Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray w B Boston's new
Speaker 1: video Dan Watkins.
Speaker 2: What station. I was trying to watch the game out
Speaker 2: of the corner of my eye and I couldn't find it.
Speaker 2: They were on TNT. You tn T tonight, TNT. Oh
Speaker 2: missed it? Okay, if I had seen it, they would
Speaker 2: have won. I'm kind of their good luck Tron. That's
Speaker 2: that's what happened exactly. Maybe was it those three points?
Speaker 1: Maybe they would have only missed forty four.
Speaker 2: And they, oh, well, I'll get him again. I my
Speaker 2: TV was pushing me to some pay per view deal
Speaker 2: when it was like, I don't like that.
Speaker 3: That's strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to get back to TNT. Okay, gotta
Speaker 2: remember that one for Wednesday night. All right, Thanks Dan,
Speaker 2: appreciate it as always. Thank you much, my friend, of course.
Speaker 2: Thanks all right, Gonna change topics last hour again. My
Speaker 2: thanks to Jamie Gass of the Pioneer Institute. It's a
Speaker 2: great organization. It's really grown. It's called the Pioneer Institute
Speaker 2: dot org. All one word, Pioneer Institute dot org. Check
Speaker 2: them out. They are really smart people who want what
Speaker 2: is best for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Most of the
Speaker 2: politicians up there at the State House are not very
Speaker 2: smart people, nor do they want what is best. They
Speaker 2: want what is best for themselves, and that is the difference.
Speaker 2: So whatever the Pioneer Institute lines up on an issue,
Speaker 2: I'm generally on their side. So I would suggest that
Speaker 2: you check them out. And well, that was a really
Speaker 2: good hour. Jamie Gass is a really well spoken guy
Speaker 2: and a representative of the Pioneer Institute. So I got
Speaker 2: to tell you a story here. Okay, my best hours,
Speaker 2: I think are experiences that I have had, and uh,
Speaker 2: this was an experience which really bothered me. Yesterday I
Speaker 2: was heading to the gym on Sunday morning and I
Speaker 2: was stopped at the light. Again, it doesn't matter where,
Speaker 2: but I will tell you in case you know the
Speaker 2: area Lake Street and Washington Street. And I just went
Speaker 2: by what's called Rogers Park, a ball field, big big
Speaker 2: ball field in Brighton on my right and come up
Speaker 2: to a red light. And it just so happened on
Speaker 2: a Sunday morning that traffic's pretty light. So normally when
Speaker 2: I missed that light on the fifth or sixth car,
Speaker 2: but I was number one. I was the first waiting
Speaker 2: for the light to change, and I am what you
Speaker 2: call a fairly defensive driver. I like to try to
Speaker 2: assume that there are other people on the road who
Speaker 2: are not paying attention. And you know, again, I don't
Speaker 2: want to jinx myself. Believe me. I'm I'm a little
Speaker 2: still concerned about even talking about this issue. But I
Speaker 2: think it's important, and if you think it's important, i'd
Speaker 2: like to have you join me. So as the light
Speaker 2: turns green, And before it turned green, I noticed in
Speaker 2: the distance to my right on Washington Street heading towards
Speaker 2: Lake Street, and it looked like a pretty good clip
Speaker 2: and a guy on a bike. Now, I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you the guy in the bike was not a kid. Okay,
Speaker 2: he probably was sixty years old, maybe more, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He was flying, he was flying. He was dressed kind
Speaker 2: of disheveled. It almost looked, you know, as I saw
Speaker 2: him that it looked like he was wearing pajamas and
Speaker 2: a bathrobe. I don't know, maybe it was maybe it was,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. He looked a little disheveled.
Speaker 2: And when the light turned green, I started to roll
Speaker 2: into the intersection, but I rolled in more slowly than
Speaker 2: I normally would again, I wasn't in a rush. This
Speaker 2: guy on his bike blew through the red light. Never looked,
Speaker 2: never looked, never slowed down. He blew through that red light.
