Scope for kindness, consideration
MY plan was not to start the new year on a sour note. That would have been noice, different, and unyooshual, as keen Aussie observers Kath and Kim might say.
A year ago, I sought more kindness and consideration for cyclists, so I would live to cycle into 2019.
The living has been achieved, although I am not allowed on my bike for a month as I recuperate after surgery to remove half a meccano set from my elbow (installed after a cycling mishap more than a decade ago).
Kindness and consideration for cyclists in 2018 was not often heralded.
Some media commentators seem determined to misinterpret any information which might support cycling. Maybe it is in their employers’ interests to make mischief in this area — get a few clips of cyclist versus car/truck road rage or cyclists behaving badly, put it on your website and bingo! Those who want to believe the worst of cyclists will flock and share their vitriol with their gas guzzling friends and lo, lazy journalists will have another story. So predictable. So pointless.
I wonder if the haters are envious of those of us who have chosen to get out of the car as much as possible for our daily commute?
I have tried to limit car use to one trip a week. Over about a year I clocked up about 7000km on my electric bike. Wind, rain and cold do not deter me, although I am nervous about ice after my previous bone shattering experience.
Perhaps it seems mad to those stuck in their warm comfortable cars, but I love it. As someone with a precarious income, I can save money on travel and parking and painlessly get exercise at the same time.
I am ashamed to say I want to childishly yell out ‘‘Suckers!’’ when I encounter crawling rushhour cars while happily zipping along beside them on a cycleway.
Sometimes, despite my wet weather gear, I get soaked, but hey, that’s nothing to a Murchison girl. Having said that, however, I hope the new shared cycle/walkways being added to the Otago peninsula will have better drainage than the existing one around Macandrew and Company bays. Puddles quickly form there in many places when it rains, a design fault which does not encourage usage by cyclists or pedestrians.
I also wonder about the height of the barriers along Dunedin’s oneway cycleway system. How many people trying to get out of parked cars next to those slabs will have slips and trips? It’s quite awkward alighting from my old Toyota Corolla. Did designers assume everybody drives vehicles with a greater clearance?
When cycling, I still encounter some silly driving and mysterious abuse, but I also experience courtesy. I have already written of the thoughtfulness of the Fulton Hogan truck drivers using Portobello Rd. I also applaud those motorists who have stopped in rushhour traffic and popped their hazard lights on to allow me across Wharf St near Plato Restaurant, and those who have reversed when blocking my way crossing a shared cycle/walkway.
But enough about cycling. My new year grumpiness followed what should have been a fun beach trip with my effervescent 4yearold granddaughter.
The tide was well on its way out, but the water was a good depth for her to lollop about excitedly, getting progressively wetter and happily talking to anyone she met.
On one lollop she encountered two girls a few years older than her. She showed them a scrap of seaweed she had found. They asked her how old she was and afterwards referred to her as ‘‘4yearold’’.
They then started gathering mud and whatever else they could find, saying they had a ‘‘present’’ or ‘‘prize’’ for her. It was clear to me from my vantage point on a nearby rock that, should she come near enough, they would throw it at her.
She had the nous to move well away from them to play on the rocks and did not respond, but they kept up the call for her to come back for the ‘‘prize’’. It was only when I told them I didn’t think their ‘‘prize’’ was a nice one, that they gave up.
I am under no illusion that little girls (or boys for that matter) are sugar and spice and all things nice and I am sure I was as rotten as anyone as a child.
But what I found heartstabbingly poignant and unfair was that a 4yearold has already learned how to recognise and avoid the petty unkindness of strangers.
Now, she’s almost a cyclist (she got a bike for Christmas) will she need to hone this skill?
I’m still hoping for a 2019 outbreak of kindness and consideration.
Noice. Different. Unyooshual.