"April is the cruelest month" - T.S. Eliot
The seasonal bully, early spring, teasing bike messengers with the promise of the summer's warmth, only to repeatedly smack us across the face with cold rain, near freezing nights, and this year, a glut of road - rage focused at cyclists.
The entire city was abuzz last week with the news of an angry young rookie smashing the windshield of a livery car. After a decade of getting doored, grazed by side views, run over, run into, etc I'm really surprised this makes news. When cars hit cyclists, it gets no notice, when a cyclist hits a car it ends up in the paper and on the nightly news. Now that's a strange one way street of double standards.
Case in point:
The same day this kid smashed a windshield, one of our founding partners, Dan G, was sideswiped on Bleeker st on his way home from dinner. The cab hit him, tried to drive away before our friend Bill successfully chased him down, got in front of the car, and called the cops.
The x-ray above is Dan's wrist. It's broken. Really broken. Surgically-repair required broken. I wonder how many times a cyclist - driver collision has resulted in the driver receiving percutaneous pins?
Dan's accident didn't make the paper (despite the fact that the driver tried to flee the scene of the accident -- a crime he wasn't even ticketed for). No one was outraged. It passed into history without note, except by us.
We are all wishing Dan the best for surgery, and a speedy and uneventful convalescence.
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