SAFETY! - Coming Soon to a Bike Lane Near You!

I was riding to work - 'cause I'm eco-leet like that - when I noticed the head of the familiar, stenciled humanoid cyclist in the bike-lane had been replaced by a largeish, industrial grade rivet. I thought this was odd because you do, in fact, need a head to ride a bike. Then I realized that the little fella - I know it's a guy because female signage involves a skirt, e.g. "Women" restroom signs and the gender diverse "children crossing" signs - had stepped up his personal safety a notch or two by putting on a helmet.


Good for him, I thought. Now when he's run over countless times during the day his little painted pate will be in much less danger of being seriously damaged. And then I thought, why stop with just helmets? Why, there's plenty of other things people do while riding that's dangerous.

I see people texting - or t-ing as I call it 'cause it's shorter, as in "I'll t you the directions," or "I just t-ed him about our impending divorce" - so we should encourage cyclists to not use cell phones while riding. And eating while biking, especially fast food 'cause that's bad for you anyway, isn't a good idea either. Nor is drinking while riding, and of course smoking, which, like fast food, counts as a double bad.

But at the same time I realized that as long we're encouraging people to avoid certain things while riding a bike, or at all, we could be championing causes as well.

"What made the list?" you query in an inquisitive tone, thus utilizing inflection to make sure I know that you're asking a question and not just beginning a sentence and then pausing dramatically. "Recycling?" Natch. "Sunblock use?" 'Course. "What about butt padding? 'Cause one time my cousin hit his tail bone pretty bad and he said it really hurt, and I wouldn't want that to happen while I was riding my bike." Amigo, I heard ya' there.

And in addition to butt padding I thought why not some groin protection, for both men and the ladies, 'cause getting hit "there" hurts everybody. Also: eye protection, knee protection, preemptive neck-brace, football style flak jacket and elbow pads. And, if the stenciled bike-lane-guy had ankles, wrists, feet or hands, I'd have included protection for those, too.

Though this dramatic "re-imagining" - to borrow a phrase from re-make happy Hollywood - would necessitate the use of a second paint color - red for safety, of course - I think it could be paid for by increasing taxes on cigarettes, fast food, booze and cell phones. My better, more utopian graphic would look something like this.


Also, people should empty the lint trap from the dryer when they're done. Leaving it for the next person to clean out is tantamount to murder.

After having my vivid, Constantine-esque vision of what a world with safer cyclists might look like, I realized that some harm is simply unavoidable. Even with the proper padding - and eye, sun, lung and artery protection - every cyclist on the road is just one errant driver away from utilizing that other oft-stenciled street logo. And if it, your-favorite-deity forbid, should ever come to pass that you ended up in a wheel chair, I imagine you'd just say "To hell with it," and quit worrying so much, at which point your street signage might look something like this.