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, if I had not noticed him,
Speaker 2: I don't know why I did, but I did, and
Speaker 2: and I was watching, and when the light turned, I
Speaker 2: had I assumed that, well, this guy, maybe he was
Speaker 2: going to stop, but I wasn't sure, so I waited.
Speaker 2: And of course, as he flew by me, and again
Speaker 2: the light had turned, now for three or four seconds.
Speaker 2: This wasn't a light that turned quickly. I blasted him
Speaker 2: on my horn. Okay, I mean I wanted to wake
Speaker 2: the guy up because I was afraid he was going
Speaker 2: to roll through another red light. The point of my
Speaker 2: story is you have to be so concerned drive, but
Speaker 2: you have to be so concerned with a lot of
Speaker 2: the bicyclists who do not care about the lights. All
Speaker 2: of us have sat at red lights patiently in our
Speaker 2: cars when someone has slid by us on the right
Speaker 2: in some cases slowed down or maybe even come to
Speaker 2: a full stop, and they just proceeded through the red light. Which,
Speaker 2: of course, if you did that or I did that,
Speaker 2: there would be a police officer who would pull us
Speaker 2: over and ride us a ticket immediately for running a
Speaker 2: red light. But this guy yesterday, I don't know if
Speaker 2: he realizes that maybe after I blasted my horn at him,
Speaker 2: he did, he would have hit me broadside. I mean,
Speaker 2: there would have been no way that I could have
Speaker 2: even if I, well, I guess I could have if
Speaker 2: I wasn't paying attention, I theoretically could have could could
Speaker 2: have hit him. But the chances are that if I
Speaker 2: had just proceeded through the red light and wasn't paying attention,
Speaker 2: this guy would have hurt himself into my car and
Speaker 2: he would not have survived it. I mean, at the
Speaker 2: speed that he was going was really fast, never ever
Speaker 2: slowed down. So the point of the story is to
Speaker 2: emphasize to everybody that the bicyclists have taken over the roadways.
Speaker 2: We have lost. Okay, those of us who drive vehicles,
Speaker 2: we have lost. We did not come together and express
Speaker 2: our rights as drivers to be able, which we pay
Speaker 2: for the roads. Of course, the bicyclists don't pay for
Speaker 2: the roads. Oh, we all pay taxes. I get that,
Speaker 2: I get that, But we pay excise tax on our cars.
Speaker 2: We pay insurance. We pay to register our cars every year,
Speaker 2: we pay for inspections, none of which the bike riders
Speaker 2: the bicyclists pay for. But look, the last thing any
Speaker 2: of us want to do is find ourselves in an
Speaker 2: accident with a bicyclist, because you were always going to
Speaker 2: be blamed for it. And if I had gone through
Speaker 2: that red light without that green light, I should say,
Speaker 2: which I had without paying attention, he would have blown
Speaker 2: through the red light and either hurtled himself over my car.
Speaker 2: And I don't want that on my conscience. To be
Speaker 2: really honest with you, I have a responsibility to other people.
Speaker 2: I have to assume that when you go down the
Speaker 2: street with cars on both sides, be careful. Someone's dog
Speaker 2: might run out, some little kid might run out. But
Speaker 2: the problem that I deal with all the time are
Speaker 2: the bicyclist. They're out of control, they have been made
Speaker 2: to feel the masters of the road, they have been
Speaker 2: made to that they're impervious to any sort of an injury.
Speaker 2: And because even if they do get injured, the insurance
Speaker 2: for your car on my car will cover it. But
Speaker 2: this guy yesterday, again, this is not some kid. This
Speaker 2: is not some nineteen year old kid who was just
Speaker 2: going as fast he was going, like they would say,
Speaker 2: you know, that's out of hell. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: as simple as that he was going. He was probably
Speaker 2: going over the speed limit, the motor vehicle speed limit
Speaker 2: that would require, which I assume is like probably twenty
Speaker 2: five miles an hour. He was going at least thirty
Speaker 2: miles an hour, maybe more, maybe more. He was on
Speaker 2: a downhill, if you know the terrain that I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: Lake Street crosses Washington Street, and maybe he lost control.
