I was riding down fifth avenue today and there was a large moving van double parked in my lane. Traffic in the next lane was heavy, so I decided to hop onto the sidewalk, go around the damn truck and then hop back onto the road. As I was heading back onto the road, a cop jumps out in front of me, gesturing at me to stop. Sometimes I think I live in fucking Mayberry or something. Got a $25 fine. And I could have gotten another one yesterday, but I saw them before they saw me so I was off my bike before I came into view. Still, they knew I was riding on the sidewalk and warned me not to do that. I've been toying with the idea of starting a mailing list with the couriers downtown so we could warn each other when there is danger. It could work using Blackberries, though I noticed a lot of couriers are still using those big-ass Motorola radios and simple cell phones.

As if that wasn't enough to bum me out... I was coming up to a green light at the end of the day, but I knew the light was going to change so I booted it. A lady in a SUV, gabbing on her cell phone, ran through the red light at full speed, nearly killing me. She was totally oblivious as to what she had just done too, I could see afterwards that her brake lights didn't even come on. Luckily, my brakes were working well enough, and my reflexes were quick enough, that I managed to avoid getting hit. But it was very, very close and I would have been humbled pretty bad had I not taken evasive action. Yes, I did hurl some obscenities at her.

Some lady pulled up beside me first thing this morning while I was stopped at a red light and warned me that "my reflectors weren't very visible and she could barely see me". I'm covered in fucking mud, a lot of good reflectors are going to do under all that mud. And this was after the sun had already come up, so it was like open your fucking eyes lady, I'm wearing sunglasses and I can see just fine. I didn't say anything in the off-chance that she was just joking. Or completely fucking insane.