Evening Out the Playing Field

I was a bit saddened this morning when I opened up the most recent blog post by Let's Go Ride A Bike titled Jerk Season. Blogger Dottie blogged about how sunny weather has a tendency to bring out the jerky car drivers, who not only don't know how to share the road, but are aggressive and feel a need to "school" bicyclist by yelling obscenities and intimidating us with thier 3-ton vehicles. I then opened up Bikes and The City blog to read about an article in the San Francisco paper looking for a vehicle who was targetting bicyclists in the Mission District and ran over at least 4 people out of what seemed like spite. They are still looking for this asshole.

I have personally only had one confrontation with one jerky convertable driving ass in my neighborhood and just like Dottie it happened only a block away from my house. Ironically on the way to work on my bike this very morning I passed a crew putting in bike path signs on the road! Through a quiet residential part of the neighborhood even! Portland makes me so proud! I turned around and took their picture I was so happy!

Even though Portland was ranked again the #1 city for bicyclists in the US, there still are ignorant jerky drivers who are irritated at having to take their foot off the gas petal to slow down for a bicyclist. I love riding my bike so much and one of the greatest pieces of advice a bicyclist said to me was "demand your space on the road, you deserve it and you should take it especially if it means a safer ride for everyone." So please people share the road, have some patience and NO MORE GHOST BIKES!!!!