Thank you, Kittson County drivers

I've come across several stories lately on bicyclists getting run over, or nearly run over, while out for a ride in many different areas of the country. This always makes me shudder a bit because, well, I bike a lot and there is an ever-present danger of riding around automobiles. I hear a lot of people complain about cyclists, and in many cases the complaints are justified, because there are enough cyclists who do break rules and ride stupidly to ruin it for all of us, but let's make one thing clear: If a bicyclist gets in an accident with a driver, the bicyclist loses. Every time. So, when I've had motorists honk their horns, or yell at me to get off the road, or, worse still, swerve in front of me, I have to shake my head, because, believe it or not, your car does not give you more right to the road than me, and the fact that you are the one upset enough to put my life in danger suggests you are probably just a pretty terrible person.

The Hunger Ride at the Bemidji food shelf

But I'm writing this for a different reason, because, as much as I can relate to the stories I've heard, I've also come to realize how grateful I am for the motorists in Kittson County who have never once honked at me or swerved in front of me or even given me insufficient room while passing. You can say that that's because there isn't much traffic here, which is true, but in approximately 2500 miles of riding in Kittson County over two years I've had less problems than we had on our Hunger Ride in the first two miles (when an SUV swerved around us, honking his horn, with no other cars in sight).

Maybe there's an advantage to knowing your neighbors by name. Maybe you realize that the five seconds of your day that this bicyclist just cost you isn't worth the risk of putting me in the hospital or killing me--at least not when you know who I am. And that's really the point, I think. There are so many excuses for getting aggravated in life, and we keep making more and more, but most have at their base the fact that we no longer care enough to see other people as human beings like ourselves. If I'm just a "cyclist" then I'm a thing in the way, but if I'm Frank--a husband and father and pastor and other things that make me human--then maybe I'm worth moving over for.

So, thank you, Kittson county drivers. For seeing me. For waving at me. For not running me off the road. And for treating me like a human being. It means a lot.