Confessions of a Commuter

[CNF2002]

Wednesday
Miles: 6,867
Mood:
Confession #25- I lost 2 billion brain cells today.

"Hey buddy, got some extra change?"

Shift into neutral. Pop visor up. Stare at bum on sidewalk. "What?" I ask, more as a 'Why should I?' than a 'What did you say?'.

"You got any spare change..." he repeats in a slow drawl, obviously thinking I was dim.

"Sure, let me just look in my ashtray here."

After staring at him for a few seconds, "No, no I don't have any change."

"I ain't gunna buy booze."

"You're drunk now." *

Along the commute, stuck in traffic, I was having a wonderful start to the day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, and despite the low rumble of all the cars around me, I swore I heard birds chirping. I swung out from the right lane after merging into the freeway, into the middle lane, and happily dropped behind an old truck. Everyone was stopped. Cars piled up behind me...we waited. It was a pretty typical day.

Then, it happened.

Rows of cars ahead began moving, cars behind them began moving faster, faster, faster. By the time the wave had reached our little corner of the highway, folks were slamming on the gas to catch up. And my little truck friend (a nice blue Chevy full-size, or was it red? Or gray? No that was just damage fixes) roared his engine and sped away, his tail end exploding into a bluish toxic cloud that quickly (thanks to wind) enveloped me in a suffocating cocoon of eye-stinging terror.

I leaned forward and coughed a bit. The guy behind me had the nerve to honk his horn.

"I'm sorry, is my asphyxiated body in your way? Excuse me your majesty!"

I managed to regain composure, find the throttle, and headed on my way, thinking I would break through the cloud and all would be well. It wasn't. The truck was still in front of me and he continued to spew his filth into the air, and into my lungs. And surely, I will tell you, I lost 2 billion brain cells in a record of 30 seconds.

A few cars merged in front of me, the truck got far away, and I was happy again. My brain quickly reorganized itself to compensate (I know, because the image of my first hamster flashed into my mind randomly - good ole Rudolpho.).

On a side note, when I got to work today I started by walking around calling "Rudolpho! Rudolpho!" and asking stranger passer-bys if they have seen my 23 year old hamster anywhere. He's brown with little white spots. I'm sure the two incidents are not related however, so I'll continue.

Why are cars like this allowed to be on the road? Even if a cop sees one, and braves the noxious storm and dares to pull them over, what good does a ticket do? Another $100 on their dwindling credit report.

Impound their vehicle! Leave them on the side of the street! That'll teach them. Sorry if I sound cruel, but this one person has singlehandedly, in one day, replaced the green-house gases in the air that the entire American fleet of Toyota Prius' have avoided producing all year. And, unfortunately, 30% of it is now sitting in my alveoli.

This is when citizens arrests should be enforced. I should be able to pour sugar in his tank with no consequence. Greenpeace, eat your heart out.

*Authors note: Specific dialog may or may not be accurate, exaggerated, or have happened at all.

[CNF2002]

Monday
Miles: 7,024
Mood:

Confession #26- I double-check my first gear.

Boy is it getting hot. Whoever came up with the morning commute is a genius. You sometimes hear people complain about coming in early to work at 7am. They want to sleep in, drag themselves out of bed, watch some cartoons and stroll to work at noon. These people do not ride motorcycles.

It was a hundred degrees out and I decided to go for a motorcycle ride in the middle of the afternoon on a bright, sunny, happy Sunday day. Sure, its okay on the freeway, but the stoplights are just killers. I forgot how hot it gets in all that gear. I miss Winter!

But on the commute it doesn't matter. Its cool in the morning going to work, its cool in the evening coming home. The hottest time of the day is spent in an office inside an airconditioned building. Genius. Pure genius.

I noticed this morning that I double-check my first gear. Meaning, when I drop into first gear I press it again, as if there is a new invisible gear that is going to magically appear. Even if the neutral light blinks, I still double-check. Maybe its just a weird random habit, maybe I'm afraid of landing in neutral by accident, or maybe I just really like to shift. For my next motorcycle I will try to find one with 14 gears. That should keep me happy.

