Share the Road

The other day I almost pulled a Bob Novak--except I was on my bike, not in my performance Chevrolet sports car.

Except whereas good ol' Bob took a right turn into an 86-year-old homeless man, who had the right of way, I almost collided with a young yuppie chatting on his cell phone, who stood on the sidewalk until I had the light, then stepped out directly in front of me.

He gave me a nasty look as I stopped abruptly and fell off my pedals, then he continued to cross against the light. I turned around to see him jog to the island in the middle of the road as two lanes of rush hour traffic blocked his path.

Have I mentioned that DC has probably the easiest-to-read, most-pedestrian-friendly crossing signals in the country? To walk out in front of oncoming traffic, this guy waited as the signal ticked down from about 14 to the solid red hand and 00--then kept waiting for the few seconds both lights were red, and then! he started walking.

He's lucky I'm not as quick on the pedal trigger as the guy in the lime green mustang who almost hit me last week. And that I was riding the wrong way down a one-way street, giving him time to get to that island unscathed.