Bicycle Austin forum

AusTexMurf

Member

From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Playing Jedi Mind Tricks in Traffic

Playing Jedi Mind Tricks in Traffic
by Wesley Cheney 

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What Would Yoda Ride ?

Statistics back me up. Cyclists have a longer lifespan than drivers. Drivers are more likely to be obese and die of heart disease. Cyclists are leaner, but more likely to suffer broken collarbones. Broken collarbones, though, aren’t usually lethal.

From a certain point of view, commuting by bike is as deliberate as Luke Skywalker choosing the Light Side over the Dark Side. I’m choosing to see my fellow citizens as worthy of trust. I’m choosing to believe that we can all share the same road. Driving a two-ton SUV through a school zone is as much of an anti-social, selfish act as carrying a loaded gun to the grocery store. It says, “Never mind you. Never mind us. Me and mine come first.”

If I use Jedi mind tricks to take the lane, and generate good karma by smiling at drivers and yielding to pedestrians, then it begs the question: What would Yoda drive? Would Yoda drive a Prius, or a VW Beetle? Perhaps, but I think Yoda would be more at home on a Brompton or a fat bike.

But as for Yoda’s former apprentice Darth Vader, we all know what he would drive…a truck as big as his ego that will never, ever be driven off-road where the custom paint job could ever be scratched.....