I witnessed something quite disturbing on my Sunday ride. There was a woman on a Harley with a young girl, probably 6 or 7 years of age, sitting on the tail. She was wearing nothing but a three-quarter helmet, sunglasses, a tanktop and shorts and little pink sandles. The woman, of course, was wearing even less. And it appeared that the woman gave the child her helmet, because it looked absolutely huge and floppy on the little things head.

Thoughts of child endangerment came to mind. This woman was not winning any mother of the year awards. I am reminded of a story I heard in my MSF class when one of the students came in tears saying that a man had taken her grandson on a motorcycle, wearing nothing, and the boy now needed a full skin graft on the front of his body.

You have a constitutional right to have your skin peeled off and crack your head on the road? Fine...but are you free to let the same happen to your children? I don't think so! Regardless that this woman should have known better, there should be laws against these things. There were cops around everywhere, and you can bet not one of them pulled the darling couple over.

My wife remarked to me the day before, as a group of bikers passed us in our sedan, that I seem to be the only person in the city (and outlying counties) who wears actual gear, pants and a jacket and helmet, when I ride. There are many she sees with helmets, but she failed to recall a single person with full gear. I've seen them (because I look for them) but her little comment tells a distressing tale.

Well, I'm sure that little girl is still alive and well. Odds are good that they made it home safe. I guess gambling with your children's lives is a sport I just don't understand.

[camthepyro]

I understand two things you said. One, I saw a guy on a cruiser yesterday, wearing no gear except a helmet, and he had his little, maybe 10 year old, girl on the back of the bike in a skirt, tanktop, sandals, and a too large helmet. I got pissed, and was about to stop the guy and point it out when I decided I'd probably get my "O Ring" kicked. But there should be laws against that kind of thing. Child services or somebody should do something about it. Kids that young aren't old enough to decide whether or not they should ride with gear.

And the other thing, my girlfriend also constantly points out to me that I am the only one who rides with gear on. Everyone else she sees is in t-shirts. So she thinks gear is unneccesary, and when she rode on the back of her uncle's harley, didn't wear any, because he didn't. You can bet I was pissed about that. Just because everyone else wants to be a moron, doesn't make what they're doing anymore safe.

[Ninja Geoff]

haha i love this blog, so funny. Makes me feel bad for not riding to work.

[CNF2002]

Tuesday
Miles: 7,056
Mood:

Confession #27- 13 people wished me dead 666 times this month.

I saw a news report that terrified me. A couple of cars were sitting in a line, in traffic or something. We don't hear what happens, I suppose the car behind honked, because a big long-haired bearded guy wearing a sleeveless shirt exposing his death tattoos gets out of the car and starts heading to the driver behind him.

The other driver then gets out of the car holding a baseball bat! The bearded eats-children-for-breakfast man charges, slams his fist on the hood of the other guys car and before you know it, guy #2 is zapping bearded man with pepper spray. Ouch!

Talk about road rage? Okay, lets!

I was nervous about getting on the road this morning, the image of the two assailants haunting me. Everyone knows that assaults rise during the hot seasons, well, it's summer time. The earth is getting hotter by the minute (or at least thats what Al Gore told me) and so tempers will flare.

Two guys on a subway waiting for the train. Guy behind groans and says, "Man, this is taking forever!" Guy in front turns around and says, "You ain't kiddin me buddy."

Same situation in a car. Guy behind honks horn in frustration of the never-ending traffic jam. Guy in front turns around and BLAM, shoots other driver.

Am I the only one who is noticing a peculiarity here? What makes us so uncontrollably angry in the car? Furthermore, why do we think we can get away with it?

You know who I sympathize with the most? Truckers. They must hate us. They are just doing their job, and being unlucky enough to be stuck in a morning commute to a city they probably don't even live in, and they get the worst of all car behavior. Being slower than most, they always get cut off, shoved back in line, tailgated where they can't see the person behind them, and forced to honk their horn for 6 year olds.

