by Mike Barnicle,
Boston Globe, July 25, 1989
 

I'm walking along State Street at high noon the other day, and there is a big, fat woman just ahead of me. She is almost the size of the 32 bus to Copley Square. Naturally, she is carrying a bunch of plastic containers filled with take-out stuff from one of the get-rich-quick poison palaces in Quincy Market.

Traffic is stopped at the light. The big woman steps off the curb just as a bike messenger comes past faster than a false fact out of Mike Dukakis' mouth. The biker narrowly avoids hitting her which sure would have meant the end of
him.

The woman goes down on her keister. Egg rolls and chicken wings rain from the sky. Seeing the poor woman fall was like watching the Hancock Tower topple slowly.

My friend and I went to see if we could help. I have a bad back so I was being careful with my offer of assistance. Off her size, I felt like maybe we should call Marr Equipment rental and get a hoist to pick her up off the pavement. A couple of other kindhearted citizens stopped to help haul her off the asphalt.

The guy on the bike never paused. Never looked back. Just bolted through the light and up Court Street. So I think it's time to consider the death penalty for these foolish people on bikes who insist on placing so many pedestrians in harm's way. They are a menace.

Now don't get all aggravated and hit the phone in order to abuse me. Mostly because you'll only get yourself all lathered up over nothing but specifically because I don't care what you think about this topic.

I know that bikes are great for cardio-vascular fitness. And I know about the studies that say if more people rode bikes, society would be healthier, we'd live longer, and the air would be cleaner.

That's not what I'm talking about this morning.

I'm talking about those airheads who drive around on foreign-made 10-speeds thinking they are behind the wheel of a car. Except they don't obey the same rules of the road you have to respect when you're out in the old Detroit or
Yokohama bomber.

For example, nearly every morning I see this young guy on Boylston Street. He's got the same kind of slicked-back, razor-cut hair that Charlie Sheen had in the movie "Wall Street."

The guy wears expensive clothes. He wears one pant leg in a little clip so the cloth won't get caught in the chain and send him into the atmosphere like the space shuttle. His suit coat is always tucked neatly into a rack behind a bicycle seat built for those who weigh less than 120 pounds and think celery sticks are a great snack.

He flies down Boylston, rockets through the intersection at Exeter, never stopping, no matter if the light is red. You can see him coming like an express train all the way from the Hynes Auditorium.

He yells at you to get out of the way, too. Sometimes he pedals furiously along close to the curb, but the cabbies who stop in front of the Lenox have taken to throwing their doors open when he gets close so lately he's been barreling down the middle of the road.

Cars can't pass because he screams at them. He weaves in and out of traffic like Michael Jordan on his way to the basket. People lunge for the curb because you know he won't mind brushing them back, like his bike is a fastball or something. Simply put: He's in a big hurry, and we have to get out of his way. Just another selfish yuppie.

He couldn't behave like this behind the wheel of a car. After all, there are laws, aren't there?

It's not just him. And it's not just the Back Bay. It's all over town. It's these bicycle messengers who get paid by performance instead of by the hour, along with a collection of dizzy, affluent, childless cement-heads who come in both the male and female variety and typify the type of urban arrogance and rudeness that says, "I don't care about you. Out of my way. I'm important."

I've never seen a cop stop one of these bozos. I've never heard of any of them being ticketed for driving to endanger. That would be a great thing.

Instead, I'm left to fantasize about what one of these morons would look and sound like if I were able to thrust a stick into the spokes of their speeding front wheel. In my mind, the guy at the intersection of Boylston and Exeter streets would land, screaming, in the park at Copley Square, preferably on cement. I bet that would keep him off the bike and out of our way for a bit. Or at least make him think twice before he endangered normal citizens on foot.

Of course, you probably think I'm a sadist for wishing bodily harm on a crazy biker. I beg to differ: It just proves that I'm a hopeless optimist.