New traffic laws

I was thinking about my fellow bloggers the other day. I decided there was no good reason I couldn't do a 12 mile round trip (distance to the grocery store). So I hauled the beast out of the garage and started pedaling.

Heather, I've got a whole new respect for your commitment to getting around without a car now that the temperatures here have started climbing. And Green Bean, I thought about your beautiful sounding bike ride, wondering what I was missing, because mine wasn't that lovely at all. And I thought about Charles, and vowed that triahlete was never going to be a word to describe me.

To be fair, I was probably a little jaded yesterday. I had only gone about 1/2 mile, when I heard a car approaching behind me. I could tell it was moving pretty quickly, which I thought was odd since there was a clearly red light not far ahead. Next thing I knew, this guy was flying by me, leaning on his horn, and coming really really close to me. Like he wanted to scare me into thinking he was going to hit me.

Well, it worked. He scare the daylights out of me. I usually avoid confrontation like the plague, but I was MAD. So I did what any angry, overheated woman would do. He had come to a screeching halt after nearly sideswiping me, so I started yelling at him. Really loud. More like screaming, I guess. I think it went something like this "EXCUSE ME. EXCUSE ME. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? I SAID WHAT IS YOUR DAMN PROBLEM? HEY! HEY! YOU CAN'T JUST TRY TO RUN PEOPLE OVER BECAUSE THEY'RE IN YOUR WAY. JERK! HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING THAT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU NEED TO BEHAVE THAT WAY? HEY! JERK! HEY!"

Well you know what, he wouldn't even look at me, much less respond. After I tried so nicely to communicate and all that. I will admit that I have a bit of the proverbial Irish temper, and it was all I could do not to smash in the windows of his ugly ass fire engine red mini van, or let fly every curse word I know. And I know a lot. But I restrained myself - but I needed to retaliate in some way. I don't have a great ability to let things go right away. So I called the cops on him. I'm sure they didn't do anything - after all, a drunk lady smashing into my house with her gigantic SUV was a problem they "didn't have the manpower to deal with" so I'm sure this wasn't at the top of the pile, but a girl can dream.

At first I thought maybe I was over reacting, and although I will admit that my motivation was that I was really really angry, I actually believe this was an appropriate response. After all, a car is a deadly weapon if not handled responsibly. There's a reason that the term "vehicular manslaughter" exists, after all. Not only was this guy not driving in a manner safe for existing conditions (the condition being that I was also on the road), I consider what he did to be threatening with a deadly weapon.

Am I bit dramatic? Well, yes. But on the other hand, (mom skip to the next paragraph, please) there have been close to 200 bicyclists killed in my county in the past ten years. The problem is bad enough that there's going to be a Town Hall Meeting to Discuss our Bicycle Safety Crisis.

So without further ado, drivers, please follow the new traffic laws I've made up. Or I'll give you a fake ticket. And yell at you too. Here they are:

1. If you park on the street, open your eyes before you open the car door. Sure, bikes don't go as fast as cars, but we also need more than a foot of stopping distance. If you open a door into a biker you create a very dangerous situation.

2. Be aware of the bicycle rules in your area. It doesn't matter if you don't want to share the road, if the laws say that bikes need to ride on the road, that's the situation. Just like it doesn't matter whether you want to stop at a red light. That's what the law says. Deal with it. Or get off the road.

3. Don't intentionally try to scare people on bikes. It's not funny and you might get somebody hurt.

4. If there are just a few parked cars ahead that a bike is passing, don't squeeze yourself into the mix too. Slow down and let him or her finish passing the parked cars and pass the bike when you have a wider space to do so. It won't make you any later than you already are.

5. If you see a pothole, or a piece of garbage, or other crap ahead in the road, be aware that a bike can't just blow through/over/past that stuff like a car. We need to go around it, so if you see a biker ahead, don't assume he or she is going to keep to an arrow-straight path.

