Cycling this morning at 5am was chilly; chillier than normal. We saw some cranky drivers revving around us (we're a group of about 12), angrily swerving because they had to leave the lane and come back in. I am always fascinated by this:
1) Someone in a car only has to move the steering wheel a few centimeters one way and then back - that effort compared to pedestrians scrambling across a road, or cyclists working hard to keep left is negligible. Yet drivers carry on as though it's this huge inconvenience, like you're asking them to run a marathon.
2) It gives the impression that drivers think roads are designed for cars (and belong to cars). Sorry, no. They were designed for everyone, and obviously the most frequent users are cars. But let's be clear - roads belong to people. People in cars, people on bicycles, people walking.
Jeepers, someone in a car has a tremendous advantage, a tremendous amount of lethal power. Please don't provide those not in cars with demonstrations of how annoyed you are. Rather be gracious and gentle; allow those who might be killed by a reckless driver's actions a right of way even if they don't deserve it, or have not earned it.
In the end it is people caring about people, and if it was your son or daughter out there, you'd like someone to err on the side of being more considerate rather than less.
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