TMZ bicycle police


I hadn�t been in a bicycle crash in New York in over two years, and then in the last month, my good fortune shifted and I found myself slipping on black ice at night (knee bruise), biking into a chain between bollards at night (hip and shin bruises and scrapes, jammed finger) and, for the first time in my biking life, getting doored.
As I was passing to the left side of traffic stopped on Mercer, a cab rider opened his door into me. Luckily, because Mercer is cobblestone, I was going at a snail�s pace so while the force of the door bruised the knuckles on my right hand pretty badly, I didn�t get thrown of my bike. If I�d been thinking clearly, I would have started crying � nothing like a few tears to make a guy feel really sorry. But I was pumped with the adrenaline of the near miss, and so when Mr. Oblivious claimed it was my fault and refused to apologize, I went ape shit and body-blocked him as he attempted to get out of the cab.
This altercation managed to draw the attention of a gaggle of paparazzi that were waiting for some starlet to emerge from an establishment across the street. There was a barrage of camera flashes as suddenly my unapologetic cab rider and I became a story for the bored paparazzi.
"This is TMZ reporting from the streets of New York. Who are you? What�s going on?"
Mr. Oblivious eyed the reporters. I could tell he didn�t want to stand here waiting for the cops to show up. "Look, I�m sorry," he whispered. "Can I go now?"
I looked down at my hand trying to guess if my fingers were broken. They hurt, but no bones were sticking out and there wasn�t any blood. I was actually a little embarrassed about my hysterics and I knew the press would think I was nuts. So I let Mr. Oblivious go, and I promised myself that I would try to tone down my antics. If I imagined the press core could witness every time a driver did something completely illegal or irresponsible, I would want them to see a cool and collected bicyclist, not the screeching cussing reaction these incidents usually provoke in me.
Last Wednesday, as I was biking north through Tribeca on Church, a cab decided to speed up to pass and make a right-hand turn in front of me. Instead of trying to speed up as well to force the driver to wait for me to cross the intersection, as I perhaps would have chosen to do before my TMZ incident, I slowed down and let him pass. As I was doing this, however, a pedestrian (male) who was standing on the corner yelled to the driver, "Come on, run her over."
Yes, an innocent bystander, who had nothing to gain from the situation, felt it necessary to vocalize his desire to see me killed. For a second I considered turning back and asking the pedestrian to repeat what he�d just said. But I refrained. And glancing at the sidewalk crowded with Tribeca housewives and their precious toddlers, I even restrained myself from yelling anything nasty back. Where were the paparazzi when I could have used them?

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