Stopping for Red Lights

I ride a bike to work and always stop at red lights. I wait for a green and then go. I do this whether I'm continuing straight on the road, turning left off it, or turning right. I do it at every light, no matter what time or day it is.

This should be forgettable—a normal statement about a normal life in a normal city where normal people go about normal business thinking normal thoughts about normal things.

But really it's an oddly bold position. A kind of social and political statement of the sort I haven't made with this kind of angry persistence since high school.

Because, bizarrely, a bike stopping for red lights makes people froth. Screaming, horn-honking, menacing-you-with-their-bumpers, telling-you-to-stop-taking-up-space furious.

This is a blog about the strange consequences of doing something reasonable in a place with a street culture in love with its own insanity.