Speaker 2: I don't know. He should have been out on a bike.
Speaker 2: If he lost control, it was just insanity. And I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, thank God, and I do mean thank God.
Speaker 2: That's something in my head said give a peek to
Speaker 2: the right, because once I saw him, I breaked. Slowed
Speaker 2: down initially, and then I breaked in the middle of
Speaker 2: the intersection because I wanted nothing to do with this dude.
Speaker 2: Six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one
Speaker 2: seven nine three one ten thirty. I know we haven't
Speaker 2: talked about the bicyclist lately, but look, it's May fifth,
Speaker 2: by the way, Happy sinker Tomaio. For those of you
Speaker 2: who are celebrating the holiday, uh, and I just would
Speaker 2: love to hear from you if you've had a near
Speaker 2: death experience. I mean, it was scary. It was I
Speaker 2: went to the gym, focused on my gym workout and said,
Speaker 2: thank god that somebody was Something was in the back
Speaker 2: of my mind that said check the right because I
Speaker 2: don't know why normally I would anyway. Maybe other times
Speaker 2: I've checked it and there was nothing. They are blowing
Speaker 2: through the intersection. But this dude was doing twenty five
Speaker 2: to thirty miles an hour on a bike. Look like
Speaker 2: he was in a house code or pajamas or something
Speaker 2: like that. I don't know. And if he's out there,
Speaker 2: I saved your life yesterday, Powell, and you didn't care.
Speaker 2: You did not care. And don't kill yourself on someone
Speaker 2: else's car. Wake up and smell the coffee. Six seven
Speaker 2: two thirty six one seven nine three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: It's it's just gotten worse every year. It's gotten worse.
Speaker 2: The bicyclists, they will give you some hand signal and
Speaker 2: then they just move. They don't wait and wonder if
Speaker 2: you know what the what the hand signal meant or whatever.
Speaker 2: They they are the kings of the Kings and queens
Speaker 2: of the road and you drivers at Massachusetts, you are
Speaker 2: a mere inconvenience they need to deal with. Join the conversation.
Speaker 2: I love to hear from you six one seven two
Speaker 2: thirty or six one seven, nine three, one ten thirty
Speaker 2: back on night Side. If you had one of these
Speaker 2: experiences lately, feel free to share. And if you're a
Speaker 2: bicyclist and you feel that that some some driver did
Speaker 2: not exercise sufficient care and caution and actually jeopardized you,
Speaker 2: I'm willing to hear from you as well. I don't
Speaker 2: want anyone to get hurt. Coming back on.
Speaker 1: Nightside, you're on night Side with Dan Ray on you
Speaker 1: B Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: I was trying to describe this guy yesterday. I mean, uh,
Speaker 2: he almost had that look of the nutty professor type look,
Speaker 2: if you know what I'm saying. As I say, I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure if he's in like a long coat or
Speaker 2: a bathrobe or something in pajamas. But he was just
Speaker 2: flying down Washington Street and if you know that part
Speaker 2: of the uh the city in Brighton, heading towards Oak
Speaker 2: Square just blew through that light, never slowed down. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I just thank god I saw him. That's
Speaker 2: all I can say. Simple as that. Let's go to
Speaker 2: the phone. It's going to go to Phil in Boston. Phil,
Speaker 2: welcome first this hour and night side.
Speaker 4: Phil, how I made first? Dan, I'm so glad you
Speaker 4: brought this up. I'm surprised you and that's never happened before.
Speaker 2: Never this bad, Phil, Phil. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I've seen plenty of bike rider. Absolutely this guy. This guy,
Speaker 2: First of all, he didn't even recognize the red light. Phil.
Speaker 2: He just was coming down there like he was at
Speaker 2: the Indy five hundred or he thought he was five
Speaker 2: hundred and just blew through the light. And I'm telling you, Phil,
Speaker 2: if I had proceeded through that intersection as I normally would,
Speaker 2: if I hadn't noticed him, I would have either had
Speaker 2: him as a hood ornament, or he would have just
Speaker 2: killed himself and hurled himself over the car.
