Hey Man, Can't We All Just Get Along?

Photo by Flickr Florian

Lately there's been a lot of brou-ha-ha over the use of the road. Spruce and Pine got some fancy new bike lanes just as reporting of bike-pedestrian accidents went to print. Now, the general hum of Philly hostility is increasing. Who gets to blow which stoplight, and which group gets to most egregiously flout the rules without consequences. Are bicyclists the worst because some idiots insist on riding with their headphones? Or are they the worst kind of scum because hipsters love their fixies? But what about cars? Aren't they the folks with the polluting and the South Philly Roll, the 2-ton death machines, cell phones, and lack of turn signals? And man, those pedestrians. They just walk out into traffic in front of everybody. Everyone hates them.

I have hope. We can get along. And we should, because people are going to obviously keep walking (unless Pixar's prognostications speed up), biking because it is awesome, and driving, because that's what modern folks do. We need to get along.

Part of the problem is that everyone believes they are entitled to continue doing whatever annoying/law-breaking thing to which they are accustomed. So, this means it is time to spend some effort breaking down that mindset. Start feeling guilty. Acknowledge that blowing that light is breaking the law. That not bothering to signal you'll be turning left in front of that biker is unsafe and illegal. That when Sesame Street taught all of us to look both ways, it really was for the best. Remember there are other folks out there, going about the daily business of life, and most of us aren't trying to be jerks.