Citizen Steff: On the Case

Stupidity really, really pisses me off. Like, really. REALLY.

Especially on the roads.

I ride a scooter. In case you're a cage (ie: car) driver, y'all need to know that:

a) Bikes of all kinds can't stop as quickly in the rain, it's far more dangerous, thanks to oil slicks and such.
b) We usually do as much as we can to stay safe and be visible, but you're on the fucking road, too, so let's have a little teamwork here, shall we?
c) Just because you can't see the sense in someone choosing to ride something a little less safe than your vehicle doesn't give you the right to ignore our safety.

I'm sick and fucking tired of ignorant drivers yammering away on their goddamned cellphones, eating their McDonald's french fries, sifting through paperwork, playing with their stereo, putting on their lipstick, blabbing to their passenger friends while making hand gestures, and more. I see this daily.

I was nearly hit by not one, not two, but three fucking nimwits all in the space of a half-hour ride today. Fortunately, I expect stupidity every time I approach an intersection, and I also flag drivers in traffic as potential troublemakers as I head into the fray with them.

I just called my local insurance body to complain about an incident of road rage from a fuckwit who nearly hit me, and who I gut-reaction flipped-the-bird to, who then pulled ahead of me and slammed on his brakes, coming to a complete stop not once, not twice, but three separate times. (I count this as only one of the incidents mentioned above, though.)

I ride a bike, people, I didn't sign a fucking death warrant. Just because YOU don't know how to a) manage your time, or b) pay fucking attention, or c) don't find driving entertaining enough as-is, doesn't give you the right to do whatever the fuck you want on the road.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I've reported the third fucker up there. I trumped up my case against him, too. Here's hoping he gets a visit from the cops, since they're taking these things more seriously now.

Every day, motorcyclists of all kinds are hit and killed. In most regions of North America, riding a 49-cc bike like mine means a motorcycle license isn't mandatory, and thus, a lot of riders on them are NOT skilled at avoiding danger, and for drivers to be ignorant of the number of "new" riders on scooters is pretty fucking dumb. I know what I'm doing on a bike, thanks to "learning the hard way" and plain old experience and self-education, but a lot of people don't.

"Rider error" is one of the leading causes of motorcycle-related deaths, but how many of those are in response to trying to save our asses in the face of stupid shit done by ignorant car owners?

To ride a bike, one needs to become more patient and needs to respect danger. To drive a car, one just needs to put the gas to the floor. Car drivers are more and more inattentive, ignorant, and irresponsible every single day. And we're getting really, really sick of it.

Fucking pay attention, people. That vehicle you're is a couple thousand pounds of death on rubber, and you're wielding a weapon that can kill several people at once, if you do it right. Respect it. Pay fucking attention. Drive, don't distract yourself.

Oh, and get OFF your goddamned hand-held phones. And if you have a DVD player in your front seat of your vehicle? May the traffic gods smite you.

______

And more worth bitching about: As if our attention spans weren't short enough. I was at a coffee shop to do some writing earlier, and what should happen? Couple of fucking kids sit down with a portable DVD player and start watching a movie. Oh, HERE's a brilliant idea: Conversation. I know, I know, I'm old-fashioned. That talking thing, so old, so "done." Call me a romantic, a nostalgic, whatever the heck you want... but turn off the fucking DVD player in my writing shop, you punk-asses!

Interpersonal communications? Virtually NIL in this day and age. Any wonder? It was bad enough when cellphones cropped up and you could take a phone call anywhere you wanted, but now you can watch MOVIES in coffee shops... and without headphones. Fucking hell!

I'll tell you one thing, it's times like these that I *celebrate* the fact that I wear hearing aids and can shut the volume of this mad, mad world right off. :P I love mornings... I get up and deliberately wait an hour or two to put my hearing aids in. Silence, it's bliss. I know a silence you might never know, and there are many times I never regret it.