Friday, September 12, 2014

'Bikes are vehicles' FTW

There's a notion amongst many that a bicycle is just a child's toy and that is doesn't fall into the category with 'vehicles'. This attitude is discriminatory and treats bike commuters and cyclists as second class citizens.

 Here's an excellent example:



Today I received some validation that my bike was in fact my vehicle.

I took away from this interaction not that fact that I was rudely harassed for daring to bring my bike into the vestibule of the Downtown Library and attempting to leave it there for a full 3 seconds while I stepped 5 feet inside to deposit the DVD and CD I was returning into the dropbox, but that the security guard referred to my bike as 'your vehicle'.






Could the guard have addressed this situation better? Yes. I've been in banks where the security guards encourage customers to leave their bikes in the vestibule.
I think the security guard should have said to me, "I'm sorry, you can't bring your bike into the vestibule, if you're returning items I can take them, but next time, please park outside." instead of yelling at me and then blocking my path to the dropbox *after* I followed his instructions and left my bike outside. That was really poor, bullying behavior.

But, hey... I've got a vehicle.



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