Please don't kill the cyclists

I bike as often as I can. I love it, and love the bike as a means of transport, especially in the city. It wouldn't be efficient for every city, but for the City of Chicago, it works really well. I just have two basic requests of the world at large, and I don't think they are that unreasonable:

1. Please don't kill the cyclists.

and

2. Do you need to ask me Every Single Day if I biked to work/rehearsal/an event? If there is a foot of snow outside, Do You Really Neeed to ask me if I rode my bike??? What's your wildest guess? If it is raining outside but my hair and clothing are obviously dry ten minutes after making it to a location, do you NEEEEEEDDDDD to ask if I rode my bike??

Now, I know what you may say - it's a joke. Here's my point: I have heard it before. And not even nce has it been amusing. If you're just looking for something to say, look for something else.

All right, now, back to Number 1. In this I am partly at fault, but I'd like to make a case for cyclists. I fear for my life on the roads, even when I do obey every single traffic law, and I feel that fear stems from the general dislike of cyclists. Motorists just don't care about helping you out. I'd like to expand that view. Sure, I appreciate that cyclists seem to get in your way - they take up some of your road, their travel patterns can be difficult to anticipate, and they occasionally cause you a few seconds delay. But people, I beg you, think of the difference in your situations. If you lose a few seconds waiting on a bike to pass by, you tap that gas pedal and you're on your way. If you cut off a cyclist, they lose momentum that they physically sweated and groaned to achieve - they had to get up that hill using their on muscles, not an inch or two of fossil fuel.

Which leads me to my argument. You're looking at this the wrong way - you're forgetting that you really WANT cyclists on the road. The more people who take to the bike to get around, the more who are NOT in their cars snarling up the road in front of you. Cyclists aren't using up precious resources, so there will be more left over for you! You should be trying to help the cyclists, make their journeys more efficient, so that they never want to get in a car again.

I'd like to appeal to your sense of fairness as well. It's raining, it's windy, it's cold out. You are huddled into your nice warm SUV with the seatwarmers cranked up. A cyclist, cold, soaked, and struggling against that wind creeps by you. Isn't it worth an extra three seconds to let that poor cyclist continue on their way? The three seconds it takes you to give them a break are, for you, warm and dry. Help them get to safety! Get out of the way!

In the end, it comes down to attitude. I rode in London for a year and the only time I got heckled or attacked was for riding my bike inside a park (which is weird to me, since it seems fine for children to ride bikes in parks). Here, people go out of their way to roll down a window and offer loud, unsolicited advice and ridicule. Let your anger for the cyclist go - embrace the cyclist. The more of us there are, the easier your commute would be.

So from the bottom of my heart I repeat my constant cycling mantra:

Please don't kill the cyclist.