big car vs. little bike

yesterday, i bought a bike. it's pretty rough around the edges but i've been looking for one forever so when finally a craigslist person emailed me back with something other than "it's been sold" or "it's for giants" i bought the thing.

so last night i rode it along a route i used to have to walk like a sucker and i was all like, sweet, now i don't have to walk like a sucker anymore because i have a bike!

no such luck, because apparently i'm still a sucker.

if you live a bit north you might know the sobey's grocery store at dupont and ossington and maybe even know its several parking lot exits--all of which a responsible driver would stop at before going over the sidewalk, you know, to be sure there aren't pedestrians/cyclists/or other cars heading their way.

if you're "paulo" and you drive a gigantic black hummer, you're jumping the sidewalk yo. when you drive a hummer the road, the sidewalk, the sobey's, dupont street-they all belong to you. you don't have to watch where you're going or even be cognizant of the fact that you're driving because you're driving such an enormous monstrosity that you surely will not be hurt if an accident were to ensue.

i'm a sucker because i saw this hummer coming and i stupidly assumed it would obey the law and stop at the sidewalk.

it didn't. it hit me. it made a crunch sound and knocked me off my bike.

then, the assholes didn't even get out of their car. they sat there, mouthing "im sorry".

needless to say there was some loud swearing, etc, on my part because this dude claimed he hadn't seen me. i'm sorry, sir, you are driving a hummer that has industrial strength headlights that could light a baseball diamond for a night game and you didn't see me on a bright and busy street?? directly under a street light? when you should have been looking actively to see if anyone was coming?

this guy, hummer aside, was clearly a douchebag and he clearly hadn't been looking.

we got his license plate and a phone number and he claims to live in the area(because everyone drives their hummer around the block to pick up groceries, right?) but needless to say, if you bike in the dupont/ossington area you might want to watch out for a big black hummer because the idiot behind the wheel will probably run you down then act like he's just woken up from a nap.

VS