BURGER SCOOT

Back in 2010, fourteen years before the crash that ended the “scooter” part of BurgerScoot, I would ride around Sacramento enjoying my newfound freedom. (I had stopped driving many years before, and my modes of transportation were limited to bicycling, riding Sacramento’s abysmal Regional Transit system, or having either of my sons or my wife chauffeuring me around.) I started going to the movies again, riding my scooter to work, and looking for recreational rides to take.

I found a fun road to ride in Sacramento that promised to entertain me for what I thought would be years to come. The fun lasted for fourteen years, but there were times I thought I was going to hang up my helmet. Below is a segment of a longer piece posted in May of 2012. I’m reposting here because I saw an asshole in traffic the other day while in the backseat of a Lyft and it triggered me.

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The last time I took the River Road loop, I did so not to cool down, but to relax. What I got was something quite to the contrary. The temperature was in the mid-40s, but the day was clear, and it was not cold when in the sun. What was notable about that run was when I pulled up to a light on Jefferson Boulevard. In my mirrors, I saw a big white truck coming up on me quickly, its horn blowing. When I looked up at the light, it was green, so I gunned it. The truck appeared to be a white Ford F-150 monstrosity with an extended cab. The blue emblem on the grill was all that I saw in my mirrors before I goosed it.

The truck moved into the left lane to pass me but slowed down alongside me just enough for a foul-mouth youngster to lean dangerously out of the window and spout off, “Get off the road you fucking asshole!” and then sped off. Though I was rattled, I did not look directly at the harasser. The truck then slowed down and was next to me again, and the shirtless, tan potty-mouth middle schooler once again yelled some other choice words at me. I could see that I was dealing with some serious Whiskey Tango (for the uninitiated, that’s NATO phonetic alphabet for W.T.—white trash)—Whiskey Tango that can afford an F-150 truck, I suppose.

I pulled off Jefferson Blvd. into the parking lot to Whitey’s Jolly Kone. (For lovers of hamburgers, check out WJK’s spruced up new–at least to me–website.)Yes, I know, quite a coincidence, but one of my favorite burger joints in the area, which is closed on Sundays. Damn! As I rolled to a stop, I heard the kid belt out the same thing 100 feet away, still fading, and hanging way out of the window, as if physics did not apply to him. I waited about thirty seconds to put some distance between the road rage rangers and me, and then I took off. A block down Jefferson, the truck had slowed down to serve me up more verbal abuse to this confused scooterist. One more time, I heard the little punk say the same tired colloquialisms directly across the lane from me. Then, the truck made a left turn and drove out of my sight. I pulled over one more time to make sure the truck was not turning around. It was not. The ordeal was over.

Whenever I do something on the road that may have been wrong, I always reflect on my riding with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. After the scooter came to a stop, I skipped the “You idiot, Jack” spiel and ran through what I might have done to bring out the G.E.D.-level mentality in this Whiskey Tango road rage ranger. What I came up with was that either I did not notice that the light had changed (because I was admiring the shiny big Ford emblem on the truck’s grill as it filled my mirror), or I was looking at the wrong red light while approaching the intersection and stopped on a green light. I hope not, but the intersection coming off the ramp can be confusing. I mean, while I have no excuse since there is a traffic controller dead-ahead and above where it should be, there are also conflicting lights to the left and right of the motorist, and on a scooter or motorcycle, if the rider looks down or away for a moment and the corner of the rider’s eye catches the wrong light there might be either a lag before the cyclist rolls on the power or worse, the rider may jump into the intersection on a red light! Sometime later, this was verified by my wife, who thought the stop could be confusing.

I don’t know what was worse, the adult driver of the F-150 continuously egging on his kid brother, nephew, or son, or the fact that the little bronze/blond abortion didn’t give me something more illuminating to work with. I mean, he could have said something like, “Hey [insert profane noun here], we almost killed you. Are you fucking color blind? Green means go, asshole!” but the simpleton chose words that implied that I did something to to offend them rather than committing a traffic error. Whatever the reason for the unimaginative insults, I was reminded that I need to S.E.E. (Search, Evaluate, Execute), and S.E.E. with vigilance. Whiskey Tango drivers are out there, my fellow scooterists, so beware!