Random Memos to People Who Daily Threaten My Life

-Dear cars parked on the sidewalk:

This is a sidewalk; it's where PEOPLE walk or bike. I don't care if you are just going in to pick up flowers for your wife or if you have to drop off the mail. It's a sidewalk and you're in my way.


-Dear people in cars that come speeding out of parking lots in front of me:

GET OFF YOUR CELLPHONES (and look both ways).


-Dear business men on bicycles:

GET OFF YOUR CELLPHONES.

P.S. To one other business man on a bicycle: Wait until you get home to read Manga - reading a book and bicycling on a busy road is not a good idea.


-Dear five students (every 100 meters) getting out of school:

Don't ride five abreast down the sidewalk in the busiest part of town with your pals riding piggyback on the back of your bikes. And when someone is coming toward you - MOVE or get into a single file line. I know your lives suck because you spend six days a week in school and have to dress like the von Trapp family children every waking hour, but C'mon! (is that how that's spelt?)



-Dear old man (or sometimes woman walking bent forward as if she were carrying a boulder on her back) wandering aimlessly back and forth in front of me, countering my every attempt to pass:

Please turn up your hearing aid!!!! I know my little bell is quaint sounding and could be missed with all of the traffic noise swelling around you, but really - can't you hear the glass-shattering squeal of my brakes as I slam to a stop to keep from hitting you?
I know you are probably using your age to pretend that you cannot hear my approach, and you are getting some sort of perverse pleasure watching the bald foreign guy try and choose between hitting a post or knocking over 10 bicycles lined up outside a shop, but give me a break. Also, I would appreciate it if you would not stare at me as if I were some creature from another world.


Dear everyone who wanders aimlessly out of stores with their eyes up in the sky, never looking where they are going:

Don't decide to stop just in the center of the sidewalk to contemplate the weather, and don't scowl at me because you almost got hit. You're so overly polite at pedestrian crossings and you never J-walk, so why can't you use the same care when on the sidewalk?


Dear all of you in combination:

THIS IS NOT FROGGER!

***


A small note: Back in the States, I always biked on the road with the cars, but here, tho' I'm sure the law is the same, every biker rides on the sidewalks. At the crosswalks they even have a bike lane next to the pedestrian cross that leads from one sidewalk to another, so I'm not just being that jerk on the bike who rides on the sidewalk and gets in everyone's way - we all ride on the sidewalk (it's far too dangerous on the road with the cars).

Also, like in the States, I am endlessly annoyed that people on foot or bike don't follow traffic patterns. I have even tried biking on the left side of the sidewalk, but even this doesn't work.