BRIGHT LIGHT AT NIGHT

 4156

The morning after the previous evening in which I interacted with the young lady whose car had left her stranded, eight hours later, but prior to sunrise, I was pedaling again.

I had just finished pedaling in and around a huge county park which is officially open 16 hours per day; (though the front gate is never closed). Now, I found my way down a sidewalk that I had pedaled countless times in the past.

As I neared the same intersection to which I have previously alluded, I saw it. More specifically, I saw a light, the bearer of which I was about to transect. I presumed it was the headlight of another bicycle. And since I was pedaling with traffic, it goes without saying, this guy wasn't; which put me in a very vulnerable position.

About that time I slowed, and moved my bicycle into the grass. When the supposed bicycle and bicyclist were 12-15 feet away, I realized I was about to run into a... motorcycle!!! (I kid you not).

I had seen this guy before. I had seen him driving the motorcycle on the sidewalk before. To be fair, it was a smaller version of this motorized vehicle, and it was obviously much slower, but...

As the young man passed me without so much as a word, I turned and yelled,

"Hey, dude! You're not supposed to be on the sidewalk with that thing!!!"

The young fella stopped ten feet behind me, and said,

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear what you said."

I lowered my voice a bit, but I still had to compensate for the noise of the cycle.

"Uhmmm, I said 'you're not supposed to be riding a motorcycle on the sidewalk!'"

"Jimmy" responded with words which indicated he figured he had every right to be where he found himself, or at least that he had done it many times before, and it wasn't a serious offense.

"Uh, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm going to work."

No doubt, I shook my head in disbelief, and repeated my previous words. I might just as well have said, 

"You're gonna kill yourself and somebody else riding a motorcycle the wrong way on a sidewalk in the dark."

With this, we both continued our respective journeys.

Initially, I felt badly about losing my temper. Later, my entire mindset towards our verbal interaction changed. I sincerely hope the tenor and volume of my words impacts the young man to move his motorcycle from the sidewalk to the street where it belongs.

by Bill McDonald, PhD