6. Right turn on red requires you to come to a complete stop first. Do so. You can't be sure of what is around you unless you do. This is for the safety of pedestrians too. I've seen several nearly taken out because various drivers were in too much of a rush.

I was thinking a lot yesterday about our human resource infrastructure (I made that up - basically I mean public employees like police and fire fighters) and how it needs to be overhauled to make it safe for people to be more environmentally conscious. Our city always talks about various green issues, but the vulnerability of the non-motorized vehicles on our roadways is a serious problem that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Pedestrians and cyclists should be fiercely protected, as should public transport passengers, especially when it's dark outside. That's called putting your money where your mouth is, and it's time we start doing it.

After I finished writing this post, but before I actually posted it, I saw on the news that today in my city a 12 year old girl was riding her bike home from the last day of school and was hit by an SUV and later died at the hospital. I will be keeping her and her family in my thoughts, and hope you will too. I don't know the details, so I'll try not to pass judgment on the driver, but what a tragedy - and how unneccessary.

Calling all scooter drivers

Pair of "real" vintage beauties
Originally uploaded by Todd Baker << technowannabe

Does anybody out there drive a scooter? I'm considering buying one. I have the bike, but this city isn't quite set up for easy biking everywhere, and the public transportation has limitations, especially if you go out at night. But I really hate driving the car - even though I think we get close to 30 mpg, it seems wasteful, especially when I don't really need a car for the storage space or anything, it's just that I don't have the energy (or the interest) to bike 30 miles on a regular basis.

Plus biking still freaks me out a little. I'm not convinced that the cars are actually looking out for me, and I'm not convinced I won't tip over at any moment in front of a moving car. I'll admit that I often get off the bike and walk across intersections because I'm not ever too sure when I first get going that I'll be able to keep the thing in a straight line and not fall off.

So does anybody have any suggestions? I'm definitely going to get something used, but aside from that, I don't really know what I want. Have you owned a scooter? Did you like it? Hate it? What kind did you have? Would you recommend it? Would you buy one again?

India

Charminar Hyderabad
Originally uploaded by JustABoy

Before I say anything, let me forewarn you that this is likely to be my lengthiest post yet…but it’s the weekend so you’ll have lots of time to digest, if you’re not too bored.

The time I spent recently in India delivered all the contradictions and ironies I had been promised. It’s a wonderful place to visit, and I truly enjoyed my stay there. It was the first time in ten years I’d been outside of North America or Europe, and it reminded me of just how different life can be in different corners of the globe. The number of trees I need to plant to offset my travel notwithstanding, I do think it’s important from time to time, if possible, to interact in a deeply meaningful way with another culture.

I was there for the first of my two weddings (we’re doing it again in the US this fall for all our friends and family here), and spent five weeks, mainly in Hyderabad. I don’t mean to claim that I speak about all of India, and want to just put out the disclaimer that this is just my experience and observations that I’m sharing.

I think my relationship with material things is what I’ve reflected upon most since my return. This really surprised me. I thought before I left that the poverty and unequal distribution of wealth would be most difficult for me to stomach. There certainly were days that I had tears in my eyes, when the poverty was just overwhelming. I felt like throwing up more than once (separate from the times I felt like throwing up from the three or four stomach bugs I contracted).

For some reason, however, I was really slapped in the face by how much STUFF we have in North America…and how much of it is absurdly unnecessary. I don’t know why I didn’t notice this on my past travels. I suspect it’s due to my lack of maturity at the time. For whatever reason, it’s been a very heavy weight I’ve been carrying with me ever since my return.

I believe that simple is best, so I’ll try to summarize as briefly as possible, the ironies, from a simplicity/frugality/environmental standpoint, that I witnessed.

