Health & Fitness
Patience is a Virtue
Is where you are going really important enough to kill someone over it?
Even on an average morning or afternoon, the many roads near Silver Spring and heading out to points beyond are clogged.
For many drivers this traffic leads to a loss in patience., especially when we are all trying to get to our vacation destination.
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As a motorcyclist this kind of impatience can be very dangerous. Remember, the journey is sometimes more important than the destination, so as we savor every curve of a back road, inhaling the sweet aroma of flowers and feeling the sun on our skin, you come tailgating us in your SUV with the windows up, AC and stereo blasting while the little ones in the back watch Dora on DVD. I have a request: Please don’t kill me in your rush to get to such and such beach.
Yesterday my vintage bike stalled out after sitting at an extended red light, and before I could put it back into neutral and drop it into first to take off, an irritated motorist started honking and tore out from way behind me, cutting in front of me so fast and hard that had I achieved forward motion any faster (surely faster than they would imagine a 31-year-old bike to move) I would have been hit from the side by a speeding red sedan.
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When people do these things to us in our cars we often honk and swear back, or even indulge in road rage. When people do these things to us on our bikes, we come so close with accident and death that we are often shocked. Furthermore, what can we do but stay calm and try to salvage the situation to preserve our safety as much as possible as the offender speeds off in a giant metal box at high speed, unaware that they almost KILLED someone’s wife, father, husband, boyfriend, grandfather, etc. because they are in a hurry and clearly more important than everyone else.
My thanks go out to the mom in the minivan behind me full of kids. She patiently waited while I got my bike started and waited through the next light. Have a safe weekend. Ride safe, drive safe, and be kind. Let’s not plant any new flags for more dead bikers this year that are someone’s somebody special.
