I've had many similar experiences over the last few years. The city could have done much more over the last decades to improve safety for cyclists but they chose not to. City Hall rolled out all the right pro-bike cliches but they never delivered on their promise. The city has done next to nothing to prevent cars a delivery trucks from blocking bike lanes. They also came up hundreds of KM short the promise to deliver new bike lanes.
The previous city council didn't have the cajones to express their true feelings but their deeds spoke volumes. I think Ford's comment 3 years ago that roads were built for buses, cars and trucks accurately reflects the real opinion of every city council since amalgamation. Cycling on roads is a fringe activity in Toronto and always has been. The mainstream crowd in cars, buses and trucks know they can't get away with murder but just about anything else goes. Unless Ford bans bicycles I can't imagine what he could do to make the situation worse in the next four years.
There is nothing wrong with erecting barriers, often they're quite useful and can help to get you home safely. I'm sure "Eugenics doesn't work" would love if everybody had no barriers, unfortunately they doesn't understand what that means. I wouldn't follow their advice.
Please heed my warning, eventually your tapping on car windows will catch up with you - you'll tap on the wrong person's window.
Please stop while you're ahead, you're not a police officer and this isn't Kansas.
uh-huh because advising less communication and engagement has always worked out so very very well for everyone and especially the underdogs
HAHAHAH
What we got here is failure to communicate.
Some men, you just can't reach
So, you get what you had here last week
Which is the way he wants it,
So he gets it.
I don't like it anymore than you do.
Jodie and Miss Eugenics, there is always a time and place to communicate - Rolling up to random driver's windows after they nearly hit you and rapping on them is not the right time.
This violent, dangerous criminal committed the offence of Dangerous Driving, good for up to five years in jail. Looks like the streetcar driver may have been a witness.
A far better course of action would be to stop in front of the car to prevent the violent, dangerous criminal from escaping, call 911 for the police to arrest the violent, dangerous criminal, and make sure you get the streetcar's number so the police have a witness for the trial of the violent, dangerous criminal.
This is a serious crime of violence. The Parliament of Canada takes it seriously. That's why they mandated a five-year jail term for these violent, dangerous criminals. I suggest that you take your own life as seriously as the Parliament of Canada.
LoL good one Kevin! Your sarcastic post highlights very well the over-the-top rhetoric that people have unfortunately come to expect from anyone on a bike.
Lady relating an experience.
"I moved to the right of my own accord an a car passed me, there was room but only barely, but no one was hurt in fact there was no contact at all between vehicles. After, we discussed the matter sanely and I did not rap on his window or scream curses and neither did he. We went about our business."
Bike person listening with ear trumpet set to Crazy responds,
"OMG CALL JACK LAYTON< CALL PARLIAMENT< CALL THE ARMYIES!!!"
Jack Layton returns your call,
"Jesus Christ what the hell is wrong with you guys!! Mike, Mike! Get away from them, get away they're slobbering all over everything. Look, the long and short of it is that nothing happened here, in fact it was at worst benign given that an exchange took place that both may have taken something from, grow the hell up I am NOT sending the Army or asking Parliament to kill Rob Ford just because she gave up the lane. God!"
LOL
Yikes! I certainly didn't mean to start this.
This was not about whether to initiate discussion. A look in the window afforded a snap judgment was that it seemed safe enough to do something, right or wrong. No rapping. I'm using the reasonableness of this exchange as an excuse to generalize the opinions expressed. This guy was not a rabid maniac.
If one accepts that, then normal people see lonely bicycle commuters as reckless weirdos, not just ordinary people trying to get home from work.
To change that perception, I really need to have more of you riding home from work. Consider this to be a plea. For my personal safety. I promise to continue to be there to improve yours.
Get out there, my pretties!
Miss Eugenics, if the police wear body armour, carry a handgun, a taser, pepper spray and are still pensive to conduct a traffic stop then unless you're a bit off your rocker you should be treating the situation with the same care.
There are lots of normal people out there, they're not the ones who worry me. It is the off balance ones that worry me. Very often, the off balance ones are the ones harassing and endangering others. These are the very people you would have us innocently interact with after they do something dangerous towards us. That is too naive.
The highest profile case of late, in case you forgot, the ex attorney general Michael Bryant. So you see, people who seem and look normal to you are capable of the worst.
Be safe and smart...
