The freedom to bicycle in Tallahassee

My car has been fixed a while now but I decided to keep bicycling to work, anyway.

I recently learned that Florida ranked #1 this year for bicycle fatalities (NBC 2011) but it's only a 20 minute ride and I get a sense of autonomy and accomplishment at the end of every trip. My green-friendly conscience is eased, I get wicked exercise and I save gas money, too. So, why shouldn't I bike to work? Besides, accidents are more likely to happen on narrow roads without bike lanes (which Tallahassee certainly lacks) however I can gratefully say I have one the entire way. So why is it so effing stressful?

I do my part for you Tallahassee; I make a real effort to stay inside the bike track - in fact, I even give you half of that. I know you can see me, T-dawg. Even when it's dark I turn my flashing lights to "epileptic" so I am impossible to miss. Somehow you still act like I am invisible (or you're having a collective seizure but then I am pretty sure you shouldn't be driving).

And what morbid satisfaction do you get out of passing me miles above the speed limit, only inches away? How can I replicate this joyous experience? Maybe I should fly my bike at warp speed past a baby stroller in hopes of an instant diaper filling. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

Somehow you're also entitled to have the right-of-way because I am on a bike and you're not. You're so blinded with certainty and rage that you honk at me; that must be car language for, "Check me out, I can make loud noises - that makes me a bad ass." And by bad ass, I mean douche bag.

You ride your bike to work? Oh wait - you're a hippy aren't you? Maybe if you didn't hate freedom so much, people wouldn't want to run over your hippy ass. 

No, hippies are stereotypically docile. I am more, how you say, pissed off.

You might not prefer to bike to work but respect those that do (and oh yeah, their freedom to do it).  You must be mixing up your Darwinisms; if your trickle down free market principles happens to make it more affordable for someone to bike to work (aka me in the beginning of all of this), that shouldn't translate to "your hippy ass needs to be run over."

Just saying.