On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Doesn’t it seem like each day there are more and more bikes on the streets of Somerville? Not only are there bikes, but some of these cyclists have their children in the back in those kid haulers. Some parents have a small bike attached to their bike where little Jack or Sally rides behind. They come so close to trucks and buses that sometimes I can’t even look at them without wincing. I even saw a guy with a very small toddler on the handle bars of his bike. This really freaked me out because all I could think of was …what if?

I have become the most careful (and paranoid) driver lately. You never know where one of these bikers will pop up, or pop out. If they all obeyed the rules of the road it would make it easier and safer. For the most part the cyclists are law abiding. It’s the others that we need to watch out for. Sometimes at night I actually see a biker by accident. That’s because they have no reflective materials and no lights of any kind.

There are several things that can really send me into heart palpitations. Loud noises and unexpected doors flying open when I am half asleep scare me. When one of my kids suddenly appears out of no place I freak. And when a bicyclist darts out in front of me, I basically have a conniption. We need to share the road. The road that has gotten a lot narrower lately with bike lanes. I want to feel that when my kids or I are riding down Highland Ave. on a bike, each driver is awake, aware and alert. As bikers we do our part also. We wear helmets and if we ride at night (which we don’t unless it’s just on the bike trail) we are equipped with lights.

When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s, just about every street was packed with kids. Every house had one, two or three families in it and each family had from one to five kids. There were more bikes on the streets of the ‘Ville back then than there are now. But they were on the side streets and in playgrounds not on the main drags. Today kids are playing video games, watching YouTube and texting one another.

Back then every kid had a bike and it was always with us. There were a lot of Sting-Ray’s with banana seats and wing handlebars but no helmets. We would use clothespins to put baseball cards on the spokes of our bikes to make it sound like a motorcycle. We would also put balloons on our bike wheels. They sounded great but you could only ride for a few seconds before they burst.

We didn’t have fancy bikes. My first few bikes were hand me downs from my cousin, and we were very glad and lucky to have them. Then my parents bought my sister, brother and me three brand new Columbia bikes from Sears. They had a built in headlamp and white wall tires. They were the greatest bikes in the world and we were each in charge of putting them in the cellar every night.

When I was around 15, my friends and I would go trash picking and find pieces of old bikes. We would actually build bikes out of spare parts. Once we built a bike with a 26 inch rear wheel, and a very small front wheel on an overly extended fork. They looked like crazy choppers. We used to buy bike parts that we couldn’t find in the trash at Ace bicycle shop in Ball Square. Grants and Woolworth’s down Davis Square was where you could also get streamers, raccoon tails, and those little screw on reflectors for your fenders.

Speaking of Davis Square, on a dare, I rode my bike in the front entrance to Woolworths on Elm Street, and all the way through the store and out the rear entrance (including going down several stairs) on Herbert Street. It was a wild ride for sure. Another time my fellow young bikers and I noticed that we could see the Prudential building from the Western Junior High School on Holland Street and decided to follow it into town. As soon as we made it to the Prudential building we said, “now how do we get back?” There were no visible landmarks to follow. I wasn’t allowed off the street on my bike so every horn I heard I thought was my father bagging me.

Everyone needs to be more careful out there. The bikes and the motorists have to share the road. They both have to follow all the safety rules in order to keep everyone free from injury. Bikes need to know and use hand signals. There is no contest when it comes between a bike and a car. Any distractions can lead to danger. The bikes have to pay attention and the drivers have to be sharp also. Texting, cell phone conversations, fighting kids, or out of control pets have no business in an automobile. And when driving please be super aware of what is on either side of your vehicle. Bikes are literally coming out of nowhere. I know because I drive the length of the ‘Ville several times a day every day.

Everybody just be nice and we will all be safer.