Tuesday, November 9, 2010

audience participation

Riding home from work down 2nd avenue, around 50th or so, I was in the far right (bus) lane, cabbie swerves sharply into my lane, I cut around him to the left, he starts coming back into the lane he just left. I yell 'yo' (seems to be what always comes out of my mouth) and he looks at me and keeps coming over, so i move over a little, traffic slows, I flip him off and keep going. Move back to the right, all of a sudden there is all this honking and he's yelling at me through the open window on the passenger side, over a woman sitting in the passenger seat looking all freaked out. Then he speeds off, I chase him, and am happy to see he gets stopped at the light. Pull up next to him, signal him to roll down the window and ask him what he's yelling at me about. He says "you were in my lane". I ask him which one, the one he pulled into without signaling, making me go around him, or the one he then tried to shove me out of? he says "you were in my lane". over and over, we do this, I stupidly become fixated on the no turn signal and asked him if it would kill him to signal. A woman on the corner listening says "maybe he's from South Carolina, " the guy next to her says "no, probably Ohio", somebody else says "or Pennsylvania". I think everyone thinks their home state has the worst drivers.

3 comments:

  1. "I think everyone thinks their home state has the worst drivers."

    good one.

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  2. in like mind, this morning coming down the hill toward the Brooklyn-side entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, a taxi parked diagonally across both directions of the bike lane with a sidewalk on one side and concrete barriers to the other. The cabbie then got out of the car, opened the back door (across most of what little passing room there was) and started rummaging around in his back seat. I pulled up in front of the open door and said, "you kidding me?". he looked up over his shoulder and said, "but it's only for bikes coming uphill" referring to--apparently--the idea that it would have been OK blocking bikes coming up from the bridge ramp. I pointed to the two lanes clearly marked as functioning both directions as multiple other cyclists in both directions moved around him and he said, "Ok, ok, I understand" and went back to his rummaging.

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  3. "ok, i understand" seems to be used widely by cabbies to mean "fuck off, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing"

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