I was in a good mood today until, while walking to the subway after a client meeting, I got hit by a jackass riding his bicycle on the sidewalk. His brakes were wet and his electric powered "bicycle" pushed him along as numerous pedestrians jumped out of his way. I managed to avoid a full-on collision, but still got clipped. If my shoe was not stuck in his spokes, he'd have merrily continued on his way into the crowd waiting to cross the street.

There was a little bit of instant karma, however. After a heated exchange of words and numerous people calling the police -- he tried to flee the scene, slipped off the pedals and was dragged by his motorized machine into a knee deep swamp of slush (where he was surrounded by a few angry witnesses and forced to wait for a cop to show up).

I'm an advocate of bicycling in NYC, so this puts me in an awkward place. I don't want to jump on the "bikes are dangerous" bandwagon, but I really think that something is out of control here. I'm even an advocate of bikes ignoring traffic rules when doing so does not impact anyone else (no one there? run the red light, that's why you're on a bike and not in a car) -- but an outlaw needs to remember to be polite (respect pedestrians! even when they might be acting stupidly).

One way or another something is going to happen. The bicycling community needs to enforce a certain base etiquette before it gets to the point where legislative solutions are put into place.

We also need to make a clear distinction between human powered transportation and motorized vehicles. I was not hit by a bicyclist, I was hit by a jerk on a motorcycle!

And with that off my chest, on to today's photos: