A reader, Brandon S., sent in a little poem this morning. He described it as, “a short little thing I wrote out of total guilt from my bike commute today. Maybe others feel this way too sometimes, or have had the same experience.”
Here it is:
I should apologize, you are pretty mad.
I was going pretty fast, you walked out into the street.
I had my head down, you didn’t hear me.
I am young and foolish, you are a mom and barely awake.
I could have done it better, you could have looked both ways.
But we didn’t collide, thank god for that.
I’ll be smarter, you’ll be smarter.
I’m just trying to get to work, you are just trying to go for a walk.I’m sorry.
Hopefully we can meet in a better way in the future.Apologies,
A Portland bike commuter.
I’m pleased to see acknowledgement that yes, bicyclists should stop for pedestrians. I’m constantly amazed and saddened at how few of us stop for those on foot. After all, our challenge of paying attention is really not much different than that of car drivers needing to pay attention to cyclists on the road.
But those walkers are so darn entitled! Every penny that goes into their precious facilities is taken from OUR bikes lane fund. And the jaywalkers! I say license them, and make them wear tags.
JK.
I keep my jaywalkers on a leash… in a collar…
From the poem, it seems that the woman, not hearing any car traffic, just stepped out into the street without looking rather than the cyclist not stopping for her at a crosswalk [“you could have looked both ways”]. It happens all the time; that’s why there is a push for hybrids/electric cars to have noise generators. But I concur that we all must pay careful attention to everyone on the roads.
yes, the noise thing gets me sometimes… then I remember bikes and electric cars and quickly look…
I hope they don’t add noise to electric cars… it would be awesome if that new technology was the thing that made people start paying attention…