universally recognizeable

I wanted to write this down for myself because I don't want to forget the ridiculousness of this brief exchange with the police:

I was on a date with a very pretty young lady this past Saturday night and both being fairly competent cyclists, we were meandering from place to place, chatting and getting to know one another as people typically do on first dates. We had a lovely dinner at Marlow & Son on Broadway; went to a neat rooftop in the Navy Yard; and then decided to hit up some bars and continue the cavorting over beer.

Of course we'd already shared a bottle of wine with dinner and had a couple beers on the roof, but we were by no means drunk; or even tipsy for that matter. Since Saturday night traffic in Clinton Hill Brooklyn is relatively tepid, it's not at all unsafe to ride two abreast, assuming you courteously return to single-file riding when cars need to overtake you. So we're lolling along next to each other, enjoying the weather and company, and I hear cars coming up on us from behind so I rode ahead of my lady friend.

A fair amount of time passes (proof to me that I made my move appropriately ahead of time) and then a police cruiser pulls up behind and to the left of us, matches our speed, and gets on the loudspeaker, "DO NOT RIDE TWO ABREAST! YOU MUST RIDE SINGLE FILE!"

The cop repeats this three more times so I give him a salute with my left arm to non-verbally indicate to him that I heard him, understood him, and there's no need to continue berating us very loudly and very publicly. pulls up alongside me and (I'm a little hazy on exactly what he said and in what order, so I'm gonna give this the one-draft approach) says, "Hey mister sarcasm, you should ride over to [indistigushable street names] and look at this biker who got hit over there, you don't even know what you're doing, etc, etc, etc...."

Anyways, so at the exact moment I saluted them (which, admittedly, I did do with sarcastic intent) the girl I was riding with was kind of pleading with them to just shut up. That sealed it. I like this girl.

I tried valiantly to explain that I was just singalling to him that a. we heard him the first time and b. he was berating us for something we weren't even doing (when the cars were present). But he was doing that thing cab drivers do when you try to reason with them where they just start yelling incoherently so you can't get a word in edgewise and you have no idea if they've even heard, or understood what it is you were trying to tell them. I've always assumed this is something they do because they know the person they're doing it to will just give up to have them stop yelling. Anyways, I finally got him to leave us alone by saying, "Hey man, if we've done something illegal, you need to write us a ticket or summons and leave us be." that shut him up pretty quick.

So in retrospect I realized that as cyclists, we try to be as frank and understandable as possible when signalling to other road-users, but motorists and pedestrians are less adroit at pseudo-sign-language and take some things as sarcastic or too blunt. I also came to understand that perhaps this cop thought he was really helping to keep us safe and we likewise didn't immediately understand his incredibly rude approach to warning us of dangers.

Luckily though, this sort of thing happens to me on nearly a daily basis so I'm pretty good at letting encounters like this roll off my back and not holding too much of a grudge. My lady and I made it safely to our bar of choice and continued our awesome evening largely uninterrupted.

Post Script: I decided to write this down here because as I was just walking to get lunch, I thought of something really awesome I could've done that totally would've taken those cops off their high-horse. I should've pointed at him and said flat-out, "you. pull over now. I want names and badge numbers."

Then again, I don't think that would have been too conducive to having this girl want to hang out with me again.