On Ohio roads, we’re all righteous in our own way

an essay

For many years, I commuted almost daily from Wooster to neighboring Ashland for work. This was typically a beautiful 35-minute drive through Ohio’s rolling hills and bucolic farms. Early on in my experience I would joke that the only hassle was presented by the occasional Amish buggy.

And then I realized that the Amish really are a scourge on our roadways.

This was before many of the Ashland County Amish notoriously refused to follow Ohio’s new public safety laws, designed both for their own protection and to reduce the risk that a driver has to live with the burden of accidentally slaughtering an Amish family on the roadway.

I didn’t need this evidence because I had my own experience to support this completely rational and non-bigoted opinion. I would frequently see a gaggle of young Amish children walking barefoot down US-250 to school, led like little ducklings by a sibling who probably didn’t know much more about road safety than the momma duck. And nearly every driver in Amish country has experienced the shock of coming up behind a near-camouflaged black buggy on a dark and stormy night. These deathtraps are often barely moving, occupying most of a lane, operating on windy narrow roads, and nearly impossible to see until almost too late. This is why Ohio passed laws requiring some sort of reflector on buggies, which certain Amish groups have refused as too worldly.

One of my worst Amish buggy experiences occurred when I saw a horse-pulled wagon running towards an intersection where I was due to imminently arrive myself, although I had no stop signal and he did. Being pretty sure he’d never slow down even if he wanted to, I yielded but laid on the horn. Not my finest moment. I apologize to the horse, but I felt the satisfaction of scaring the living shit out of the young teenage driver and his companion, if solely for the morally defensible reason of “teaching him a lesson” for the next time.

After thinking about my knee-jerk reaction to most buggies I encounter on the road, I found myself in the last place I expected: inside the head of the rage-filled, fossil-fuel-addicted, a-hole who yells and flips the bird when passing a bicycle. I started to wonder if I was a hypocrite for having similar, though far less aggressive, feelings towards the Amish on the road. Was I wrong to think they shouldn’t be there?

Was I wrong to think bikes should be?

Let’s just assume that much of this anger is simply being redirected from a more generalized assholery; they are unhappy with their lot in life and take it out on the clearly more balanced bicyclist — yes, I’m talking about the other angry drivers, not me. But presumably not all drivers who disapprove of cyclists on the road are completely irrational road-ragers. If I have such a beef with Amish on the road based on what I see as dangerous behavior, is it possible that some of the vitriol towards cyclists comes from drivers’ past experience with bicyclists doing dumb shit at the wrong time and place? (Just like the teen who didn’t stop in my example above?)

We have to first distinguish between being annoyed by Amish buggies or slow cyclists and actively harassing them. Probably lots of drivers mutter in their cars about bikes on the road. We can live with that if they drive safely around bicyclists and keep their words — and middle fingers — to themselves. I was wrong to honk at the buggy, but is it also wrong to just think they shouldn’t be there in the first place?

We’re a lot more alike than it would seem. We each have our own unique form of unflattering clothes. We each mix some of our own language with English when we speak among ourselves. And we each have our own self-righteous philosophies that teach us to treat Ohio’s roadways as we see fit.

The Amish seem to believe that God controls what will happen to us, and He will either choose to protect His children or subject them to harm. But it’s solely His will that dictates these things, and so any safety measures are both an insult to God and a waste of time.

We cyclists believe that The Law allows us to — in most cases — ride the roads as if we are a motorized vehicle, taking a whole lane if we choose and requiring other drivers to safely accommodate us and our (we often refuse to admit) slower pace. But as with true-believers of all faiths, we cyclists know deep down that our form of transportation is morally and ethically superior, and this gives us a slight feeling of entitlement similar to the religious zealot.

Perhaps the only way to avoid hypocrisy, without either completely embracing all vehicles on the road or only accepting the fast-moving modern auto, is to voluntarily limit our road riding. Despite my legal right to do so, I try to carefully choose the roads I ride and the times I ride. I prefer road-riding on weekend mornings with friends. We take country roads and lanes and often barely encounter a car. If I want an afternoon ride, especially solo, I’ll usually take the mountain bike to Vulture’s Knob. But I also break these rules often enough to be shunned and excommunicated if it were religious doctrine.

So what do you think? Are bikes and buggies fundamentally different? Am I just a religious bigot and hypocrite? Do you have rules to self-regulate your road riding? Does this merely demonstrate the superiority of mountain biking? Are you part of the problem by pissing off otherwise reasonable drivers, or the solution by not causing frustrations on the road? Or should we just ride the roads to the greatest extent of our rights and let the drivers be damned?

Fortunately I have plenty to think about on my next long solo road ride.

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Patrick Noser is a recovering attorney who lives in Wooster, Ohio with his wife and two teenaged children. He enjoys many outdoor activities—like hiking, camping and fishing—but cycling is currently his therapy of choice.

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