The Fool on the Scooter

This is a true story.

I'm riding home from work on my Piaggio scooter. About a half-mile from my house the traffic stops at a red light. Because it's legal in California, I ride up the center line, between traffic.

As I was riding past the lead cars, I was hit with a blast of "marijuana odor" from the vehicle to my right -- a newish pickup truck.

Now, when I lane-split, I typically pull up ahead of the lead vehicles, just to let them know, "Hey, there's motorcycle here now."

As I slowed to a stop the guy in the marijuana truck started inching forward.

Shit.

Because, when someone sees me and starts inching forward, either they want to race me off of the line or they want to mess with me. Or both. It sucks. I just want to get home, but some people need to be the "fastest and the baddest" on the road...and my mere presence challenges their perceived road dominance.

I hate these people. They are dangerous and stupid, and Los Angeles seems to be full of them.

Anyhow, marijuana-pickup-truck-dude-guy pulls forward and yells out his window at me:

"What are you doing, fool?"

He really punches the word "fool," for full dramatic effect.

I glance over and see a stubble-faced redheaded shithead in his late 40s. Of course, I'd love to explain the legality of what I'm doing, as well as the concept that being "stopped at a red light" is generally considered pretty safe...but stupid angry people have a hard time being reasonable; Especially when they're behind the wheel of a car. So I ignore him, and stare straight ahead.

The light turns green. As he goes tearing off, he delivers his parting shot: 

"Good way to die!"

He then proceeds to speed away, cut in front of me, make an illegal left-hand turn, run a stop sign, and pull into a dive bar parking lot.

Seriously. That's what he did. I'm not exaggerating.

Now, I'll go months without any problems like this. Typically, Los Angeles drivers know the law, and many will even pull over to the side to make way for motorcycles that are lane-splitting (I do this all the time if I catch a motorcycle in my rear-view mirror), and when they do, I always give them a thank-you wave. I've never been in a seriously dangerous situation, and "people being shitheads" is usually as bad as it gets.

All the same, though...it sucks when it happens. Makes me so irritated, generally, that I get home and go, "Goddammit...I'm going to sit down a write a blog about this."


Meta.