Share the Road

By the time I have almost completed my morning five mile run, most people in town are just staring to wake up and grab the morning paper. As some jump in their cars to head to the local convenience store or to work, I am reminded that they may not have had their morning cup of joe and are not completely awake. This must have been the case this morning during my pre-dawn run as I had to leap up to the curb in order to avoid an oncoming car. Actually at the time it was pretty light outside so I am still not quite sure why that black mustang did not see me.

I bring this up because every morning I pass runners, cyclists and dog walkers on the street. When I am in the driver’s seat of a vehicle, I make sure to give these folks plenty of space in their lane. If the inside lane of traffic is open, I get over. However, I don’t believe that this is the case for most inhabitants of my community.

Case in point: this morning as me and two girlfriends were running (I was in front and the other two were side-by-side maybe 10 feet behind me), two cars honked their horns at us. This was not a friendly “hey, you runner chicks are hot,” kind of honk. It was more like a “get the h-e-double hockey sticks out of the street” sort of honk. Now that is just not nice and it is especially rude to the people who live nearby and may be awakened by these rude honkers.

This also happens frequently when we are out cycling. In fact on Saturday the same group plus a few others were out and the exact thing happened – a big nasty honk and there may have been some choice words yelled. Thankfully there was plenty of wind to battle, so sounds were sort of muffled. Crazy thing is that when the person honked, they happened to honk right in front of a caution sign that reads, “share the road,” and has a photo of a bicycle. The irony.

What I like to tell these drivers out there is that we (runners and cyclists) also share the road. Cyclists are not expected to ride on uneven sidewalks at speeds that can range from 15-20 mph. Sidewalks also do not always exist on stretches of road for runners to use. So the next time you go out in your car and you see runners and cyclists, please do us a favor and share the road. If you choose to honk, just know that I may shoot you the bird.