Driver’s Gone Wild (The streets no longer feel safe)

Driver’s Gone Wild (The streets no longer feel safe)

The sun had finally come out with the crazy weather Santa Cruz has been having, when I decided to save a few bucks on gas and go biking to enjoy this lovely recent weather. As the sun began setting I decided to bike to my home on Western Drive via Delaware Avenue, a residential road of 25mph that even includes a user friendly bike lane. Upon approaching a 4-way stop I paused to look for cars and the coast was clear so I began pedaling quickly through the intersection. A green jeep-like SUV starts to pull up to the intersection and I speed up so that I could be out of their way as fast as possible. Not only do they NOT see me but they also pulled a California stop, stopping for a good half second followed by speeding straight through the stop sign! After being inches away from a large moving vehicle I almost fell over in shock!! Seriously?? Did this jeep not realize they almost hit someone in a bright pink cruiser and not even care? Well, they did have the decency to hit their breaks once they made their speedy rampage through the intersection to make sure I wasn’t dead and kept going! I’ve lived in the bay area for quite some time and even San Franciscans drive better than the local inhabitants of Santa Cruz.

This wasn’t the first near death experience I’ve had in the last week here! The day before my biking incident a car around 1pm in the afternoon nearly merged into a lane that was occupied by me! This car moved so fast over into my lane I had to slam on my breaks and honk just so they would realize I was there. Talk about a HUGE blind spot?! They were practically parallel to my car! All I have to say is seeing the amount of students that get on the road who are practically in different worlds; whether it’s being tipsy, high, or on some sort of substance. I highly recommend anyone who chooses to drive a car on our roads to either A-make sure they’ve created a will for themselves, B-be prepared for massive delays caused by either bad driving or road construction, or C-take a chill pill and knock some sense into yourself because you’re probably one of the crazy drivers making the roads of Santa Cruz so dangerous!!