We cyclists are often relegated to second class citizenship on the road, where drivers feel entitled to intimidate, attack, and disregard us. We’ve been unfairly cuffed and searched, and in one instance, a patrol car attempted to run a group of us off the road, then fled down a freeway onramp. We’ve attended city hall meeting after meeting, and each time the heads nod and the mouths make promises of reform that are rarely ever kept. Judges favor drivers in the hit and run accident cases that usually leave cyclists brutally injured and maligned, or worse, dead. In the year and a half I’ve been riding in Los Angeles, I’ve seen the erection of three ghost bikes – bicycles painted white and placed at the location where a fellow cyclist has been slain. When confronted with our grievances, motorists like to point out the famous stop-sign-running cyclist, but never have the courage to report on the numbers of drivers who merely roll through intersections or speed through red lights. Is it any wonder that we sometimes take to the streets in swarming hives to ride in the safety of numbers? From the outside it may appear as hooliganism, but inside, we’re angry and we’re taking solace in each other’s company.
Feminism and Cycling, the “Untrammeled Woman”, 31.07.11.
YA’LL GOTTA GET OUT OF LA.
yeah, it’s not tooo much better in San Diego, but hey.
