Oh my GODS. Another thing to add to the list of things that annoy me: people on bikes in the city. Now, I know we’re supposed to be all Earth-friendly and be happy that people are riding their bikes all over the friggin’ city, but PLEASE, can we push licenses and TICKETS on these people? Just because you’re on a bike does NOT mean you’re allowed to ride all over the side walk – yes, that’s a sideWALK, not a sideRIDE. Nor can you pick and choose which traffic laws to obey, such as avoiding those irritating red lights by RIDING your bike across a crossWALK, or riding the wrong way on a one-way street (although, to be fair, there are some one-ways that have been designated two-ways for bikes).
Take the total mumblypegs I drove by yesterday afternoon. After sitting in traffic for a good 10 minutes (you know what they say – there are two seasons in Toronto; winter and construction), I FINALLY made it onto the street I was trying to get to. Now, it’s not necessarily a BUSY street, being that it’s residential, but it IS a CITY street and therefore residential doesn’t really count for a whole lot. It’s also an off-shoot of one of the busiest five streets in Toronto, so it gets more than its fair share of traffic.
Anyway, I pulled up to a FOUR-way stop (remember the FOUR in the four-way) and flipped on my left-turn indictor, thereby indicating that I wished to turn left on to a one-way, one-lane street. Along came a mother and her two sons, maybe 10 and 7 years of age. All on bikes, helmets strapped on, very safe. Two points for safety.
They approached the intersection from my right. Seeing as I was first at the intersection, according to the LAW, I had right of way. And I’m sure they would have given it to me – had they OBEYED THE STOP SIGN. But oh, no, they glanced at me and continued to blithely meander through the stop sign, and directly into my turning path.
To indicate further that I wished to turn (seeing as the BLINKING INDICATOR LIGHT wasn’t enough of a clue), I waited until they had cleared the intersection and then I began my turn VERY, very slowly. I assumed that they would at least stop wandering all over the street, seeing as a CAR was coming at them. No, no, of course not. Mom slowed down (how she managed to slow down and NOT fall off her bike, I don’t know, considering they were barely going 4km/h when they went by me) and, full of smiling benevolence, waved me on. Well, woman, seeing as your dumb-as-shit-don’t-know-the-rules-of-the-road children are still wandering all over the road, is that an invitation for me to DRIVE OVER THEM? Because by this point, I was MORE than willing.
There was one child on the left hand of the one-way, one-lane street trying to alternately pedal his bike and put his left foot on the curb, to sort of skateboard his bike along. The other shit-for-brains offspring was on the RIGHT side of the street, weaving along the parked cars there, to avoid their rearview mirrors and consequently darting out into the middle of the street every few seconds. And here’s Mom, waving me to drive between her two children, with less than two feet clearance on either side. And you KNOW that if I had hit either idiot child, *I* would have been the one sued.
So I VERY SLOWLY followed her children up the street, as they weaved in and out in front of my car and the had the nerve to look back at me every couple of feet, annoyed! Honestly, what the F&CK is WRONG with people?! I’m serious – there should be more tickets handed out to these a**holes! They f&ck up traffic, blithely disregard traffic laws, inconvenience pedestrians on sideWALKS… why do they get away with it? Even more, why do they even TRY to get away with it? If I ever saw some bike-riding a**hole get a ticket for not properly signalling a turn, I would seriously walk up and shake the copper’s hand. Maybe even kiss them.
