A Moral Failure?

Check out this recent article in the Seattle PI about a cyclist from West Seattle that was shot with BBs while commuting home. One of the BBs lodged in his lung and the other bounced off his aorta and settled on his diaphragm. Luckily, he is recovering and even riding to work again just days after the incident. For an even more detailed account, you can check out the cyclist's story on his blog. Reading the article and his blog made me nauseous and has me wondering about the moral turpitude of people who could commit such an act.

As a cyclist logging thousands of miles on the road every year, I count my self as lucky to have experienced only a few "incidents" of my own when interacting with motorists and have never been injured as a result. I've had people yell profanities at me through open windows, had things thrown at me including a mostly full bottle of beer, been buzzed at high speed by large pickup trucks while blasting their air horns, sprayed with gravel by a car that purposely drifted onto the shoulder in front of me and floored the accelerator. These things, unfortunately, are common place and there is little a cyclist can do besides shake an angry fist at the offender as s/he speeds away.

I just can't comprehend why people have such hostility to cyclists. Is having to drive 10 mph for a few seconds while waiting to pass such an inconvenience that warrants acting in a way that puts the cyclist at risk for injury or death? I don't know anyone whose time is that valuable. Are fat assess sipping their super-gulp soda on their way to pick up some french fries at the local drive-thru that resentful towards someone actually doing physical exercise? Even a brain twisted by the desire to get a fast food fix can't be that perverse. Is someone's homophobia so acute that seeing a man in spandex for a few seconds requires retaliation for such an affront? I can't imagine someone that depraved. These rhetorical questions may touch on some truth, but I think the bigger theme that may underlie such actions is that our society is experiencing a moral failure. People are indifferent to the lives of others in this hectic, take or be taken, succeed-at-all-costs world we live in. People are so wrapped up in getting ahead, they forget it is an actual person they are pushing out of the way to get there. It is an ugly race to the bottom. If you think I'm wrong, then read the content of some of the nearly 200 indignant Sound Off Comments to the PI article.

I don't have an answer of how to fix such a fundamental failure. If I did, I think I could solve many of the world's greatest problems, which I believe originate from this same disregard for the lives of others. But I will keep riding my bike, ignorance be damned! However, I won't be alone. Seattle's Bicycle Master Plan was just approved unanimously by the City Council. The City will be spending $27 million for cycling projects including 118 miles of new bike lanes and 19 miles of trails. A step in the right direction. I only hope there is an educational component that goes with the infrastructure.

Stepping off my soap box.

Blue Star