Here’s what was not cool:

1. There is trash everywhere. Public trashcans were difficult to find or non-existent. I asked the driver of our car one day what I should do with a gum wrapper and water bottle I had, and he told me he’d take care of them. I found them later on the street in front of the house. Not quite what I meant. So I started saving my trash and throwing it out in the house. Then I realized that the man who took care of the house was burning it all every morning. Not sure that’s super healthy. There was a super smelly impromptu landfill that had sprung up about 2 miles from where we were staying. The trash that was officially collected from that side of town was being dumped here because the official landfill was too far away, and well, nobody had complained.

2. I didn’t see a single way to recycle anything the entire time I was there.

3. Air pollution is a major problem. It was often hard to breath, and I could never get my face to feel clean for more than half an hour at a time.

Here’s what was awesome:

1. Everybody eats local. There’s not really much choice. Most people still buy their produce from vendors on the side of the road, and those guys only sell what they’ve harvested recently. I’m worried that as the middle class grows, this may begin to change. Grocery stores are just starting to spring up everywhere, and the huge conglomerate is not something that only exists in North America (check out Tata or Birla). I was glad to hear my MIL say that she still goes out of her way to buy things from the local shop owner when she can because she knows it’s getting more difficult for them to make it with big corporate competition. I hope more people feel the same way.

2. Everybody eats a lot of vegetarian food. I know we’ve been hearing lots in the media about how the increased demand for meat from India and China are driving up food prices and causing grain shortages. I do not dispute the accuracy of this argument. I would stress, however, that “increased demand” doesn’t mean that Chinese and Indian folks are now eating meat three times a day. I don’t know what the case is in China, but I imagine it’s similar – increased demand means that a lot of people now eat meat once or twice a week rather than once a twice a month. A lot of people are still totally vegetarian for religious reasons. I think that if the US demand per capita for meat was equal to that of an average Indian person, we’d be patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.

3. Lots of people have electricity, but very few of them expect it to function all the time. There are frequent power outages of varying lengths, some announced, and some not. The funniest part to me, is that the conversation never skips a beat, even when the lights go out, it’s totally dark, and everybody is fumbling to find candles and matches.

4. Water is trucked in and stored in tanks. Everybody is cognizant that there is a very finite supply, and uses it much more carefully than we do in the US. Showers, for example, are taken by filling a bucket (maybe four gallons or so) and using a smaller bucket to dump the water on yourself to wash and rinse with.

5. Nobody uses toilet paper. Actually I’m not sure if this is actually awesome or not, because they use water instead, so I guess it’s a matter of “dueling resources” at this point. Either way, I wasn’t brave enough to try this method - although I probably should have, because good luck finding anything other than single ply. What is awesome is that paper towels and facial tissue are also virtually non-existent.

6. Each power outlet has an on/off switch. I’ve heard this is also the case in Australia, and probably other places as well, but it makes it really easy to ensure that appliances are really off and not sucking energy. This is important because electricity is super expensive - so much so that despite the fact that it’s hotter and muggier (at least for parts of the year) than anywhere here in North America, almost nobody has air conditioning. There are fans, and “coolers” that work by somehow circulating water through this big thing that has some hay (I’m not a real technical person, if you can’t tell) but these both use much less energy than an air conditioner. Life without AC is possible!

7. Everybody squeezes in – everywhere. Fuel is expensive, so a van for ten people will somehow manage to accommodate twelve to fifteen people for a six hour trip. There are small little vehicles called autos – sort of like giant motorized tricycles with roofs – that look like they’d comfortably seat three passengers and a driver. I’ve seen them packed with seven and more passengers. Safety concerns, I know…I’m just saying that I’ll think next time before taking a second car somewhere just so somebody doesn’t have to sit in the middle seat. Buses are another story altogether. If you’re claustrophobic, you just wouldn’t make it. People literally ride the bus with one foot on the step, holding on to the door frame, because the buses are so crowded.

8. Along with the squeezing in theme, growing up and getting married is not automatically a reason to get your own house. Again, I’m not sure I’d like to do this, but lots of people live with parents and/or in-laws.

9. Because electricity is so expensive, people make do with smaller refrigerators. Humans originally started using spices for a reason, and lots of spices in the foods help them to stay edible without refrigeration.

