Monday, July 25, 2005

Sometimes I really hate people. (In cars...)

Any of you who are familiar with me may know that my wife and I are training for the MS 150 Bike Tour. It's 75 miles from St. Augustine to Daytona Beach, FL on one day then back the second day. It'll be grueling for someone like me...a bit out of shape.

Part of this training is actually riding the bike for long distances. (Go figure...) This past weekend, we did 30 miles on Saturday morning, then another 30 again on Sunday. While it's great that Ponte Vedra has some good distances of running/biking trails, they don't go the whole distance that we need to train on. Past that, there's a good length of "HOV" lane, reserved for bikers. But it, too, runs out before the mileage we need to cover. At that point, we're on A1A, riding with traffic.

On Sunday, the roads were still wet from rain the night before. Puddles were everywhere, and so getting a bit wet and muddy was a given. However, I wasn't prepared for what happened to us.

We were riding along, and a white or silver Nissan 280Z honked at us, and then deliberately hit a puddle to splash us. At first I wasn't sure this was the case, but another biker who had passed us and stopped on the road further up had exactly the same thing happen to her. As a guy, I can understand wanting to do that. Guys are mischievious and sometimes bad mannered. But there is a BIG difference between thinking about it and actually doing it.

What prompted the title of this posting is that it's really sad that many people, especially people in cars, have no social conscience whatsoever. People do things in cars they would never consider doing on foot. Like speeding up, running you out of your lane so they can cut in front of you or flipping you off as they pass by. Apparently being in a moving vehicle afford a feeling of anonymity that you can partake of to do as you please, regardless of the consequences to others.
My advice of the day.... THINK about others when you're driving.

- Will Belden
July 25, 2005

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