Heck of a fun day today. And, relevant to the photo. It's old, but, you know? hang onto something long enough and it'll eventually become relevant. As you can see, it's a stop sign. You know, the things that are supposed to tell people to stop? When you're riding a bicycle, if you've got any sort of survival instinct at all, you do. People sitting comfortably inside 2,000 pounds of metal, however, well, to them it seems to be optional. At least, it was to the driver who hit me this morning on my way to work. Boy, that's some fun, I'll tell you. Especially that half second when I realized that, golly, the front end of that SUV seems to be half an inch away, moving faster than I'd really like it to be. My next memory is of being on the ground and being really, really - and I can't state this too strongly - REALLY angry. And, later - much later - glad not to own a large handgun. 'Cause I'd have turned the guy and his SUV into Swiss cheese otherwise. As it was, I just spent a good few minutes getting seriously Nixon-oid on him (there's a generational joke if there ever was one).

There are no penalties to drivers for running down cyclists, unless you count a scratch on the front bumper's paint a penalty. For the cyclist, however, well - paraplegia, anyone? Quadriplegia? Death? I got lucky. Scrapes. Bruises. Probably some soreness, stiffness tomorrow. And my bike out of action till repairs get made.

The thing is, it brings up the question: Why bother to obey traffic laws? I was hit at a 4-way stop. I stopped, looked, assumed that the driver approaching the intersection from my right would do the same when he got there, and rode on. Big mistake. I should have just run it. After all - he did.

So, drivers? When you're cursing cyclists who seem disinclined to obey traffic laws? It's because we don't want to die at your hands. Because you either don't see us (and I was wearing a bright yellow jacket, riding a bright yellow-and-red bike, and wearing a red and white helmet - how can you not see me?), or regard us as amusing targets.

In some large cities, cyclists have apparently taken to carrying hammers attached to the crossbar of their bikes. Not an all bad idea, really. Wouldn't be able to do damage anything like an SUV body-blow, but...

Well, enough whining. "Americans"! Let us good folks of British Columbia take over. You'll feel muuuuuch better. Really.