A Season Of Fatigue

This is home. This is Mean Street.

I don't have to tell you. You know.......this year is getting old. Not just because we are about to enter the last two months of of 2020, but you know......it's the whole pandemic thing. The freaking election. Advertising that is beyond nauseating. Fear mongering. So much is 'fake' we don't know what is real anymore. Maybe that's why it seems drivers along my commute to work have lost their minds lately. 

My favorite move a driver of a car or truck makes is this: Multiple lane road intersects with your path, your 'flight plan', whatever. As a cyclist, you don't even need to be on a road. I had this scene play out as I tried to cross a five lane (one way) highway Monday as I came out from under a bridge about 50 yards from an intersection of any type. 

Anyway- a driver sees your approach. They stop. Now they may do this right at an intersection, or no where near an intersection- doesn't matter. I call this move "The Misdirected Kindness Move". The driver tries to have you cross in front of them. It's as if they are deferring to your weaker mode of transport by stopping and allowing you to cross while they wait inside their climate controlled capsule and stare at you as you are going to be- they hope- parading in front of you. Only their big fail is that they are not in control of the other lanes of traffic adjacent to their vehicle, which may have vehicular traffic bearing down at this scene at a high rate of speed. See.....I'm not falling for this. Then it gets interesting.

The driver with "The Misdirected Kindness Move" now in play gets agitated. They wave at you vigorously. I often give them a 'go on ahead' wave, which 95% of the time gets ignored and more vigorous waving and observed jaw flapping starts. Of course, I cannot hear a word that they say. Apparently these people believe in some magic that not only makes anyone coming down the road stop for me also, but defies the laws of physics and says I should be able to understand their verbiage. Then comes one of three possible outcomes.

One: If I am up from a controlled intersection, the light finally flashes the lanes "The Misdirected Kindness" driver is in the green light and they get the idea and move along. Two: In case the driver has a green light,the oncoming traffic whizzes by the stalled driver and they get the idea and move along, or Three: The uncontrolled intersection allows them to sit there forever, (or until another vehicle comes along) and there appears to be a stalemate. If #3 happens and it looks like a standoff, I turn around and go the other way. THAT finally gets the driver's goat and they blast off with an application of "angry acceleration" at which point I turn around and resume my commute. 

This has occurred more often as fall has come on, and on Monday it happened twice. Both times on the way home from work. Even when I stop 20 yards up from an intersection on a bike path, put my foot down, and show no visual contact, this sometimes still happens to me. Why don't drivers just go ahead and do what they are supposed to do, so I can expect a consistent behavior from the operators of these rust buckets? Because the moment I do that, I get waxed by a driver that is inattentive, or just doesn't care. Or the person in the is just desiring to be mean, which happened on Monday as well.

I'm minding my own business when I see a passenger of an oncoming vehicle crank their hand, which is holding a 20 oz. beverage of some sort, above the roof line. They bob the bottle and I can see this person is trying to time a throw at me. Yeah, the person was so lazy they couldn't be arsed to get out of their seat to get anything on the throw, so failure was predictable. The bottle missed me by a mile, but the intent was there, obviously.

People are getting fatigued. There is no will to use their critical thinking skills, so they are either misdirected in their kindness or they just don't give a rip for their fellow man. That's what I am seeing. I don't know.....maybe I have too much time to think as I ride along.......