DLD, happy birthday to me!

My first thought was that they would probably leave Marvel to keep doing what they are doing. If there is any major change, it wouldn’t be on the comic book side, right? I think that a lot of Marvel’s recent success has been in movies, and Disney makes movies, so naturally they are going to expand on that. But that doesn’t mean they are going to wreck the comic books.

commuting biker since 1988 here, including LBC, NOLA, Santa Cruz, NYC, SF, and OAK.

i’m not going to get into an eco argument about who’s right for riding or driving. seems that’s beside the point. though it may behoove us all to work toward making cycling safer so that fewer people feel the need to drive.

and i’m not trying to take sides either, because that’s not going to solve anything in this case, but, there is certainly a different mentality when driving or when cycling. most of the time on a bike, one is thinking one thing: don’t crash. other thoughts come and go, but that one is basic and prevalent, and may have to do with the physical fact that you have to constantly, even if subconsciously, keep balance. aided by other factors such as sans-chassis vulnerability, higher stakes for mistakes, etc.

in a car, you don’t have to think safety always. you could go all day without thinking about it at all. some could even (many have) literally fall asleep and still drive (for a while). drivers do not have to spend most of their time thinking about not crashing. yes, it’s a consideration—don’t tailgate, look at the blind spot if i’m changing over, honk real loud if a semi’s cutting me off—but not a constant thought the way bikers know it. it’s a basic difference that’s not going to change (until bikes start carrying pressure-sensitive anti-car nukes…) and which i consider the key dichotomy in the problem. both bikers and drivers have the same percentage of douches, dummies, and red-light runners among their ranks (come to oakland if you don’t think cars run reds). hell, i may be foolish/tactless enough to suggest that some bikers and some drivers are, gasp!, the very same people (yeah, i got a 300D too). so how could personality be the deciding factor?

nah, it’s a point of view thing and it’s relative. bikers see cars the same way cars see semis (make sure you’re clear of them because they can kill you in a single chomp). cars see bikers the same way bikes see pedestrians (where did you come from and how can i possibly predict which way you’re going to go next?). when you boil it down, ironically enough, the primary thought for both cars and bikes is, make sure nothing huge is coming at me or i’ll hurt. but because bikes aren’t the huge objects cars are looking out for, that primary thought isn’t mutual. bikes look out for cars. cars look out for each other. this doesn’t work symbiotically.

personally, i think the share the road thing is a copout. a BS project that only alienates drivers from riders while making the whole thing less safe to both. it puts a bogus onus on bikers and drivers, who feel each other is at fault when things go bad. but really, the fault is with the DOT or city or whoever paints those lines on the street. but painting lines is expensive. sure, medial bills are expensive too, but the city doesn’t have to pay them… less expensive is a glib PR campaign about how if bikers stay 4 feet away from parked cars and drivers ride to work once a year, then surely lambs and lions will live together in peace. city, i say to you, separate the bikers from the drivers the same way you have separated the pedestrians from the rest. here’s a thought (probably not that great, but it’s the best i can do in a pinch. surely other ideas are even better): what if bike lanes ran between the row parked cars and the sidewalk (fewer doorings, a shield of steel between the drivers and the bikers, a fresh look for cities who want to open sidewalk life). what if bikes lanes ran down the middle of the street, and the cars had to hug the curb (no more cutting off bikers while making a right—left turns are safer because bikes are more visible this way, fewer doorings because parked cars will have more body damage to risk now). hmm? hmm?

As AN educated me, they both mean the same thing!