Bike Girl Chooses The Wrong Battle

Sometimes, even a fearless protagonist like Bike Girl needs to stand down. While it is true Bike Girl has a right to be in the road, and many drivers deserve to be yelled at and have their windows tapped, there are some times when standing one's ground, can prove to be the wrong decision.

Last night, as Bike Girl went on a run to cross-train, she found herself in a crosswalk near a busy grocery store. As she made her way across the street, a driver zoomed right in front of her instead of stopping and yielding the right of way.

Bike Girl yelled, "Hey, I'm a pedestrian! You have to watch out! You could hit somebody!"

The young man driving the black luxury vehicle yelled an obscenity at Bike Girl, that translates roughly to, "I don't care."

Bike Girl, wearing fleecy mittens, hit the trunk of his car with her hand as he sped away. He immediately slammed on the brakes in the middle of traffic, and he and his two friends piled out of the car. They surrounded Bike Girl. The driver of the car, who was about 3 inches shorter than our fair protagonist, began spitting obscenities in her face, coming progressively closer. Bike Girl looked right in his eyes, unafraid, and the short driver got close, stood on his toes, pressed his nose against hers while screaming at her, poked her eye with his pinkie and tried to rip off her glasses.

That was enough stoic standing of ground for Bike Girl. She pushed him back and told her not to touch her, and repeatedly yelled, "Get away from me!"

This attracted some attention. Other drivers had stopped and started yelling at the man. His friend appeared to be filming the incident with a cell phone, as if he had some desire to document how his 4'11" friend stood up to a lone female pedestrian who dared to touch his vehicle with her fleecy mitten.

Perhaps because Bike Girl's push was so powerful, perhaps because he finally came to his senses, and perhaps because a driver threatened to call the police, he backed off, got in his car, and sped away.

Bike Girl did not get the license plate of the car, and not a single witness had actually called the police to report the incident.

There will be zero consequences for this driver. He will likely go on to road rage another day, and Bike Girl prays that he never kills anyone.

Bike Girl didn't do anything out of the ordinary on this occasion. She regularly taps on cars to get drivers attention. She feels strongly that they should be made aware when they are doing something incredibly dangerous or stupid. But in this case, Bike Girl's actions turned out to be the stupid ones.

When the car stopped, she should have run away. The driver could have been more violent, or just as violent but drunk, and actually caused her physical harm. She also should have gotten the license plate number. Because that is the only way he could have been caught.

Bike Girl wants to assert her rights, but only in a safe way. From hearing other similar accounts, there seems to be a pattern of things that will make the driver become intentionally violent. The two most provocative actions one can take, are flipping the bird, or touching the car.

Bike Girl's significant other likes to give a thumbs down to bad drivers. That gets the message across without being quite as provocative. Our fearless protagonist is slightly more fearful on the road, and is not sure how she will react the next time a driver threatens her life with a deadly weapon, his car.

Bike Girl Is Happy

Bike Girl is happy. She's happy because someone who used his car as a weapon has been convicted.

Dr. Christopher Thompson admitted to racing down Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood, California in his car July 4th of 2008 at about 45 miles per hour. The road is a popular winding 5 mile climb. The speed limit is 30. Two cyclists, both very experienced, were also headed down the hill, going between 29 and 30 miles per hour. Thompson, who was speeding, decided that the cyclists were not going fast enough. They exchanged words, Thompson pulled in front of them and slammed on the brakes.

One cyclist's face went through Thompson's rear windshield and the other cyclist flipped over and badly hurt his shoulder. Thompson told the responding police officer he did it to teach the cyclists a lesson.

Bike Girl would like to point out that these cyclists did absolutely nothing wrong. Below is the applicable part of the California Vehicle Code.

21202. (a) Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations: ...

Now Bike Girl is not going to bother to include the rest of it because this part already shows the cyclists were perfectly fine riding in the middle of the road. If they are riding at a speed of normal traffic, which one assumes would be law abiding traffic, they do not need to move as close as practicable to the right hand curb or edge of the roadway. Normal traffic is not allowed to go faster than 30, and the cyclists were going between 29 and 30.

Bike Girl wishes that more drivers were educated about the rules of the road. She thinks if they knew this short vehicle code provision, there would be less animosity between traffic modes. However, Bike Girl knows there will always be jerks on the road, like Doctor Christopher Thompson.

Thompson faces 10 years in state prison for the 6 felonies and 1 misdemeanor he was convicted of.

Read more about the case here

Bike Girl Gets Back Up

Every protagonist has his kryptonite. Bike Girl's morning was spent dealing with hers. Fortunately for Bike Girl, progress towards a more bike-able Southland is her anti-kryptonite.

Things are looking up in Santa Monica. Politicians there are toying with a strategy that could meaningfully reduce traffic and encourage cycling and walking.

You can read the article by clicking here.

Bike Girl Needs A Pep Talk

Today on Bike Girl’s commute to work, a driver looked right into her eyes at a stop light and told her that her life was not worth a 1 second delay. Bike Girl asked how much that moment would cost her, and guessed the amount was less than five cents. She then asked if a human being’s life is worth five cents. This middle aged female driver said no.

This exchange took place just after the woman in her snazzy gold sedan merged into Bike Girl with no turn signal, nearly smashing into her front wheel, less than 5 feet from a red light, where the driver had to stop, still straddling the lanes.

