I’ve seen more bicycles, scooters and motorcycles in Honolulu as our gasoline prices stay above $4 a gallon, and popular routers on The Bus get more crowded.
In my nightmares, I’m running on the sidewalk, and there’s someone who is riding right at me:
- Going full speed
- Ignoring the crosswalk signals
- Holding a lit cigarette
- Riding without a helmet
- Screaming into their mobile phone — bonus points if they’re cursing
- Listening to their iPod
- Wearing sunglasses, so I can’t see their eyes
Anyone who listens to an iPod while they’re riding looks like a candidate for a Darwin Award. If they’re talking on a mobile phone, they’re paying even less attention to where they’re going.
Once in a while, I see someone driving a motorized vehicle on the sidewalk. There’s a guy who I see almost every morning that I run on Ala Moana Boulevard. He guns his gas scooter down the mauka (ocean side) sidewalk on his way to Aloha Tower. He’s riding against the automobile traffic, but it’s a very wide sidewalk.
Then there’s the man I saw last month who rode his motorcycle up Beretania on the sidewalk behind Century Square and the Catholic Archdiocesan offices. He parked his bike next to the bicycle rack. Mopeds and scooters can park at a bicycle rack, but not motorcycles.
Sometimes I see people riding scooters and bicycles with one hand on the handlebar and the other hand holding a cigarette. Looks healthy!
Image courtesy of Thomas Hawk through a Creative Commons license.
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