maybe someone can enlighten me (as well as the reader that suggest i address this really annoying segment of the dc population) about whether bicyclists in dc have their own set of special rules that state they can be total assholes and ignore all traffic rules and common courtesy ... because if the city council has passed some sort of legislation that allows this ridiculous behavior, i would love to know.
bicyclists, it seems to me, refuse to comply with either pedestrian or vehicular rules. i'm always seeing them blow through red lights and refusing to yield to either car or pedestrian. i love when i see a bicyclist get pissed when a car tries to pass them because, oh i don't know, they're going 7. i totally support bike riding as a very reasonable alternative to driving and polution. i think it's great. but i think the attitude of many bicyclists around there that they don't have to be polite or follow traffic rules is pretty problematic. if you want to ride your bike on the road, fine. but seriously - don't ride through a red light and then get pissed when someone honks at you because they've had to slam on their brakes when they were just trying to proceed through a green light. or don't yell at me when i'm attempting to cross the street with a walk sign and exercise my right of way. listen, spandex boy, i don't yield my right-of-way to cars, and you can be damn sure i'm not going to yield it for you.
(beware: this entry is about to take a very random turn)
it's quite possible, i admit, that my anger towards bicyclists is related to the fact that a certain dreaded acquaintance as well as a man from my past both are avid bicyclists ... and also stand for something that i despise: gay marriage. no, no. not same-sex marriage. i'm absolutely cool with that. (does any married couple REALLY think that their relationship with their spouse is at all impacted by the legal status of other couples? really? don't lie to me. because i think you're lying to me.) when i say i'm against gay marriage i mean i'm against secretly gay men who marry straight women. i happen to think it's a horrible thing. i mean, could you please own up to the fact that you're gay, deal with whatever familial or societal disapproval comes with that, and move on? rather than, i don't know, subjecting a woman to a life of wondering or finding out when you have an affair with a man ... and leave her with your fucked up children when you run off?
i’m not just running off my mouth here, i happen to have some authority on this issue. my grandfather was gay (he still would be except he’s dead). and i'm not angry with him - in the late 1940s when he married my grandmother, he really had little choice. society was different. i’m proud of him for the struggles he went through to come out. but the remnants of a childhood marred by parental depression, confusion, and the possibility that probably his father didn’t want to have a family are still with my dad, and have really scarred him. so honestly, i think it's terribly selfish, and in modern society totally avoidable. you don't want to go through the awkwardness of telling your family that you're gay, so you're going to ruin a woman and bring kids into the world that will spend the rest of their lives dealing with the fact that they were the result of a sham marriage and that you probably never really wanted them? awesome.
if you're a gay man and you're thinking about marrying a straight woman, please don't. also, please don't be an asshole on your bike. thank you.
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