So I saw this in my Twitter stream this evening:


It jumped out at me in part because last week my wife was hit by a truck while cycling home; we spent part of the day in the ER (I don't look forward to that bill), her arm is broken in two places and she's got various bruises.

But given that it was the sort of accident that could have killed her– it happened at a busy intersection and the back of the bike is pretty crushed– we're calling this a lucky break.

I have no evidence that the driver was anything other than distracted, but the malice of the driver in the tweet highlighted something I've seen far too many times, on my bike and on the freeway: that some perfectly decent people turn into sociopaths when they get behind the wheel.

We've all seen this. Drivers who seem to forget that the other cars on the road aren't just obstacles placed by malign gods but driven by other people trying (however imperfectly) to get to work; who forget that bicycles are really quite small and light, even if they're ridden by people dressed in spandex; or, more amusingly, forget that car windows can be seen into as well as out of, and we can all see you picking your nose. (Granted, something a bit similar can happen to crowds of cyclists out
for a ride on Sand Hill on a Sunday morning, but when I get on my bike
I'm pretty aware of my vulnerability.)

I don't think it's that these people are sociopaths who manage to hide it when they're on two feet, then become their True Selves behind the wheel. Rather, there's something about driving that brings this out in some people. It's an example of a human-machine melding that enhances your capacity to move fast, but at the expense of your situational and human awareness.

No doubt some of it is the frustration of bad traffic, or the general unpleasantness of commuting. But I think there's something about being behind the wheel, behind the glass, surrounded by all that metal that can insulate you from your own humanity, and short-circuit your normal empathy. When I'm biking, my default is to treat cars as fast-moving mindless hunks of metal, about as likely to be concerned for my well-being as an asteroid. Because unless I make eye contact with the driver, I'm never completely sure the car really sees me, or will care about me until it's too late. The car not only sits between me and the driver; all too often, it can sit between the driver and their own humanity.