Each morning this summer I would wake up and ride my bicycle to the gym to work out and then ride it on the return trip back home--ten mile round trip.
I ride the Feeder road on I-45 from the Dickinson Bayou to the gym at the new HEB shopping center at 646. The feeder road ride to the gym is fairly safe BUT coming home can be dangerous!
The area right in front of the Amoco Fed Credit Union all the way to Kroger has been a dangerous place for bicycles. I keep imagining in my mind that any day I am going to get plowed from behind by some angry motorist and my body will be tossed like a broken G.I. Joe toy soldier fifty yards away into the trees.
It seems to me that so many people in cars disregard the people riding their bikes. Bicycle riders frequent the I-45 feeder roads and each feeder road has TWO lanes. It is the people driving the cars 20 MILES an HOUR over the SPEED Limit and refuse to change into the open lane next to the bike rider.
You do not know how many times car's mirrors have barely missed my handle bar by less than a foot. They do it on purpose. Some people think bikes should not be on the road at all.
If there are 2 lanes WHY is it so HARD to get in the lane AWAY from the bicycle rider? These people fly by me in the same lane and barely miss me. The adrenalin rush that goes through me is sick! The other day I shook my fist at some guy in a toyota corolla as he flew by me and then turned into Whataburger. I caught up to him as he was getting out of his car.
I started hollering at him and he thought it was funny and just laughed and smiled and even "WAVED" at me! What a jerk!
The other vehicles that drive about 70 miles an hour right through there are big dump trucks. I wish the Dickinson police would set up a speed trap right in front of Heartbreakers! They could write tickets all morning.
Police? HAH! yesterday I'm riding in the evening through Dickinson. There is no traffic on the roads in any direction. I turn across the road into a parking lot and "WHOOP" I hear a police car cut his siren on for a second and so I turned around. The police car is behind me in the parking lot with his lights on. There are no cars anywhere in sight. It is almost dusk and the cop says to me," Why didn't you signal your turn?"
How many kids riding bikes signal turns? How many other people who don't have cars in the poor parts of town ride their kids bikes to the store, ever signal? This Sheriff Dept guy had one BIG EGO problem if he was so bored he had to stop me on a bicycle and interrogate me about using turn signals. At least I didn't get a ticket.
I think bike riders need paintball guns and when car drivers treat them as if they don't belong on the road and intimidate them with their cars the riders should be able to blast their cars with PAINT!
Tell everybody out there--be careful of the bike riders. They are getting in shape AND saving gas!
I hope nobody finds me lying in a ditch with a broken body just because some guy in a car decided I wasn't allowed on the feeder road.
Monday, August 11, 2008
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