The Slice: On the road, it’s often ‘us’ vs. ‘them’

I‘m still accepting readers’ assessments of how motorists and bicycle riders get along in Spokane.

So far, responses have come from widely varied perspectives.

Those include:

1. Cyclists who say the vast majority of Spokane drivers are considerate — sometimes overly so. (Stopping in traffic to encourage a cyclist to go ahead when that bike rider doesn’t have the right of way, doesn’t have the light, et cetera, can just confuse matters in a potentially unsafe way.)

2. Bike riders who assert that the misdeeds of a tiny fraction of their number are unfairly held against all.

3. Bike riders who, while noting that there are a lot of bad drivers in Spokane, apparently believe no cyclist in history has ever done anything wrong.

4. Motorists who say they resent lectures about the environment, oil dependency and fitness and have almost no tolerance for “holier than thou” cyclists. One flatly dismissed the “share the road” concept as “nonsense.”

5. Motorists with detailed lists of cyclist offenses that annoy them.

6. Motorists who are also cyclists and who believe that people of good will can find a way to get along.

My own thought has been that this dialogue is complicated by the fact that Spokane doesn’t always embrace lifestyle difference. In a car culture, people riding bikes on city streets can be regarded with suspicion. Never mind that the law says cyclists have a right to be there.

Attitudes can change, of course. But first we’ll have to get past “us” vs. “them.”

“Slice answer: “Being practical by nature and devoted to recycling long before that became popular, I have told family and friends I wanted my ashes put into the trunk of the car and sprinkled under the wheels next time they are slipping on the ice,” wrote Sue Hille. “I might as well be useful one more time.”

“Perhaps some things are best left to the imagination: A reader wrote to say she would like to see a picture of one of those coveted reporter’s notebooks.

“Remembering the B-36, continued: For a time back in the 1950s, Meg McCoy lived beneath the flight path of those leviathans.

“When one of those giant planes flew over the house, sometimes with engines slightly out of sync, pictures fell off the walls, cupboard doors flew open and anything round rolled.”

Ralph Cornwall was a child during the big bomber’s heyday. “We kids would stop whatever we were doing and watch those huge silver monsters with their rear-facing propellers as they passed so low and slow, like a passing freight train. It seemed you could almost reach up and touch them.”

“Today’s Slice question: Has the typical grade-school bully’s repertoire of abuse changed much over the years?