Speaker 4: You know, because you're a bus owner and you're you're cautious,
Speaker 4: and then chatting is you got the guy behind you?
Speaker 4: You the goal, so you get hit, You hit the guy.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The funny thing about it, the traffic was so light.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there was a guy behind me,
Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I don't know. I get
Speaker 2: what you're saying. I get what you're saying. But I
Speaker 2: was so focused on this guy, and I thought, is
Speaker 2: this guy gonna stop? And then I got a sense
Speaker 2: that he didn't care about stopping. And when he was
Speaker 2: at the front of my car, he probably blew by
Speaker 2: my car, you know, five feet in front of me.
Speaker 2: He had plenty of room. I hit that horn. Phil.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you, jeez, they carried they carry things
Speaker 4: to throw at you. They'll lock your wins you, they'll
Speaker 4: lock your rear view me. I'm telling you it's they
Speaker 4: don't even give poessions a break, like you say, the
Speaker 4: King of the road. Eventually, they don't want anybody driving.
Speaker 4: They don't want a driving bikes, absolutely no.
Speaker 2: And they had been empowered by the politicians. The powered
Speaker 2: by the way the politicians. You know, the politicians always
Speaker 2: show up. When you know, someone tries to beat a
Speaker 2: truck making a right hand turn and they end up
Speaker 2: under the front wheels and they die, sadly, the politicians
Speaker 2: will show up. The politicians really concerned that say hey, look, folks,
Speaker 2: you know you got to back off a little bit here.
Speaker 2: You're not the kings of the road.
Speaker 4: The weak or two. Yeah, the ends alone, I believe
Speaker 4: ends Loan. Years ago, someone that office that got hit
Speaker 4: by a bike, a ninja w a ninja, a courier
Speaker 4: almost killed. I was not killed. And they had a
Speaker 4: new law that was passed. A posy career is supposed
Speaker 4: to have a number in their backs that can identify him.
Speaker 4: That lasted about a week. Like you say, then, I
Speaker 4: was walking on Necummings Highway on Washing Street on the
Speaker 4: sidewalk going towards the post office. A person was on
Speaker 4: a bike on the sidewalk. I was on the sidewalk,
Speaker 4: which I did not know that my back was to them.
Speaker 4: And it's happened before to me. He came with him
Speaker 4: just on knocking me off the standing and I yelled
Speaker 4: at him. And now I'm in a beaf with this guy.
Speaker 4: Know who he was. He calls me the certain words
Speaker 4: and then I'm saying, wait a minute, if I get
Speaker 4: involved with this guy, I'm gonna be involved. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: get total. He's gonna just walk on the bark and
Speaker 4: I'll be I'm guessing though it's no one cares anymore.
Speaker 2: Dan, that's the problem. Field and I'm trying to wake
Speaker 2: people up here a little bit. I feel that that
Speaker 2: the drivers, the people who drive automobiles, you know, pay
Speaker 2: pay sales taxes, pay sales taxes, size taxes, insurance. The
Speaker 2: politicians don't care about them. We have a group called
Speaker 2: Triple A. I'm a member of Triple A, right, But
Speaker 2: Triple A doesn't do anything about this. All they want
Speaker 2: to do is collect my dues and hopefully and hope
Speaker 2: that I don't call for Doe.
Speaker 4: That's a good prince. Yeah right, no, but no, but
Speaker 4: I'm so glad it brought it up. I know nothing's
Speaker 4: gonna be done about it. It's just almost just survival,
Speaker 4: miss Dan. I saw several vehicles set pedal bikes. The
Speaker 4: guy has his family and the back with a self
Speaker 4: made cat. This gentleman has to be out. He's got
Speaker 4: and I'm sure he's a good driver, you mine as
Speaker 4: a lass, but he's gonna be a complete idiot. People
Speaker 4: are driving and then they got the mopeds on the bike.
Speaker 4: No one knows what the rules are. You'll seek to
Speaker 4: a carpo. I don't know that. That's a simple thing.
