I love cycling to work every day. It clears my mind, wakes my body and gives me enough time to go from grumpy and groggy to awake and chirpy. I try to be respectful of everyone else (cyclists, cars and pedestrians), as well as respect the basic rule that a bike is like a car when on the street. So I stop at red lights, signal when I’m about to turn or change lanes and always look around.
You can imagine my dismay when I got honked at this morning by a man in a dark blue honda merging into my lane is I was going straight on Allumetières (downhill too). I guess I was slowing him down in his merging because he started to honk at me, and had I been lost in my thoughts, I probably would have toppled off my bike (into a mucky puddle). Let’s say it wasn’t a little gentle “beep”. It was more like “BEEEP”. I tried to tell him to wait a minute and to let me change lanes, but he prefered to honk again. I eventually managed to change lanes before he ran me over.
The lesson from this? If I had a horn on my bike and used it every time a car did something I judged stupid (or simply annoying), there would be a symphony throughout most of Hull and Ottawa every week day. It would be called the Horn Symphony for Cycling Safety in A-flat minor by Katherine. Keep an eye out for it, it’ll soon be on iTunes and YouTube.
~kath - campus sustianability coordinator
photo credit - jonathan rausseo