“Lady, you were in the middle of the road,” the woman said. This is true. Bike Girl was in the middle of the right lane on a 5 lane road with construction on the tiny shoulder. The middle of the far right lane is exactly where Bike Girl should have been.

Bike Girl, like any cyclist, endures a lot of abuse from drivers, and she endures it on a regular basis. She endures it with a smile and a wave, and occasionally a yell of, “aaaaah!” Bike Girl also makes a conscious effort to obey the rules of the road. She even uses hand signals to turn in a town where drivers seem to believe their signals, speed limits, and even license plates are optional.

But today’s stony-faced, gray-haired, female driver found Bike Girl’s breaking point. Her blunt response that she would rather kill Bike Girl than be 1 second late sent our usually fearless protagonist to the curb, sobbing for 40 minutes.

Bike Girl sobbed because she’s tired of fighting. She’s tired of risking her life to get to work. She’s tired of memorizing license plate numbers of truck drivers who hit-and-run her and laugh. She’s tired of explaining the law to confused police officers. She’s tired of hearing that making her commute safer is infeasible. She’s tired of politicians who can get credit for being bike-friendly without actually doing anything to improve the bike-ability of their district.

Today an emergency room doctor is on trial for intentionally slamming on the brakes in front of two experienced cyclists and sending them to the ER.

Today a beautiful child is an orphan because of a truck driver’s inattention, and that truck driver is home with his family.

Somewhere a cyclist will be killed and journalists will ask if that cyclist was wearing a helmet. They will be shocked to hear that the cyclist died despite wearing that magical piece of styrofoam.

Please help fight this fight. Because while Bike Girl loves to ride, today, Bike Girl is tired of fighting.

If you want to fight, you can start by reading this.

Bike Girl Loves Plans

Bike Girl loves plans. There is nothing more elegant than a well laid, and well executed plan. She also loves bicycles. In fact, she even named herself after bicycles (BIKE Girl people, BIKE Girl).
Because of those dual loves, and her current address in Los Angeles, one would think Bike Girl would be ecstatic about the Los Angeles Bicycle Master Plan. It has a good name. It has bikes, plans, Los Angeles, and it's the Master of all plans. Bike Girl would love to peruse the plan and participate in the debate about the plan.

But unfortunately, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation does not want Bike Girl to comment on the plan.

The LADOT even went so far as to make sure that not a single meeting is in Bike Girl's area. It is no secret that Bike Girl has her base of operations in City Councilman Tom LaBonge's district. One would think that the "Bicycle Councilman's" constituents would want some say. But no meetings are in Hollywood. Plus, there are none in the hipster-cycling meccas of Echo Park and Silverlake. Nor is there a meeting in cyclist-dense East L.A.

Bike Girl could also submit comments online, but oh! only until November 6th. Bike Girl has a very busy schedule of bike riding, bike racing, bike wrenching, bike blogging, oh, and working. How could she possibly get through 212 pages, with 351 pages of appendices by then?

Our beloved protagonist is not the only one the LADOT does not want to comment on the Bicycle Master Plan. It has strategically timed the 6 month late release of the plan so that Neighborhood Councils cannot review the plan. Bicycling Activist Dr. Alex Thompson says the short deadline for comments makes it nearly impossible for his NC to react.

Bike Girl may even go so far as to say the deadline makes participation "infeasible."
Cyclists who want to participate in debate on the Master of all Los Angeles Bicycle Plans can e-mail West LA Councilman and City Council Transportation Committee Chair Bill Rosendahl at Councilman.Rosendahl@lacity.org. Ask for the deadline be pushed to January 4th, 2010.

Bike Girl Reads Blogs

Bike Girl has already posted about helmets. While riding, she also wears a Road I-D. But this week, her attention was called to another bit of safety equipment.

Artistic Cyclist Ines Brunn performed in Los Angeles at a recent Bicycle Film Festival event. She lives in China, and regularly wears a mask to protect herself from breathing in pollution.

Recently, this mask gave her an added measure of protection. Instead of re-telling her story, Bike Girl encourages readers to check out Ines's blog about the experience here

Bike Girl Dreams Big

As loyal readers know, Bike Girl has quite a stable of bikes. This stable of bikes poses a storage problem in her tiny studio apartment.

That's right, Bike Girl's job as a fearless protagonist is not a particularly highly-paid position. While some would call her co-habitation with the bikes "cozy," Bike Girl often fantasizes about the day when she will be able to afford her fantasy bike storage solution.

If Bike Girl had unlimited resources, she would expand her collection and have a climate controlled chamber for each bike. While she's at it, she may as well hire several attractive mechanics to clean each chain link of each bike after every ride, and keep less-often-used steeds at their shiniest by wiping them down with cloth diapers each day.

If Bike Girl had more realistic, but greater resources, she would get a two bedroom apartment, with one bedroom for tucking in her bicycles. This room would have hanging bike storage on the walls, and included a workbench and stand so Bike Girl could get grease under her fingernails.

In lieu of a whole room just for bikes, Bike Girl would like a living room with extremely high ceilings. If she had that, she could use her cunning to create a pulley system like this.

But until Bike Girl breaks out of the lower middle class, she will continue climbing over her Girl Bike each morning, banging her head on the touring frame behind the couch, and pretending her go-fast bike is some sort of modern art piece, hanging on her wall.

Our fair protagonist wants to know how her readers store their bikes. She encourages them to leave comments.