Speaker 4: We don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, I know what the rules are I'm
Speaker 2: gonna give you the rules. Simple. The rules are that
Speaker 2: people who drive automobiles better comply with every every traffic obligation.
Speaker 2: If you drive a bike, do whatever the hell you want.
Speaker 4: That should be made for a good political statement for
Speaker 4: someone who's running for some kind of an office. I'm
Speaker 4: telling you, but it is getting out a hand in
Speaker 4: and someone's gonna get cleaned or have your life rules.
Speaker 2: This guy almost bought the farm yesterday, and I gotta
Speaker 2: tell you, I, you know, look, I Phil, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be in that situation.
Speaker 4: Got problems.
Speaker 2: It's as simple as that. You got it. Hey, Peil,
Speaker 2: appreciate you calling me and we'll talk about Appreciate it
Speaker 2: very much. All right, we got to take a quick
Speaker 2: break here. We're coming up in the news, and I
Speaker 2: want to short circuit anyone. I've got one line open
Speaker 2: at six one seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty, and
Speaker 2: I got a couple lines open at six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty. If you still drive a car, I'd
Speaker 2: love to know what your experience has been and what
Speaker 2: you would have done. I hoped that everyone would have
Speaker 2: seen this guy coming and spared his life. I felt that,
Speaker 2: you know, I could have been half asleep. I guess
Speaker 2: I could have been not paying attention. I could have
Speaker 2: been listening to the radio. But thank god I saw him,
Speaker 2: and I just had a feeling. I said, this guy's
Speaker 2: not going to stop, and I figured and I was right.
Speaker 2: He didn't stop. He he may have lost his ear
Speaker 2: drum because I blasted him. Because I hope he woke up,
Speaker 2: and I hope he realized how close he came to
Speaker 2: buy in the farm if someone hadn't paid attention. We'll
Speaker 2: take a quick break coming right back on Nightside, right
Speaker 2: after the news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: It's night Side, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I just want to emphasize, this
Speaker 2: was not some kid driving the bike. This guy was
Speaker 2: at least sixty, maybe more money. No helmet that I recognized,
Speaker 2: and as they say, he looked like he was wearing
Speaker 2: pjs A in a bathrobe. I don't know. Maybe he
Speaker 2: was in a different sort of get up. I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe he was heading to church on a Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you, anyone who was not paying attention
Speaker 2: could have easily hit the guy. He was not stopping,
Speaker 2: and he had the red light for about five or
Speaker 2: six seconds. It wasn't like the red. The light just
Speaker 2: turned red. Now there was a younger person driving a
Speaker 2: car who maybe wasn't as attentive. Could have been lights
Speaker 2: out for this dude. And if he's listening, you were
Speaker 2: very lucky. My friend Crash in Boston. Oh, I'm sure
Speaker 2: with a name like Crash, this guy's going to be
Speaker 2: a character. Go ahead, Crash.
Speaker 5: Well, my last name is actually Gordon, so I'm not
Speaker 5: Flash Gordon.
Speaker 2: Crash.
Speaker 5: I am Crash Gordon. But honestly, the arrogance of the
Speaker 5: majority of people. I've ridden my bicycles all over the country,
Speaker 5: and I've driven my trucks. I'm waiting for a team suspension.
Speaker 5: I've ridden my motorcycles. The majority of people are not
Speaker 5: focused on what they're doing, no matter what they're operating.
Speaker 5: It's like the three fingers shop teacher. Hey don't do this, well,
Speaker 5: how did you do it?
Speaker 2: Show me and let me ask you this. I'm telling
Speaker 2: this story straight up. Okay, I'm not saying that I've
Speaker 2: never made a mistake driving, but I'm not an If
Speaker 2: this guy's blowing through a red light on a Sunday.
Speaker 5: Morn that is ignorant, and a lot of bicycle riders
Speaker 5: that think they're impervious and you don't have enough patting.
Speaker 5: You hit the wall, kid, and it fell down on
Speaker 5: you after you hit it, because he knock it down.
