It just pisses me off. And I'm livin' in de i-lands where life is meant to be chilled mon.
This is the worst part of Cayman I've experienced so far hands down (and we do so every day). From the Dickheads with their Hum-Vee's and the Knobs in their Dodge Calibre's (Oh, I'm so hardcore - don't mess with me I'll pound your puny vehicle into the ground), to the Tools in souped up sports cars (I can do Mach 1 by the time I run out of road), there is a brewing hatred for the ego's out there.
People talking on their cellphones, doing 70MPH (speed limit is around 40 most places) while overtaking at a corner of the dual carriage highway, just to get where they're going (presumably a burial plot with a view) 5 seconds faster.
Unfortunately, I'm not blameless. I flipped the bird at some guy while cycling today, because he overtook me with a fairly minimal distance between the car and my bike. I punctured his fragile ego with my sharpened middle claw, and he felt the need to defend himself with well constructed arguments such as "there was an oncoming car on the other side of the road you $%^#.", to which I countered, not quite as convincingly, "Well, why couldn't you just wait for it before overtaking me?". Clearly my argument was not as solid as his, as I kept the expletives in my head, and he went off satisfied that he'd proved his manhood to the world. Road rage may land another Knob in the slammer as he so rightly deserves, but the landing myself in intensive care, after a 2.0l Caliber to the head was not quite a fair trade-off. The imbalance of power in these type of showdowns is a case-study for Postal Worker gore-fests and bullet-riddled bullies bodies.
Ugh. And they're not killing each other off quickly enough either. There's only twelve pegging off every year.
While cycling yesterday, I got knocked off my bike. Granted, I was driving in rush hour traffic (about 5:30pm), so the roads were clogged with plenty of frustrated people in a hurry to get anywhere. The whole reason for cycling at that time is that its just after work, and its before it gets dark (happens between 6 and 6:30). I think I'm not going to cycle in traffic again - the weekends are good, and if I can somehow manage to take time during the day on weekdays, perhaps. I'll just have to do a hundred laps of the minature swimming pool we have at our complex to make up for the lack of excercise.
I haven't got any serious injuries - two skinned knees, and a sore arm, but it could have been much worse depending on where it had happened - some of these roads are really narrow, and the drivers don't respect cyclists. Its really frustrating when a car doesn't even bother to go around you - it just drives past as if you weren't even on the side of the road. I would get about 2 or 3 of these every time I cycled. Thats kind of how it happened yesterday. Panel van overtook me (barely bothering to go around me), and then pulled further across to the left while still adjacent to me, and I just felt cornered - it was like a wall had come up half a metre alongside me, plus there was a bicycle in front of me who I was about to overtake myself - hello I had the right of way Mr Panel Van. Anyway, long story short, I was going to crash into the guy in front of me, felt hemmed in on my right - nowhere to go on the left (road shoulder), so I put my hand out to push against the car. Two moving objects touching at different speeds, yada yada, I was flat on the floor. Bit dumb of me, but the driver really needed to realise that his actions would pin me into a corner.
