I was going to keep my mouth shut about this, but I decided that its been a couple days since it happened, and I’m still kind of annoyed about it, so here I am posting about it.
On Sunday afternoon I had just gotten off the bus at Queen and Carlaw. I had waited for the light to change so that I would have the proper signal to walk, and cross the street safely. The bus I just got off was waiting there at the corner as well.
About half way across the street, just about in the middle of the road, all of a sudden to my left, a cyclist came speeding out of nowhere, nearly missing me, about 1 foot in front of me. He turned right (heading west) along queen. He basically crossed over the cross walk for pedestrians (there were about 4 people there crossing), nearly missing at least 2 of us and continued on his way. I was a little more than annoyed that he almost ran into me (I was carrying some expensive music gear) and yelled “What the fuck!” – expecting he was probably going to ignore me, I kept walking east.
Then about 10 feet after I had crossed the road, he came up beside me and started grilling me about yelling at him. I told him that he almost hit me and the other people that were crossing the sidewalk (who had the right of way). He replied with “well, I actually only almost hit you”. I asked him if he knew the rules for cyclists, and he just said yes I know the laws. So I told him that he’s a vehicle, pointing out the fact that he crossed the cross walk at a dangerous speed, and nearly drove into me. He asked me if I knew the rules.
My point is, his ignorance really pissed me off. I have a great respect for cyclists, its dangerous riding on the roads, and they seem to do a pretty good job about it, despite in most cases, not having proper cycling lanes. I also respect them for taking a lot of flack lately, and fighting back about not being given proper consideration on the road. However, I believe that the inconsistant number of cyclists on the road who follow the rules, and don’t follow the rules will be the downfall of the whole ‘Cyclists are equal’ movement in Toronto. These people who don’t follow the rules are making it dangerous for themselves, and pedestrians – who probably aren’t wearing safety gear.