Speaker 5: This is the arrogance of the majority of what you're
Speaker 5: going to encounter, and the biggest problem is half of
Speaker 5: it's so distracted when in his own thinking doesn't even
Speaker 5: have to be on the phone. Yeah, the guy probably
Speaker 5: got kicked in ahead by a butterfly and he was
Speaker 5: still following the flight. He went on the field drip.
Speaker 2: Because I watched this guy and I just he caught
Speaker 2: my eye. He was going so fast and I thought
Speaker 2: to myself initially, he's never going to be able to stop.
Speaker 2: So the light turns green. I roll into the intersection
Speaker 2: really slowly. Normally I just would have proceeded through the intersection,
Speaker 2: but I said, and at some point, I just at.
Speaker 5: Least you took down one second of momentary reason to
Speaker 5: realize anything can happen at any given time. But a
Speaker 5: lot of people outplugged.
Speaker 6: In like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel sorry. I don't know what sort of
Speaker 2: trucks you drove, but often we'll hear in Cambridge, there's
Speaker 2: been an accident of bicyclist drove under the front the
Speaker 2: trucks taking a right and the bicyclist just tried to
Speaker 2: blow by the truck on the right side and didn't fight.
Speaker 5: Well, the one that ran in front of the trolley, Yeah,
Speaker 5: luckless pedestrian in that respect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that really did.
Speaker 5: So that luckless pedestrian I just wasn't paying it to
Speaker 5: or I just didn't care. And the air again, a
Speaker 5: lot of bicycle riders. Look at what they just did
Speaker 5: in this little town down the road to Spin. They're
Speaker 5: taking away sixty percent of the parking to make a
Speaker 5: bicycle lane and have these idiots don't even use the
Speaker 5: bike lane.
Speaker 2: Well that will, we see that. But we've lost that
Speaker 2: as drivers, we've lost the argument because the politicians basically
Speaker 2: do whatever.
Speaker 5: The biketotical on this one. Yeah, and Michel Woo screwed
Speaker 5: up every bicyclist in the city. She gave them the
Speaker 5: sense of entitlement. Now they're encroaching upon parking spaces. Well,
Speaker 5: there's more vehicles than they're all bicyclists.
Speaker 2: And a huge by the way, by a huge multiple.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's sixty forty, it's like.
Speaker 5: Oh, roll beyond reproach, all right, now it's like eighty twenty.
Speaker 5: And the bicyclists do not own the road. Hell, the
Speaker 5: carse the hell a lot bigger than you are, and
Speaker 5: you want to get in the way of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, if they don't pay for the roads at all,
Speaker 2: those are taxes. So don't they.
Speaker 5: Get the driving fees or you're not saying any taxes?
Speaker 5: No gas shore with the aggressive the aggressive scooter drivers too.
Speaker 5: I mean I've ridden motorcycles, okay, and yeah, I never
Speaker 5: got hit on my motorcycle because I didn't want to crash.
Speaker 2: I know you've never called before because I've never had
Speaker 2: a crash. The only person who I've ever known was
Speaker 2: crash was Crash Davis uh In uh In the baseball
Speaker 2: bull Durham uh And so we got to keep him
Speaker 2: as a first time caller. Run of the Claws.
Speaker 5: Oh yay, Do I get a T shirt?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, on another night you might have but not denied crash.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, man, It's all good.
Speaker 5: Don't sweated, but.
Speaker 2: Those from our friends in college.
Speaker 5: But the Celtics lost.
Speaker 2: Celtics to listen.
Speaker 5: To something good? Yeah, they did. Tonight one.
Speaker 2: I mean, just game one.
Speaker 5: We'll beat the nurse.
Speaker 2: Let's hope. Let's hope.
Speaker 5: Good to you and God bless and just keep an
Speaker 5: eye out. I'm dropping my left eye and I got
Speaker 5: no peripheral hearing.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks, thanks Crash. I enjoyed that call. Where
Speaker 2: we got to go neck. Let me go to Steve
Speaker 2: and Brockton. Steve you next night side welcome, go right ahead.