And road rage is getting worse. I can see the headline now: 18-WHEELER PLOWS THROUGH 392 CARS ON I-20, STOPS IN THE MIDDLE OF PETTING ZOO KILLING 134 PEOPLE AND 4 BABY DONKEYS

Truckers must absolutely hate us. Well get in line, because we all hate each other apparently. You can take the most sympathetic PTA-attending child-nurturing charity-giving door-opening-for-old-ladies well-mannered Mom, put her in a car, and she'd gladly run a bus full of mentally handicapped Somalian kids with broken legs off a cliff screaming "you sons a..." if they were in her way on the commute to work.

My question is; why? What about driving, or being in a car, or having control over a car, turns us into these easily angered maniacs on the road?

Perhaps urbanism isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Maybe we are so desensitized to other people that we really don't care, and when we are placed in a disconnected environment (such as the perceived safety of a car) we just lash out in ways we wouldn't if there were foreseeable consequences. Take a man, put him in a room with 5 others and only 1 bottle of water for an unknown period of time and our primal nature is truly exposed. We watch on the news and scoff at atrocities in the middle east and yet here at home we would gladly bash each others faces in with baseball bats if they honk at us in traffic.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with that?

[DivideOverflow]

Yeah, I'd move to the country, but apparently they don't know what money is there... and I kinda need that for motorcycles and stuff.

People do get stupid when they get in cars.. I try not to get upset or drive like a crazy person, and personally, I think I do a good job. However, I do honk at people a lot, to let them know that they are stupid. It really makes for amusing reactions. 90% of the time, if someone cuts me off, I will hold my horn down for a good period of time.. like 20 seconds or so. Generally, they get right back out of the lane. I'm not sure if this is due to fear that I have road rage, or they realized that they are stupid, or that they are trying to cut other people off to verify their apparent vehicular superiority. Either way, I usually laugh at them.

If someone were to get out of their car because I honked at them, you know what I would do? Nothing. If they hit my car, I'd call the police and get a few things fixed that were slightly broken before. Then I would sue them for emotional distress, personal damages, attempted assault, and anything else that relates. Why? Because that is what they want. People with road rage WANT to be angry... so I would just give them a hand. Many people are incapable of learning without significant punishment to remind them.

Road rage is for suckas.

[CNF2002]

Wednesday
Miles: 7,084
Mood:

Confession #28- I should be arrested for child endangerment.

As I was riding to work today I thought to myself, Now how am I going to take around a baby on this bike?

I could use the little backpack strap on device, set the baby snug inside, and put my jacket over it (that nice piece of armor on the back of my motorcycle jacket should protect him just fine). Or maybe what we need is a special baby-carrier that straps to the tail of the bike like a set of saddlebags. With extra cushions and maybe a little windscreen. We don't want bugs to get the little guy.

But then I thought, obviously they don't have helmets and gear for babies. So what are we ever to do? I suppose it will have to be a very secure baby carrier, maybe with padded rollbars or a deployable parachute. Then again, if the parachute launches unexpectedly on the road the baby could land in the middle of traffic. That won't do any good, not any good at all.

Maybe a giant airbag can deploy around the carrier, and he can go bouncing across the highway like the NASA Rover when it landed on Mars. But that might make the baby dizzy and sick, and no one wants that.

And as I ran through all the various possibilities and constructed various mechanisms for securing the child in place in my wandering commuter mind, I realized I had completely and totally lost my sanity. What was I thinking? A baby on a bike?

It just goes to show you what crazy traffic will do to your brain. Here is your brain. Here is your brain in traffic, *sizzle*.

[VermilionX]

you're very sane compared to me.

i wish there's an antenna i could hook up to my mind and project it to my TV.

WOW! that's entertainment!

[totalmotorcycle]

I tried to google it for you and tried "motorcycle child carrier" "motorcycle baby carrier" and got... nothing! Not even a 3rd world country here is our device thingy you can't get in the USA!

The only thing I can think of to carry a baby on a motorcycle (safely) would be to use a side car rig with a baby seat in it.

And... tada:



2 very happy kids.

From: http://home.earthlink.net/~trospers/id3.html


Who says you can't take your family on your motorcycle and all have fun. Gez, I might have to look into a rig like this one day myself.

Mike

[camthepyro]

I would never put a kid that young on a bike, they're not old enough to know the risks, and make an educated decision on whether or not they want to ride.