Speed Limits

I think the City of Vancouver's proposal to lower speed limits to 40km/h on side streets is a great idea. It's not really that complicated, either:

The new limit would apply to most local side streets while most major streets would keep their current speeds. As a general rule, if the street has a yellow line down the middle, it would stay at 50 km/h. If it doesn't have a yellow line, it would likely become 40 km/h. Those areas that are currently 30 km/h, such as playground and school zones, would remain at 30km/h.

Actually, that is probably too complicated for your average Vancouver driver to figure out.

Closer... closer... wait, too close.

I was riding to work today, along 45th avenue. I could hear a car approaching from behind. I was riding just out of the door-zone.

Just as the car was about to pass me, I put my hand out at what turned out to be mirror-level. So My hand was at most one foot from my body. My hand was smacked by the car's mirror.

Question: Did the car pass me too closely?

This is why I often ride around with a set of keys in my left hand.

Two ways to make automobiles stop

I've discovered two things that a cyclist can do to make a motorist stop their car and sit there motionless:

• Make a right turn signal (you know, left arm out and bent at the elbow, hand pointing up). This confuses the hell out of the vast majority of Vancouver drivers. If I'm planning to turn right and a driver is stopped at a stop sign to my right, making the right-turn signal will freeze the driver. They will not go across the intersection until I turn right, even though in the reality-based universe our paths do not intersect each other.
• Stop and put one foot down at a four-way stop. It seems that the way to convince a driver that you are about to dash into the intersection is to remove your foot from the pedal and make it impossible to propel yourself forward. This happened to me this morning. I came up to a four-way stop and a car approaching from my left got there first. I hovered for a second, but the driver would not go. So to convince him/her that I was really stopping, I put my right foot down. Then we stared at each other for about seven more seconds.

Entrenched behaviours

This is a screenshot of a forum posting. A person has lost their driver's license and so is wondering where to buy a small helicopter. Seriously: Where to look to buy a helicopter?

Anything, anything but riding public transport, or car-pooling. Or Heaven forbid, cycling.

A little over the top

Media release from VPD.ca:

Road Rage Incident
2007-07-12

July 11th, 6:30 p.m. - A Vancouver man is facing charges after a road rage incident in the area of Boundary Rd. and Kingsway. Officers in the area were flagged down by concerned motorists. It started when the driver of a black Audi cut off a pick-up truck. When they were side-by-side at a stoplight, the driver of the pick-up truck yelled at the other driver, who then got out of his car and began punching the driver of the pick-up truck. When the light changed, he got back in his car, but at the next stoplight, he got out and assaulted the other driver again.

Police arrived and arrested Ya Qi Wen, 28, who is now charged with mischief and assault. The driver of the pick-up truck, a 63 year old Vancouver man, suffered minor injuries.

So this 28 year old idiot goes through the whole effort of getting out of his fancy Audi, twice, to beat on a 63 year old man (who understandably expressed his righteous indignation at being cut off by a soon-to-be-confirmed idiot in an Audi), and he only manages to inflict minor injuries. My intuition about the people who drive these fancy cars in Vancouver is confirmed. Pathetic weaklings, every last one of them.