James Sapara’s Personal Blog

Oky, so I’m driving down the man drag in Saskatoon, 8th street. It’s 5:30, so we have a bit of rush hour traffic, but not too bad (8th street is usually avoid for commutes because of all the lights). This guy is biking down the road in the right rut of the far right lane. Three lanes, not a big deal really. So a bunch of cars pass him and we hit a light (SURPRISE!!!) He bikes around us on the left and runs the intersection. Alright… well thats interesting.

In Saskatoon the law is quite clear (and almost everywhere else I’ve bothered to look it up), that a bike on the road should follow the laws of the road. Now as a person who bikes on the road in the summer, I can say that I do indeed now follow all the same laws to the best of my capabilities. On a one lane road I’m more than curious to cars coming up behind me. On anything more than two lanes I simply do the best that I can to keep up with traffic. As per the recommendations of the City of Saskatoon Police Department, I bike in the left rut of a lane. I assume this is so you and a car are not side by side in the same lane. Which if you ride a motor cycle you would know is a no no.

Right, so the first thing this guy did wrong was pass us in-between lanes. Second was run a light. But, he did it over and over again. Yes, thats right… he ran the next and the next. Causing momentary delays in traffic movement since people were, surprisingly, defensively driving. Now if this was a person… on a vehicle with a plate. I would of pulled over and phone him in. Unfortunately bikes don’t require highly visible licenses here, so that wasn’t an option. Being who I am, with no shame… I used the next best medium, yelling.

I roll down my window as I’m stuck behind this slow moving bike who seems to magically get in front of me at every light. “Hey, if your biking on the road you need to follow the traffic laws as well!” He glances back and keeps biking. Maybe he didn’t hear me… so I say it again. He definitely hear me, flips me the bird. So I tell him to get the hell off the road until he’s ready to show the same amount of respect to the other people as he feels he deserves. He starts yelling back at me this and that. I’m just about at my turn, so I yell at him one more time to show a bit of respect on the road and turn off. He waves me the bird one more time and we never meet again.
Now I’ll admit, it wasn’t very cool of me to be yelling at people on the road. Some would say thats road rage even. I don’t usually do that ever these days. I’ll admit to it a few years ago thou. I’ve since taken more appropriate actions because I realized that swearing and cursing people from my car is generally ineffective. Filling a report at least leaves an official record of the event and sometimes they even follow up. In this case where were my options? I could of driving beside him and talked through the passenger window instead of yelling. Effectively blocking two lanes of traffic with this guy. Not exactly optimal, but perhaps plausible (thou technically I think thats illegal here anyways…) I could of ignored it, letting yet another person give people who bike with respect a bad name (as well as those who reinforce it). Honestly, I dunno what was right to do really. I don’t regret yelling at the guy, but I wish people would just realize what they’re doing. I keep thinking back to letters to the editor in the Star Phoenix about people being frustrated at drivers, and bikers being frustrated at drivers.

It’s like a vicious circle: bikers bike like they own the road, ignoring laws when they see fit, drivers get annoyed and no longer show the “vehicle” courtesy to bikers, who eventually get burned in some sort of traffic incident ( accident, yelling, near hits, jammed, etc). At which point the bikers blame those crazy people in the cars. They then justify their law breaking cuz those car drivers do it. Even better is how some people bike to save the environment. Oky, thats cool. I do it for the same reasons most of the time (besides exercise and enjoying the experience). When you bike like a jack ass, even if cars follow the law (like passing in the next lane), your making them hurt that environment more than if you were to just drive like the rest of us. Ya, think about it guys… making us pass you over and over again… a waste of momentum every time.

I failed to mention that last summer the City of Saskatoon ran an awareness campaign for road safety between bikes and vehicles. For the most part, people have been better both in vehicles and bikes. Apparently some people missed the mail, news paper and radio adds. Oh, and those funny SGI commericals…