why are we such idiots?

I will admit I don't always do the smart thing on a bike. I made a spur of the moment decision last night to make a stop to look for a birthday gift for the wife that had me cutting through some unusual streets. If there had been more traffic, I made some decisions that would not have been wise. But every now and then I see someone do something so stupid, then immediately do it again, that I have to ask myself if we're all just idiots for riding.

Chicago is not difficult to navigate. Most streets are laid out in a plain grid, with the occasional diagonal like Lincoln, Clybourn, Elston, or Milwaukee cutting through. These streets can save you some time, but I would not recommend rolling through a stop light at a six-way intersection. And yet people do. Like the guy that skidded past me this morning, only to nearly be run over by a Children's Memorial shuttle turning left. And then the no. 11 bus almost got him at the next light, where he did the same thing.

If the guy had stayed ahead of me I wouldn't have cared. That he slowed down after that, only to get upset enough when I passed him to glare at me, pushed my buttons a little. As he passed me at the light before wells, I asked him if he didn't want to try and trackstand again. I was sure there was another bus coming. He didn't care for that. For a second I thought he might actually stop and say something, but he kept riding. So did I, but that was the last of it.

Seriously, we must all be idiots. Most of us sure as hell ride like one.

Current beer-scale: 5.1 and climbing with a late meeting tonite.