Last summer, CBC Radio 91原创’s Early Edition did a kind of “ask me anything about Metro 91原创” series.
People could send in questions and the team would try to find answers.
Like, what is that sticky stuff from trees that’s all over my car? (Answer: Something about bugs making European linden trees leach some kind of goop.)
One of the questions someone sent in was: “Why do people say ‘thank you’ to bus drivers?”
“Um, common courtesy,” said host Stephen Quinn in a kind of “are you kidding me” tone.
It was a delightful moment, especially for someone from Victoria, where many people do thank the driver when they’re getting off the bus. It’s something I love about this city.
I personally like thanking the bus driver, and do it on a regular basis, unless they close the door on me while I am in the process of boarding at a bus stop, with a person behind me, and don’t even apologize (this actually happened). Or, when they nearly fail to stop at the bus stop where I am waiting in the dark, because they are driving too fast, and I politely ask them if they could see me at the stop and they respond, quite rudely: “My doctor gave me a blood test today. Turns out I’m human.” (That actually happened, too.) Those two I didn’t thank.
I do, however, like giving people a little wave when they let me into traffic with my car, or stop their vehicle for my bike where the Galloping Goose trail crosses roads, or wait courteously for me to cross at an intersection rather than cutting me off by turning right in my path. (I have a little wave for the latter group, too, but it’s not really that nice.)
Sometimes people wave back and it feels like an extremely agreeable moment of connection, a kind of “I see you and you see me and we are being nice to each other” sort of thing.
In that vein, the common-courtesy vein, I always try to use my bell to alert people that I’m passing before I ride up behind them on the Galloping Goose.
So I was puzzled one day recently when I rang my bell as usual, well behind a walking woman so as not to startle her, and she wheeled around and bellowed at me: “I could hear your tires on the road.”
I didn’t respond, as I had no idea what she meant by that.
Was she annoyed for some reason by bell-ringing? Had she had a traumatic experience as a child with a bell?
Did she think I was telling her to get out of the way?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Telling people to get out of the way is not the purpose of the courtesy-bell-ring at all.
On the contrary, it merely says, politely: Should you and your dog/child/shopping cart full of belongings be thinking of suddenly lurching over to the other side of the trail/bike path/bridge to see a seal/sunset/schnauzer, pray be aware that I am right here, coming up on your left, and any sudden movement on your part might have a calamitous ending.
There is a lot packed into that little tinkle, but aggressive and rude it is not.
When I wrote a while ago about poor behaviour by many cyclists on the mixed-use trails, one of the things I pointed out was the failure of too many riders to signal that they are passing with a ding of the bell or a merry “on your left” or some other method.
In response, a jogger wrote in a Reddit post that she found bell-ringing very annoying.
Alas, it’s not always possible to ascertain the general feelings of a total stranger on the subject of bell-ringing — pro, con or neutral — before zipping past them at 20 km/h.
So, there will be times, I am sorry to say, when I will ring my bell and you will not like it. But there will be other times when I ring it and it stops someone from careening into my path in pursuit of a better angle for a photo of the sunset from the Selkirk Trestle, so I feel like it’s a bit of a wash overall.
I do wonder, however, about the woman who was so determined to let me know about her profoundly finely tuned ability to hear my tires.
Is she the kind of person who takes any display of courtesy directed toward her as an accusation of personal weakness?
If someone opens the door for her, does she glare at them and say: “I know how to open a door.”
If you hold out her coat, does she say: “I can put on my own coat.”
I do know some people who feel that way, but they are mostly the kinds of people who like to play in mud puddles and crawl around on the floor in pursuit of soggy, squished Cheerios.
Maybe it comes down to the fact that common courtesy really isn’t all that common.
After all, why would anyone pause to wonder why a disembarking rider would say thank you to a bus driver?
