Sunday, January 30, 2011

Chicken or the egg, a quick end of month - January 30, 2011

Almost put 2010 in the date, still not used to 2011...anyhow.

I grew up always hear the urban legend that you are more likely to get a traffic ticket in your car in the last week of the month than any other time because the police have to meet their quota.  I don't know whether there is any truth to that or not (and every officer I have ever asked denies it), but in my notice of patterns I can tell you for sure there are more people pulled over at the end of the month than any other time.

I don't know that this has to do with a quota.  I think it has to do with the drivers themselves.

On my short driving portion while on my way to work, I have seen more aggression from drivers towards me and each other, more speeding, blatant disregard for anything resembling following the rules of the road and impatience at the ends of each month.  I wonder if it's because of extra stresses at work or bills coming due or something else, but drivers go from their standardly inattentive selves to raging maniacs.  So I wonder if the police force is simply responding to this because they have seen the same trends, if they are more able to find transgressions or if they too are more aggressive at the end of the month.  I would be curious to see any insurance data on this.

What it means for me on my bike is a higher level of diligence and knowing that I need to firmly establish myself in traffic; no daydreaming.

2 horns and 3 "get off the wourldkjsdlkjdflwejrldkjfslejrlklksjelrj" (people don't understand/care that they become unintelligible as they drive past) this week.  Traffic wasn't heavy and there was lots of room to go around, which they all did safely, they were just having a bad day.  So they got a smile and a wave and maybe it made their day better.  Or not.

I did see a lot more cyclists out in the last week as well.  Some regulars that I haven't seen all winter were passed and a number of new/old ones (obviously practiced riders) and ever a few new/new ones (seem more than a little lost).  It was great to have somebody to chase and I got in a couple of hard rides.  I also did pretty good on my mileage, just over 425.

I hope to start adding other information on some cool equipment I've seen lately.

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