The Last Exile

Recently, I have taken to playing a game which my co-workers refer to as ’survivor’. What this means it I am leaving work every day in the midst of the downtown rush hour and riding my bike home. I suspect these people are actually taking bets on whether I come in or not in the morning ‘unscathed’ by my experiences. I am quickly coming to the opinion that either cars will have to be banned from roads on the downtown core or real bike lanes (raised roads and clearly marked) rather than the painted lines which a great many car drivers seem to have this strange affinity to driving or parking in.

Last night after trying to manoeuvre around a van whose driver thought nothing of parking in the bike lane which was clearly marked by a sign reading ‘NO PARKING” and nearly getting killed for my effort to merge into traffic to go around said van. In fact, a pedestrian was shouting at me “Lady don’t do it. For the love of G-d, don’t do it – take the sidewalk.”

Cyclists and drivers have been very much in the local news lately and I got a real moment of envy from this tidbit from an interview with a Toronto Police Constable who helped found the Toronto police bike unit.

You must get respect as a cyclist in police uniform, but what about in your own recreational cycling?

If you’re in a uniform, yeah, you get respect. But sometimes you get too much respect.

Let’s say I want to make a left turn … I stick that left arm out. Well, here’s a police officer in uniform sticking his arm out going southbound on Yonge St., and I’ve got two lanes of traffic come to a screeching halt because they think I’m directing traffic. Or they don’t want to hit a police officer.

This is the kind of respect as a middle-aged cyclist I can only dream of having. The really sad part is how gob-smacking fearful so many of my younger co-workers are at even the idea of riding a bike on the downtown streets. Its not other cyclists who scare them but the complete disregard so many, many car drivers have for the rules of the road.