[*BCM*] Be the change you want to see in the world & SUVs

[Tom Revay]

>On 6/7/2006 at 12:23 PM Jon Ramos wrote:
>My comment about shouting "I love you" was directed at turtle's earlier
>comment about how *many suv drivers* are trying to make up for a lack of
>fulfillment in their life (specifically love).  

Understood, and I'm not trying to bust your bearings. 8-)

>My belief is that *many* suv drivers are in their own
>personal safety isolation shell, and are frankly don't consider to check
>their blind spots because they are lazy and inconsiderate of others.

I agree, but I think the laziness and disregard for others is rampant in many drivers, and it is unfortunately tolerated by our society.  The larger the vehicle, the more obvious and greater the consequences of this lack of consideration.  And the justifications for this disregard boder on the insane.

In fact, I had an illustrative experience of this insanity on Grove Road in Framingham this past Sunday.  Riding home from Concord, I was passed without consequence on this winding, two-lane road by a succession of about six vehicles rolling in column like a platoon of mechanized infantry.  The fourth of these was a Saturn VUE SUV, the driver of which leaned on her horn as she passed.

The column halted at a stop sign less than 0.2 mile up the road.  The fourth vehicle was in line, its operator waiting.  Clearly, my presence on the roadway did nothing to delay her, because she would have had to wait behind the motorists in front of her.  Had she chosen not to pass me, she would have ended up in the same position in the column.  But pass she did, and in a rude manner.

When I asked her, in an agitated voice, what trauma she suffered that would cause her to fall forward on her horn, she retorted, "You're going to cause an accident!".

Interesting.  She believes the mere presence of a bicyclist on the roadway is a *cause* of an accident.  Not the actions of the motorists passing the bicycle, over whom the bicyclist has no control, and not the response of the bicyclist to an audible assault, the surprise of which might make him feel as though he's going to jump out of his own skin.  Just his being on the road *causes* an accident!

Diagnosis?  JPN -- Just Plain Nuts.

...........................................Tom