Speaker 6: Steve, Hi Dan, thanks for kind taking my call home.
Speaker 6: Excuse me, excuse me. I just had to call because
Speaker 6: when I was sixteen years old living in Brockton, and
Speaker 6: we're talking in the seventies, put it right, about nineteen
Speaker 6: seventy five.
Speaker 5: I was, I was.
Speaker 6: I had my shorts on, no shirt, no shoes. I
Speaker 6: came over with the hill of the main street, downtown
Speaker 6: Main Street, doing about thirty miles an hour, hit the hintersection,
Speaker 6: got hit by a Lincoln Continental owned by one of
Speaker 6: the boxing guys in Brocklyn too. He hit me.
Speaker 3: He hit me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the last the last thing I saw before I
Speaker 6: hit the pavement was Lincoln Continental. Is he hit him
Speaker 6: hit me with the front of the car. So I
Speaker 6: ended up. I end up on the sidewalk passed out
Speaker 6: without cold. I opened my eyes and it's all my
Speaker 6: friends are all standing around like what happened? What happened?
Speaker 6: This is like eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 5: And so I.
Speaker 2: Really dumb boy, sixty dumb question. What were you doing
Speaker 2: riding a bike at eleven o'clock? You were on a bike,
Speaker 2: I assume, right, yeah?
Speaker 6: What were a beautiful beautiful I'm beautiful. I love this bike.
Speaker 6: It was a motor Pacan here of those.
Speaker 2: Well, the question is eleven o'clock at night?
Speaker 6: Come on, well you know what do you what?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 6: What else was I doing at that at the time
Speaker 6: of the night? You think.
Speaker 2: Were you drinking? No?
Speaker 6: No, hell, we couldn't drink back then. It was eighteen eighteen.
Speaker 2: There were peanuts. He drank under the age of eighteen
Speaker 2: back then. I hate to break it to you, stave.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah you couldn't. You couldn't. It had to be
Speaker 6: kind of yeah, you would come.
Speaker 2: You were coming home from your girlfriend's house, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I figured it out, okay, And and you were so
Speaker 2: in love that they didn't see the car that hit you.
Speaker 2: Did that? The thing is, did you let me ask?
Speaker 2: I don't want to joke about it. First, did you
Speaker 2: did you recover from whatever injuries you you sustained?
Speaker 5: I had.
Speaker 6: They took me in an ambulance to Brogden Hospital. I
Speaker 6: had road burns over like eighty percent of my body.
Speaker 6: I was I was unconscious, okay, and I woke up.
Speaker 6: I tell my buddies there was like, am I in heaven?
Speaker 6: He goes, no, this is Donnie. But Donnie, what are
Speaker 6: you doing in heaven? What are you doing here? Is
Speaker 6: goldna be here? So they dragged me off and took
Speaker 6: care of me. But make a long story short. What
Speaker 6: hit me about the situation is the guy who hit
Speaker 6: me is just as to blame is me because he
Speaker 6: jumped the light. I came. I came flying down the
Speaker 6: hill doing like thirty miles an hour. Like you say,
Speaker 6: good speed. I was that was traveling. Yeah, went right through.
Speaker 6: He went right through the intersection, so I ignored the intersection.
Speaker 6: He jumped the light of the other intersection coming the
Speaker 6: other way.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: I was going southbound, he was going east. He jumped
Speaker 6: in and he hit me and put me on the
Speaker 6: on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: How long were you in the hospital for?
Speaker 6: Uh, Well, it probably took like well six to seven
Speaker 6: hours just to get seen in that at that time,
Speaker 6: it was a horrible down barked in the hospital.
Speaker 2: Lucky you're alive.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, I know. No major damage, just road burns.
Speaker 2: Did did they cover whoever hit or cover your injuries?
Speaker 2: Medical bills?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I managed to do that. I managed to get
Speaker 6: that covered. And I actually had him replace my bicycle,
Speaker 6: which was a motive a cane. Like I told you,
Speaker 6: it's like a three hundred dollars motiv a cane.