P.s. Jodie sorry to generalize too far? ;)
So if you have a history of addiction, mental illness and violence and find yourself on Bloor at night weaving in traffic with a blood alcohol level of .183 while screaming at people make sure you don't confront any former politicians in a car because they are crazier than a sh!*house rat.
LOL at the paranoid creepies prowling the streets for bicycle justice, armed now with fear that causes them to believe they need body armor, a handgun, pepper spray and a taser in order to have any discourse with (SHRIEKS IN FEAR) a STRANGER!
"Stranger Danger!" cries Dances with traffic, running screaming from the street into a nearby store, to hide behind the shopkeep while pleading with them to CALL 911 Stranger Danger!!!!
Meanwhile, nearby a stranger, in this case a 10 year old girl, wonders why Dances screamed and ran when she tried to return the mitten Dances had dropped.
LOL x 10 thanks for the humorous posts Dances and Kevin, I can't remember the last time I read something so inane written with such seeming sincerity.
Ok, (wink) just for you guys I'll try to remember not to talk to Strangers in Toronto. Engaging your fellow citizen in polite discourse has NEVER BEEN SO DANGEROUS RUN RUN RUN FOR GOD SAKES CALL POLICE!!! LOL
wow lol
Random what are you talking about? The human body will have long ceased to function before achieving a BAC of .183
And in mention of the same incident, Dances do you really believe that M. Bryant would have shouted bloody murder peeled away at high speed & been involved in a deadly incident had the cyclist merely voiced complaint in a civil way?
Well, do you?
You guys are freaking nutsors, unless you are as I see it, entirely joking in your crazy paranoid talk.
Jody, don't get all paranoid, care and caution do not equate to this thing these people demonstrate. There was nothing wrong with your interaction. Fear of all of any sort of person will only lead to harm.
Saying hello and saying hello, but then proceeding to berate and disciple the other person aren't the same things. No matter how polite, doing the latter will find you quickly cast as a threat or at best a nuisance without any actual authority.
So you've got your panties in a bunch over nothing. Slow down, try to read what i'm writing. Use your "street" experience to temper that awful attitude of yours. My only point is that Bryant was a normal person, yet he killed darcy. Just because somebody looks normal doesn't mean you can go ahead and play traffic cop with them and not expect retaliation.
Eugene, you need to educate yourself about BAC because you obviously don't have a clue. Legally impaired in .080, Darcy was at .183 , death is possible at .300 and death is assured once BAC is greater than .400 (% by vol)
Oops sorry thought you had written 1.83. My mistake.
There that's done, now, I don't expect you fear-mongers to acknowledge being same I only expect to point out that that is what you are. Or you are at least engaged in the act of fear-mongering.
You began by advising against any and all contact, with fear as the motivation for seclusion and the best you've managed to do since is advise against any and all contact that involves a verbal exchange beyond a fearful 'hello', a sad and disenfranchising replacement of real communication, especially if you have an actual reason to communicate, as she did.
This is a big, crowded and exceptionally social city where many good minds encourage through various means the interaction of residents of all stripes in all public spaces as a common means of keeping these places used, useful, communal, friendly, and most of all, public. Thoroughfares are public spaces by definition. Anyplace you are that being there compels you to keep silent in fear is not a public space, it is merely a open area full of tiny people in tiny prisons.
A public space is not a place to proceed with fear, only caution and awareness, but not even these at the expense of basic civility or humanity. As we are human we are all flawed, and as we are flawed we will on occasion have disputes. Those that occur in these public spaces and thoroughfares are usually inconsequential and can be readily resolved or at least understood by reasonable people i.e. most of us.
Until we start to ignore them with a base motivation of fear.
Your attitude, while you may limit it to people in automobiles because of some strange protuberance of ideological rhetoric that you can't remove, is still a harmful one.
Let me lay it out for you. You are recommending this woman never communicate with a vehicle occupant for fear of a violent reprisal to verbally initiated contact in a public space. Dances your first such warning came with weakly implied insults for her not knowing to be this way already and even more thinly veiled suggestions that she was weak and a victim.
Do you even know how wrong you are?
This is Toronto, we WILL be speaking to one another when there is reason to do so, that reason will be good bad ugly or indifferent! We will not take the attitude, one if not born of then greatly bolstered by the separation of the vehicle occupant from the world around them, that we are surrounded by dangerous people who will commit a violent act if you dare to speak to them.
