Wednesday, December 19, 2007

let's go through the tunnel

I was riding back to BART from the avenues in the drizzle at about 21:30 on Geary when I came to the tunnel. It's the one under Masonic that cuts through the top of the hill. During the day I always take it, but at night I worry about getting killed more. I wasn't going to do it tonight but then I rode past this cute girl and noticed the traffic light had just turned red behind me so I said "eh" and veered into it. I mean, it is faster through the tunnel.

in the tunnel...

One of the things I love are lights in a tunnel at night. I also like the lights on the bottom deck of the Bay Bridge. When I was little I used to hypnotize myself looking up at them go by from the backseat of my parent's car, riding back to Oakland from dinner at my aunt and uncle's. And of course the Bay Bridge tunnel...that one's almost overkill.

...out the tunnel

I've become a much safer rider since I started doing this job about a year and a half ago. The few nasty accidents I've been involved in were good lessons. And while there are certainly split second techniques and tricks to help avoid them, I've realized that the best way to decrease the chance of getting hurt is by consistently making sound longterm decisions - longterm as in at least ten seconds ahead of time.

statistics

Consistency is important, because as powerless as it makes me feel to admit it, statistics will fuck you up. I mean fuck me up. But you too, maybe. So riding through the tunnel every night would put me more at risk then a person who takes that route only some nights, or never.

Tonight, I took a small risk in choosing to go through the tunnel, but am definitely retarded for deciding to take a picture of me, then checking it out, erasing it because I blinked, then retaking it, all one handed, flying down the wet-ass tunnel about to merge with the road on the right in two seconds.







2 comments:

lydiat said...

you need to somehow exclude these "look how my job = death wish" posts from my feed reader. gah.

Anonymous said...

favorite post yet. statistics. :D