Critical Mass, what a blast
It was with great trepidation and a lot of hand wringing that people were talking about the upcoming Mass. Its going to be horrible, one said, there are going to be tons of cops, another said. I knew different. I know, I know the cops are always crazy when it comes to mass. Its like going to dinner with an insane person. One minute they are giving you a glass of their finest wine and then the next they are trying to strangle you with the cork. But of course we are talking about the police and they wouldn't do anything mean to cyclists now would they, they are just doing their job right?
Well if doing their job is dishing out tickets and pushing people off their bikes then they are doing their jobs fantastically. Of course they are police and they can do whatever they want. This is also a post about CM and not about my extreme hatred for the police. So anyway, we were talking about the Mass and how the cops were going to be there in the thousands to beat us all into submission, but I knew different.
No, I am not an under cover cop as some people have mumbled in the past, though i look awesome with a moustache, I am just a long time attendee of CM and over the many years that I have been going to this fantastic event I have noticed a few things about the behaviour of the police. The first thing is that they are pretty concrete on when they are going to show up.
The reason they came out last month, in my humble opinion was that they had remembered the ride on the Gardenier and were determined not to have it happen again. There was also no major street closing event with sexy half naked people going on at the same time. I speak of course of Pride. Yes folks, the gay people saved us from the iron boot of the police.
The police were to busy being down on Church St. Ooogling half naked men and woman and were to busy to be bothered with a bunch of helmeted geeks like us. Not to say there was not interaction with the police during the ride. I saw many cops drive by us and not make any contact. I saw a cop on a side street sitting patiently and at one point hit his siren to freak everyone out, it did and when i looked at him he was laughing at our reaction. I saw another cop pull over a driver who went into oncoming traffic to get around the mass. So this time they were having fun, they were helping us out and they were ignoring us.
Because of that the ride was fantastic. I was talking with someone on the ride and I was telling him how in the old days, almost one hundred years ago, if the mass got split up by the cops by forcing us to stop at lights, the forward part of the ride would stop and wait. If someone got a ticket, the whole ride would stop and wait. Eventually the police would realize that they were the ones screwing up traffic and get us on our merry ways. Maybe its time to return to that kind of tactic.
As far as next month, I predict that the police will also not be at the mass because they will have to be dealing with all the people coming for Caribanna. As for the ride that happened last night, it was beautiful, huge and pretty well conflict free. Message to the police, thanks for the help, but we can get along just fine.
A friend indeed
It always feel weird when someone you thought you could trust lets you down. That is how i felt about the recent announcement that every cyclists friend, the bike union has sided with the police on their yearly blitz.
For those new to Toronto, the city holds a bike event that starts at the beginning of May. The purpose of this event is to promote cycling and try and get people on their bikes. Well, it goes for a month and you always know when its over when the police hit the streets and start to ticket cyclists as they see fit.
What a great way to promote cycling. So who you gonna call well hopefully you could call the Bike Union. But alas no, you cannot. In there finite wisdom the bike union has decided that it is better to support the cops in their unfair ticketing campaign and tell cyclists of Toronto to go fuck themselves. Their reasoning is that they are going to change the attitude the police have for cyclists. They are going to change the cops from the inside.
I guess we could forgive the bike union for the fantasy world they are living in but to be honest they are crazy if they think they are going to change the minds of any cops. The police in toronto answer to no master and they might want you to think they are going to be on your side but they have their own agenda and its not going to be changed by a bunch of cyclists. So it is quite disturbing to think that i might have wasted my money on a membership to a group that is going directly in the opposite direction to what i want them to go.
Of course who really knows what happens at the bike union.Since becoming a member inFebruary i have recieved no correspondance about anything they are doing. Maybe they should take the word Union out of their name. I was under the impression that a union listened to their membership and did not go against their wishes. And to be honest I can't see any cyclist supporting this kind of harrassment.
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