Thursday, September 09, 2010

An open letter

Dear Drivers of New Orleans,

First of all, let me start this off by admitting some fault of my own. As a cyclist, I occasionally ride like a...how to put this?...asshole. I occasionally ride like an asshole. I'd like to take just a moment to explain why I ride like an asshole - it's just a bit of simple arithmetic.

me + my bike = ~220 pounds

you + yr car = ~2000 pounds

So, on average, you have nearly 1800 pounds of sheer mass on me at any time. I only have a small number of things that make the difference between me getting home or to work safe, or getting dead: assholery, chutzpah, lights on my bike (which I have), and yelling at you when you fuck up driving.

Now that we have that out of the way, I'd like to move on to the point of this letter: who the FUCK taught all of you stupid, inconsiderate, lazy, mean, angry, selfish, doltish, fat fucking pieces of flaming shit how to drive? At what fucking point in your pointless, banal life did you decide to never use a goddamn fucking turn signal? When exactly did you figure out it was okay to yell, honk, and get pissed at bikers for simply riding on the road? And what the fuck gives you the fucking right to open your door into us and then get aggravated with us for not riding on the sidewalk, when it is impractical, inconvenient and OH YEA FUCKING ILLEGAL.

Ok, look, here's the thing - as much as all of you people and my ex-girlfriends wish I was, I'm not a fucking mind reader. I can't tell when you're going to turn right as I ride alongside of you. I don't know when you're going to run a red light to make a left turn. But luckily, someone thought of this dilemma at the dawn of the fucking automobile, and came up with a solution - one so common and simple and convenient that it comes standard on every vehicle - A FUCKING TURN SIGNAL. Fucking use it, you goddamn choad monster! Your hands are going to be turning that way anyways, and get this - it turns off automagically. How about that?!?!!

I don't really feel like getting into the whole "we're saving oil by not driving" argument, because I find it to be a slippery slope argument. But we're sure as shit keeping a car off the road by riding our bikes, and at the very least we're giving more road and parking spaces to you fucking turkey-necked asshats. Not that I would ever think of it as doing you, who I could give less than the one shit about, a favor. I like riding my bike.

By my conservative estimate, I've ridden somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 miles on the roads of New Orleans. These are not isolated incidents - this is a pandemic of the worst fucking childish behavior I have ever seen. I've seen friends in the hospital because of you mouth breathers, in accidents that could have easily been avoided. To paraphrase Dominic, I hope the carcinogens in your truck give you and your whole family ass cancer.

To all the drivers who are considerate to bikers, use turn signals, give us the three feet REQUIRED BY LAW when driving past us, and don't get mad at us for no reason - thank you. But please tell all your dicknose driver buddies to stop fucking up.

Hugs and kisses,
Drew