Dear Bicyclists : I Totally Hate Your Guts

The other morning Peyton, the baby, woke up early, and, being the conscientious father, I decided that rather than having him wake up everybody else in the house that he and I would go and drive around for awhile. It was approaching 7 am and I was tired, having already been up with him for an hour, and I wanted to do something with him besides say “No!” and grab things out of his hands before they entered his mouth. So I grabbed the keys to the truck, loaded him up and we headed out for a morning drive around the lake.

“The lake” is White Rock Lake, and people of all shapes and sizes go there in the very early morning hours to run, walk, jog and ride bikes. It’s a lovely tranquil place to just drive (or run, walk, jog or ride bikes) around the lake and look out at the water. Noah loves going there to feed ducks and also try his hand at (very amateurish) fishing. I like to go look at the gigantic houses and just while away a little time before I realize how much money I’m blowing on gas.

So Peyton and I were driving and I’d come to the southern portion of the lake where the road diverges from the lakeside and I was out in residential land again and there’s a pack of about 20 bicyclists coming towards me. I knew from learning to ride a bike that the safest way to ride is towards traffic in a single file line, but these bicyclists were only doing the former and not the latter. Because of this there was a giant swarm of bikes and we were on a collision course with each other.

But I kept driving towards them. “They’ll realize they’re going to be killed and they’ll avoid me, the larger vehicle.” This did not happen.

I drove on, approaching them at about 35 mph. They kept on coming straight at me.

I got to about 15 feet from them before I steered clear of them. I also gave them a very noticeable finger, letting them know that I was number one and they weren’t.

The arrogance of some people! Where do they get off thinking that naturally I, the automobile driver, am going to avoid them just because they are on bicycles? “We are exercising and you are contributing to making Dallas one of the fattest cities in America,” was what I assumed they were thinking as they pedaled on.

So bicyclists, this is your warning. I will take you arrogant muthas down!