The Overpass

I biked to the Green Line today from my home in MetroWest.  For most of the way to the Woodland stop I ride along Route 16 feeling relatively safe. Sometimes the vehicles come a little close for comfort and I worry I might get run off the road.  But I’m usually riding down the edge of the road, wearing a helmet, and not at risk of getting pushed into ongoing traffic, so I feel fairly safe.  But then I get to that giant clusterf–k of roads surrounding the 95/128 overpass.  In rapid succession you have Wales St., Quinobequin Road, the On and Off Ramps for the interstate, Neshobe Road, and finally Beacon Street.Every time I get there I feel like I take my life in my hands!

I obey the rules of traffic as much as possible when I commute by bike.  It seems like the safest way.   Today I tried to go straight through a green light while oncoming traffic was turning left.  I had the right of way, yet they started and just kept going.  If I wanted to get through, I would have had to insist.  I started forward and whistled as loud as a could.  An oncoming utility van with open windows slowed down, yelled at me, “You’re supposed to act like a car,” and then kept going.  It was a nerve-racking situation.  I was, in fact, behaving like a car, obeying the rules of traffic and I had the right of way.  I made it through safely, but I was flustered, and a bit breathless.

So I got off my bike and walked it through the next crosswalk.  In New England pedestrians have the right of way.  I looked both ways very carefully and stepped into the crosswalk with the bike.  A sports car came zooming into the intersection.  I had only stepped into the intersection and it wasn’t a very close call, but had I taken or or two more steps, it would have been.  The driver had paid not attention at all to me.

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But let’s bear a few things in mind when we talk about interactions between pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles.  The average human weighs 176 lbs.  The average bike weighs 30 lbs.  The average motor vehicle weighs more than 3,000 lbs.  In other words, the average car weighs at least 100 times the average bike.  It weighs only 17 times as much as the average human, but it’s not made of soft flesh and therefore less easily damaged.  The person in the vehicle is protected much more than the person on the bike or walking is.

Motor vehicles dominate the roads.  The humans who drive them are encased in metal and very much protected.  I confess that I drive much more than I walk or bike (though I am trying to change that).  Like you, I have made snide remarks about and cursed the pedestrians and cyclists who get in way, slow things down, or fail to obey the rules.  I now realize what a bully I’ve been.  In a collision between a motor vehicle and anything else, the vehicle and it’s driver will always come out ahead!  Pedestrians and especially cyclists know that and they are nervous on the road.  Remember that, and don’t be a jerk!