Committed to your safety
I was riding my bike down the South Oval to my dorm this week. To get back home, I have to cross one street, with a traffic light east-and-west and a crosswalk north-and-south. The crosswalk light shows a white light of a person walking when you can cross, and an orange hand when you can’t. After the white walk sign, the orange hand blinks 15 times before turning solid orange to give you time to cross (15 seconds).
I was about 20 feet from the street and looked up to see that the white walk light was on. I had at least 15 seconds to cross, since the orange light hadn’t started blinking. I looked back down to make sure I wasn’t going to run over anything icky in the road (it was wet) when all of a sudden a car almost hits me! I looked up and made a “ahhh what are you doing you almost hit me!” face. I finished getting across the street, when all of a sudden, a police officer jumps in front of my bike and starts yelling to stop!
PO:"Why were you griping at that car?"
Me: "Um, because it almost hit me and I had the right-of-way?"
PO: "No you didn’t. The light was green."
Me: "I looked right before crossing and the light hadn’t even started blinking orange yet. It blinks 15 times so I had plenty of time to cross."
PO: "Maybe it blinks 15 times usually, but not when I’m controlling it! I saw that you weren’t looking at the cars so I changed the light to green as soon as you entered the street."
Me: …
PO: You gotta pay attention to the cars! You’re going to get in a fight with a car and you’re gonna lose!
Me: «Decides to not push the issue that if he hadn’t've changed the light I would’ve had 15 seconds, because he is probably just waiting for me to start talking back so I can get put in jail or something :D.»
I looked over and there was a small computer-looking thing hooked up to the breakout box near the light. Sure enough, he was controlling the lights. Thanks for endangering me to prove your questionable point, Mr. Po-Po. He made a big deal of being the “head bicycle policeman”. Isn’t that kind of like being… the most important janitor? Whatever.
2:35 pm
Note: I am not denigrating janitors. They are much more important than bicycle policemen with inflated egos.
2:44 pm
We’ve got the same type of crossing lights here too. It always amuses me to see TV shows and movies where they are “WALK” and “DON’T WALK”–that raises the user requirements of the sign to “must be able to read” and “must be able to speak English”.
But yes, that police officer exhibited very strong signs of in-duh-vidualism. If I were you, I’d condense the story down and send it to Scott Adams to put in the next Dilbert Newsletter.
6:25 pm
It is an egotistical world we’re living in. I would go talk to the real police, if I were you. Normally I’m not the kind of guy that condones pushing issues, but you could have been seriously injured just so this moron could prove a point. At the very least, this guy should get talked to.
7:53 pm
No way. That cop tried to kill you. What if you had actually been injured? That’s terrible. I’m just trying to consider the ethics of this whole thing…. terrible.
11:10 pm
Personally I’d have asked for his name and badge number, that’s endangering someone’s life to prove a very stupid point. Nothing dumber than abuse of power for no reason.
12:10 am
At the time I was too flustered to do anything but think “how to placate and escape from crazy policeman”. Yeah, hindsight is 20/20.
11:38 am
I vote we swarm that officer and “teach” him some safety.
Of course, I’m kidding. But wow, that’s one uptight cop.
7:51 am
Test? :$