Hope it was good.
Today was worse than usual for me, in terms of mistreatment from the
motoring menace and its arms of repression. Usually I don't write up
these experiences. And believe me, the below story is far from complete.
I left a lecture on city planning in which I was told that pedestrian
malls "killed the cities of America," which seemed more than a bit of an
overstatement. Perhaps this set the tone for what was to come.
Riding my bike to my next destination, about four blocks away, I hovered
at a red light. Just missed it. No traffic in sight. All the
pedestrians jaywalking. Yet I wait. And wait. Hovering. Trackstand.
Wait because the $300 plus fine is an injustice I don't feel like having
to fight. So I wait for no good reason, whatsoever. Just as the light
changes, someone in a sportscar speeds at an alarming rate, and runs the
light in front of me. Because at that point (with a green light) I was in
the crosswalk, he sneered out the window and shook his finger.
"Naughty."
That was the first block. Two blocks later I had to trackstand again. A
limo was taking its extraordinary time to turn. Four-way stop. Wait and
wait. Big limo lumbers to navigate turn. Finally it's going. I start up
and regain my position in the bike lane. Some jerk juts his head up out
of a rear window and shouts, "God's Gonna Kill Osama Tomorrow, A******."
Evidently he didn't like my sign: "Bicycling: A Quiet Statement Against
Oil Wars." This made me scared to park my bike, since I'm sure they were
still watching me through their tinted windows. Typical problem.
Next I went downtown to reschedule a trial date. I shouldn't have to deal
with these tickets at all. You might have read my story:
http://bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/PRC-JasonMeggs-20050626.pdf
The slip said to go to the clerk's office. In fact, the guy who gave me
the slip, who I asked how I could change the date, told me to go to the
clerk's office. So I did. I waited and waited. Again. That's the third
time I've been to the office for this. So far I've invested over ten
hours in these two tickets, if I include writing up the complaint. (I
do.)
When it came time to be seen by a clerk, the fact that my trial has been
set for Oakland (I refused Commissioner Rantzman in Berkeley due to his
well-documented prejudice against bicyclists) caused a delay of up to an
hour. Lots of run-around. One clerk actually ripped away the paper they
had given me, that said to come to them to change my trial date, and would
not give it back. Since it was stapled to my docket sheet, she ripped
that too! The office said they could not change it and could not call
Oakland (even though they call Oakland to set the dates during
arraignment) and would not give me the number. At great length I got a
manager to tell me how to go to Oakland to change the date, and the phone
number.
So I called the number. They close at 4 PM. Thanks to the delay, it was
now close to 4. When I got through, the person argued with me that I
needed to be in Berkeley for a good five minutes, making me repeat myself
(politely) over and over. This is the glorious Alameda County court
system. She clarified that I needed to change the date within ten
business days, and that there was a holiday in the way. My slip just said
ten days, not ten business days. Today, it turns out, was thus the last
day. I had one minute to get there. Not gonna happen. I asked for a fax
number to send the request. The Berkeley slip says you can ask for a
continuance in writing, by mail. Why not by fax, to Oakland? She went to
put me on hold and I said, "What if I get disconnected? What's your name
and direct line?" She refused to give them, and I was soon disconnected.
4:01 PM. I called back. Closed. Call back tomorrow, said the recording.
Oh well! Absolute power = absolute corruption, right?
Time for more errands. Head south. I turn off a bicycle boulevard to go
to a grocery store and someone in the wrong lane, double parked, suddenly
started moving fast, and turned across my path to diagonally park --
without signaling. I ring my bell (he had an open passenger side window)
and shout, slow down and hug the edge of the road to avoid being hit.
The driver starts screaming at me. He thinks I shouldn't have been going
straight.
I pushed on through the streets to go to my bank, to fill out paperwork
because someone started using my credit card (no idea how, but they're
buying tickets on the east coast -- presumably to scalp them). The fun
never ends! I only got the credit card because I needed a cell phone
because I needed to help defend Critical Mass San Francisco from the
police. I was anti-credit card.
My cooperative sends me lots of car loan ads. They do have a new bike
rack, but they put it so close to the building that you can only park a
few bikes there, and only flush against the rack, so it can only handle a
few bikes. I've complained about both issues and described this as an
equity issue; I suggested putting the rack in the middle of a car parking
space. As far as I know they've totally ignored me on both counts.
Today, the rack was too full to park there. So I took the bike in. A
security guard tried to push me out and failed. (Another bank I frequent
in Berkeley lets me bring the bike in, by the way.)
By this point, the usual calm I exude when dealing with motorists crushing
my friends' bikes, with police giving bogus tickets and arrests at
demonstrations, and the like, began to frazzle a little bit. Dare I
say...I was pissed! PISSEDPISSEDPISSEDPSSEDPISSEED!
So when you get treated like this on a daily basis by the car culture,
what do you do? This is a question for all of us. Even in Berkeley,
there's still so much crap hitting us as we move through the streets, and
there is really so little being done to correct this, despite our hard
work. What's the next level we can go to, to see some real change?
I'm sure most if not all of you have experienced the bad things thrown our
way as bicyclists (and pedestrians): you've been harassed, chased,
slapped, had objects thrown at you, been jumped, had expensive tickets for
victimless "crimes" like riding politely on the sidewalk, and suffered the
daily health injuries of stress, trauma, and the perpetual damage to our
lungs caused by the lead, NOx, latex particles, diesel spit, and more
that's spewed at us by the motor-go monopoly on public space and travel.
All this being subsidized in a million ways, by trillions of dollars.
We're far too quiet.
Jason
p.s. Most of you may not realize that I wasn't always the mild mannered
Meggs you see before you today. No, I used to go out and make statements,
and even engage in (gasp) civil disobedience, which is really all you can
peaceably do in the face of entrenched, outrageous corruption and abuse
like this. Yes? No?
So: Talk about your perpetual frustation! Days like today remind me of
how much resistance the bicycle movement has experienced. Where did it
begin? (Late 1800s?) Where will it end? (End of oil?) Yet in some ways
we've come a long way. On the logarithmic continuum of pulling ourselves
up by our bikestraps I'd say we're at least at 0.0035, much better than
the 0.007 of a decade ago.
p.p.s. When are we going to do something about the outrageous fines and
unwarranted criminialization imposed upon bicycling?
