War of the Worlds

As always, there’s more than one side to every tale. Perfectly in line with current times, the now classic ‘cars versus bicycles’, two formidable opponents, both enabled by their side, both with very little, (or no), tolerance for the other. In one corner, Team Cyclists, who have been around since the early 19th century. Although people mainly rode bikes, eventually most that could afford it ended up buying the next big thing, a car.

As cities grew, so did Team Car, to the point that city planning was done around the car, (i.e.: suburbs), leaving the cyclists at the mercy of four wheeled traffic and long distances to ride to work. Winters also played in great favour of the automobile. Fortunately, a few decades later, the rude awakening of climate change, in conjunction with a new awareness of our surroundings and how they work, the tide began to make room for travel with a smaller, much cheaper and sustainable footprint, hence the bicycle emerges from the ashes. And good thing too, a non-polluting, heart-exercising way to get around, and taking up much less space. One of the most obvious problems is mixing bicycles with cars in traffic, in a city. A David versus Goliath kind of deal, excepting that, in a collision, David never wins. This problem subsists today, but specific lanes for cyclists didn´t, and their introduction alleviated the problem, somewhat. But what is a great city without its human conflict. Now that city planners are trying to right their past wrongs by “making room” for cyclists, each side is trumpeting their sense of entitlement, in an effort to belittle the opponent’s.

This is nothing new. Decades have passed without truce. I witnessed the violence; cars intentionally encroaching on the bikes, cyclists kicking car fenders and doors. Both sides are carrying their false sense of entitlement like a badge of honour, and like most other conflicts we generate across the world, nothing gets resolved in the midst of all the finger pointing. Last time I was in Toronto I saw it every day; cars cutting off bikes, running them off the road because they just don’t bother checking for them. Cyclist continuously running Stop signs and traffic lights. So many cyclists do ignore traffic rules, many of them couriers, weaving in and out of traffic as if there were a force field protecting them. Don’t get me wrong, drivers cause as much trouble as their counterparts, they just get away with less due to sheer size; they tend not to be as bold, especially in traffic. All of this is nothing but an acute lack of respect and low tolerance for others. Ring a bell? We always seem to choose to stand our ground rather than to cooperate. Cooperation could efficiently resolve most of our current issues and not only that, one of the most efficient weapons used against us is divisiveness. We don’t grasp the concept of the healing power we could wield as a group. Instead, we seem to go directly to irritated when having to accommodate for the greater good, in many instances even before we know what we are irritated at. We put everything into question, when all it takes is some flexibility; follow the rules, look out for each other. Improvement is not a term limited only to marketing. We could all use some.
Fiquem bem,

Raul Freitas/MS