Biking on campus is the riskiest thing you’ll ever do in college, trust me

You will get run over at least once…maybe twice

Unfortunately, I have the dishonor of parking in Lot 59. Which means for the sake of time and sanity, I have to bike from my car to class every day.

Admittedly, sometimes it’s a nice ride, especially now that it’s a bit cooler and the sun isn’t radiating heat waves of mass destruction onto my back. The only downside is, riding a bike on our campus is actually the most dangerous and risky thing I have ever done.

Pedestrians

Every day, I have to decide between the comfort of myself and the safety of others. Let me tell you, these pedestrians who are glued to their phones, stepping in my path, and meandering slowly across the street are so lucky that I’m kind. I am tempted to one day just let myself run into one of them but I know for sure that if I did, I would look like a jerk. Otherwise, I would have run their asses over a long time ago.

The crosswalk of death

Now in my adult years, I understand why the crossing guards made you walk your bike across the street in elementary school. Boy, do I wish we had those heroes in reflective vest now. A busy day on campus means high volumes of pedestrians coming from both sides of the street, most of them on their phones, some of them walking without actually paying attention to anything. On top of that you have ASUs gardeners on mowers or golf carts and D.A.R.T bullying their ways through the crowd.

So where does that leave a poor, innocent, cyclist? Struggling to get balance because they can’t gain enough momentum, swerving between pedestrians, carts, other bikers, and breaking sporadically all while trying to get across the street in 20 seconds.

Walk only Zones… need I say more

For a school who is number one in innovation, we aren’t very creative. You’d think we’d be the first ones to create bike lanes in walk ways, not U of A. Instead, we have THE DUMBEST SYSTEM IN EXISTENCE…walk only zones. First of all, where do they start? And where do they end? For all I know every zone is a walk only zone.

But you’re thinking, “well how is that dangerous? It sounds like a good system to keep everyone safe.”

Um, have you met the walk only zone officers? They are the most intense human beings on the planet and they take their jobs waaaayyyy too seriously. Jumping in front of bikers, screaming at them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried chasing walk-only violators down to beat them with bike locks.

u/passwords784912 Reddit

u/passwords784912 Reddit

Bike racks… tragic

Now, I’m short, I stand at about 5’1. Tell me why the majority of the racks by my classes are the ones where you have to lift your whole ass bike up and hang it? Um, no thanks.

In my naïveté, I tried it once and not only did I almost dropped this bike on my head but I almost took this poor dude out with me. Luckily, he was cool and tall and helped me situate my bike without any more incidents.

This tidbit isn’t that dangerous, its funny and annoying but mostly annoying. There is rarely any space to place your bike. Most likely you’re tying it to a tree or wrapping the lock around your bike in hopes that no one just lifts it up and walks away. And you want to know why we don’t have enough space? Because we do goofy stuff like lock chairs from the MU to racks.

u/doyourlabs reddit

u/doyourlabs reddit

And if you do find a place to put your bike what stops other people from doing weird stuff to it? Like , I don't know, chain a scooter to it?

Cars, and buses, and shuttles, oh my!

Sun Devils can’t drive. At all. Know that it is highly likely that you will get run over by an orbit bus at least once. Maybe twice. I don’t know who they hire to drive these huge vehicles but know that they don’t actually look both ways and that they don’t actually care if you’re in the middle of the crosswalk.

Students, understandably are in a rush and stressed out, but I hope they realize that running over a crowd of people isn’t going to solve their problems. In fact, if they haven’t noticed, it will make things worse and your minimum wage job at the campus bookstore is definitely not going to pay for the injuries of 15 people AND your rent!

Buses… listen… if you're on a bike, just let them go first. They don’t see you, they will hit you, and you will die.

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Arizona State University