Because if we take that fearful, confined attitude collectively, we will commit violent acts (out of fear) if someone dares to speak to us.
It does not matter if it is to question an unsafe maneuver (civilly) or to express well wishes for the holidays, we should speak to one another without fear and at this point, we still can. As Jody readily demonstrated.
If you don't like it and you want to promote to women, men, cyclists, pedestrians or whoever that stranger danger is the norm and not the aberration then there is still a place for you. I forget what it is called but one of the major news outlets helping to develop the fear to who knows what end is called Fox News.
Sorry guys, your attitude is that of a coward, a coward that wants company.
Do you even see how ridiculous it is that you invoked Darcy Allan Shepard and Micheal Bryant as an example of what to expect for daring to speak to others in public?
I'm not scared but I am cautious, that's the closest I will come to your attitude and I strongly recommend Jody and anyone reading this to keep it up, cautiously of course, or to try it when the need, or opportunity, arises.
Sorry Kevin I read your comment AGAIN and laughed just as hard as I did earlier. Bravo! Bravo!
Sorry, Eugenics, i don't argue in hyperbole and i'm not reading your rant.
The reference is sound - you're an idiot for taking it too far. I suspect you're the exact example of somebody i wouldn't want to meet on the road. If only i knew what you looked like so i wouldn't introduce myself. Oh well. I'd rather speak with somebody like Jody or Kevin who clearly has less baggage and more self control.
Good day and try to control your temper.
As I said, a coward whose advice is to cower and be afraid.
The parts in bold are enough to embarrass you, so sad that you think that is what people are like.
You keep telling them to be afraid, I'll keep telling them not to be.
To sum up, again, you've not embarrassed me or shamed me.
I still openly advise Jody and yourself to not play traffic cop and go rapping on people's windows.
If it helps, here is a simple mantra. "The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life."
There is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about holding such an attitude when simply commuting. I suspect that concept is too small for you to fit your big head into.
Dances,
Name calling is simply childish
I know, henry, I don't really mean to respond to being called a coward and what not.
LOL @ Dances.
She didn't rap on the guys window, and your "advisement" was supported only by hyperbole of fear. Your examples included the Micheal Bryant and Darcy Allan Sheppard incident as what you can expect from people, shameful!!! Aside from that you openly suggest, hyperbole, that you cannot safely interact with people on the street without body armor, a handgun, pepper spray and other police equipment.
Guns, violence, and a recent deadly incident were the only -the only- supports you gave with your suggestion that Jody not speak to people in public when she may have a reason to do so.
You say that you don't argue in hyperbole? You invoked a dead man and his killer as your reasons for being afraid to speak to people on the streets of a Canadian city! Are you nuts?
Dude!
I didn't call you a name, I accurately labeled your outlook based on what you wrote. You are a coward advising others to be the same.
Sorry.
SInce you don't understand, you are advising cowardice, I advised caution.
Caution is rational and suggests attentiveness without necessarily changing your intended purpose or direction
Cowardice is a condition of excessive fear that prevents action the subject would prefer.
How do I know? Because you invoke guns, violence and bloody death on the street as the result of ignoring your "suggestion" that she be afraid of people on Toronto streets, the way you are.
But hey, you don't argue in hyperbole LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
Read the original quote...
You're clearly just looking for somebody, anybody to annoy because you're immaturely twisting what i've written. A fun game if you have no life. One more thing, I doubt you play traffic cop at all, if you did you would understand that if somebody calls you a lunatic for riding a bicycle on the street they're only going to blame you for getting hit. Even the new mayor reflects that opinion with his "swim with sharks, you'll get bit" rhetoric.
Baloney, referring to your original post in order to ignore your later statements?
Take credit for invoking Bryant/Sheppard as a warning/threat, to bolster your recommendation that she shun drivers or risk a similar fate, you did it, it's right there.
As for your original post, the OP says she gave up the lane and the driver slipped by with very little room to spare, with no consequence. Her annoyance at being in a door zone was annoyance at herself.
The driver wasn't perfect, but doubtless did not intentionally endanger with his unsafe pass.
For this you want him stigmatized as an absolute villain, to be shunned and never, ever spoken to. Lest he kill you in a homicidal rage, or lest he kill you in fear of you for having been addressed by you.
You are sad.