10. Clothes are always dried on a line. I don’t think dryers are even readily available for purchase.

11. Packaging is much more minimal. Bulk purchase of many items is the only option – you can’t buy a box of rice; it comes in a large sack or you scoop it from a bin. Leftover food in restaurants is packed in folded newsprint rather than Styrofoam containers. Nearly everything you will find for sale has little to no packaging – and almost always, there is less packaging than you’d find for the same item in North America.

12. Stuff gets reused…even when it’s not in pristine condition. I sent my laundry out one day in a bag whose handle was about to break. I figured I’d get it back in a new bag, but I got it back in that same bag – with the handle taped back on. There’s a value placed on things that seems to be lacking in North American culture.

What worries me is that the reason why we don’t do some of these things here in the US seems to be simply a matter of financially not being forced to. For example, we have clothes dryers because we have inexpensive electricity. When I stopped looking at things in terms of dollars is when I started being able to appreciate the true value of how things are done elsewhere in the world, and when I started wanting to live less like a “typical” consumer.

All aboard!

Train entering the new Don Bosco trainstation
Originally uploaded by theowl84

Hey…good news for the stupid drunk chick who hit my house with her gigantic SUV over the weekend (yep, that really happened). Ok, well, actually, the bad news first: hit and run is against the law, and you might have to go to jail.

I try really hard not to judge other people’s choices, but honestly, I have been thinking for four straight days now, and I cannot for the life of me imagine why somebody would need to drive a vehicle that large to go out and get wasted beyond belief. I guess the punishment does fit the crime; she should definitely lose her license. Forever.

As you can tell, I’m a little bitter about this whole thing. I'm too angry to even write very well. I mean, who hits a house hard enough to take a piece out of it, and then drives away?!?!?! She clearly should not have been driving, period...we're actually lucky that it was our house she hit and not another car or pedestrian.

I feel that somebody as blatantly selfish and irresponsible as this person has proven herself to be has lost some of her rights to make choices...maybe we should have a law that if you can't keep your giant SUV under control, you can't have one. If she’d been driving a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle, it wouldn’t have been able to climb the six inch curb in front of the house, it wouldn’t have been able to run over the three foot hedge between the house and the sidewalk, and it wouldn’t have been tall enough to take out the window sill in my office.

Even if she was running that thing on alternative fuels (somehow I doubt it), one source points out that the corn needed to produce one tank of biofuel is enough to feed a person for an entire year. That makes me feel sick to think about.

Anyway, I digress. The good news for stupid drunk chick who hit my house with her gigantic SUV is that we actually have public transportation in this area…so smile lady, because when you get out of jail, you’ll have a way to get around town.

I decided that to get to the Earth Day event today, I’d finally take the plunge and get on the train instead of driving. It’s only about four or five miles, and according to google maps (which now allows you to plan your trip using public transportation) it was going to take about forty-five minutes.

Well, to make a long story short, I walked for forty minutes, went to the first train station, found it was closed, walked to a second train station, which was also closed, and found out I had to take a bus before I finally was able to board a train. It took just under two hours total - I was exhausted! It was an ordeal, but in the end I was glad I did it. The trains were immaculate, it saves money over driving, and the Earth Day event was full of farmers, vendors, music, snacks, and booths with lots of info about how to help the planet. Getting home was an adventure too…but I made it.

I'd like to end by giving a tip of the hat, as Mr. Colbert would say, to Mom. She heard her local radio host talking about how his wife and kid picked up some trash off the street for Earth Day. The co-host commented something to the effect of "yeah, since it's still too cold to plant anything, I guess that's about all we can do." Instead of just thinking about how totally not true that is, Mom called up the radio station and, using her best teacher voice, I'm sure, educated them on various other things they could do to celebrate Earth Day, cold weather and all, such as bringing reusable bags to the store, and not drinking bottled water. Good job!