Speaker 2: Three hundred dollars was really three hundred dollars.
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, what's the lesson? What is the
Speaker 2: lesson that you took from that incident? What's the lesson
Speaker 2: did you leave with our audience tonight?
Speaker 6: Well, I would I would say that everybody has to
Speaker 6: share the road, and if it takes putting an officer
Speaker 6: of some sort like a parking we used to that.
Speaker 6: We said what you called what you call you basic
Speaker 6: registry officers back then. So not only did you have
Speaker 6: to watch out for corps while you were driving, make
Speaker 6: sure you were driving good for them, you had to
Speaker 6: be careful for the registry officers too. But they did
Speaker 6: away with them. I think it was Bill Weld. He
Speaker 6: decided that we didn't need them anymore. Ever since Bill
Speaker 6: Weld took over, the traffic situation in Massachusetts has gone downhill.
Speaker 2: Okay, i'll word it was actually occurred. The consolidation of
Speaker 2: the Registry and the state Police as well as police
Speaker 2: occurred under Billy Vultup. But anyway, Steve, I'm glad you
Speaker 2: and I'm glad you called in tonight, and I appreciate
Speaker 2: you taking the time.
Speaker 6: What they want to do is we do need, we
Speaker 6: do need better. What I'm getting at is what we
Speaker 6: need is better. Uh, these people on the street keep
Speaker 6: been keeping away.
Speaker 2: We tell you what we need. We need people to
Speaker 2: be awake. We need people to be awake. Okay. We
Speaker 2: need the bike riders not to feel that they own
Speaker 2: the roads. And we need the drivers, the automobile drivers
Speaker 2: to be aware that there were people out there who
Speaker 2: do really dumb things and.
Speaker 6: You give them tickets.
Speaker 5: You give him tickets.
Speaker 6: One in my life should.
Speaker 2: Take Thank you, Steve, appreciate your call. Be well, thanks
Speaker 2: my friend. Talk to you soon. We'll take a quick
Speaker 2: break back on night Side. Right after this.
Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to try to get everybody in who's
Speaker 2: on the line, So let's start it off with Robert
Speaker 2: and Wellesley. Robert, you were next on Nightside. Welcome.
Speaker 3: Oh, good evening.
Speaker 6: Dan.
Speaker 3: I like to commend you for being a safe driver
Speaker 3: and avoiding that accident.
Speaker 2: It scared the heck out of me, It really did.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I was when I scared the heck out
Speaker 3: of me too, and I want to commend you the
Speaker 3: way you handle it. I sympathize with your feelings in
Speaker 3: the more matter. I wonder if you'd be interested. And
Speaker 3: I've also found it interesting listening to your callers and
Speaker 3: their their perspectives, including UH, Stephen Brockton and crash and
Speaker 3: Crash Gordon, and I sort of like to like that.
Speaker 3: I'd sort of like to give the perspective of not
Speaker 3: only a motorist and a pedestrian because I've had scares
Speaker 3: that way from cyclists, but also as someone who's done
Speaker 3: cycling and also also done running and has had some
Speaker 3: interactions with with vehicles. Even though I was doing my
Speaker 3: utmost to operate according to you know, the rules for
Speaker 3: both cyclists and UH and monners.
Speaker 2: Grow ahead, you don't have to ask permission. Go ahead, Broly.
Speaker 3: Well, anyways, I think there's real misunderstanding antagonism on on
Speaker 3: both sides, and and I think some of your callers
Speaker 3: have said it's kind of a lack of safety education
Speaker 3: on all sides. And we you I can I can
Speaker 3: recall one time myne of my own business on a
Speaker 3: on a on a bicycle and uh uh, some guy
Speaker 3: came out of nowhere in a white undershirt and felt
Speaker 3: the needs tell me that the bicycle belonged up on
Speaker 3: the on the sidewalk, which as a vehicle it really
Speaker 3: doesn't belong on. So I was not supposed to be there.
Speaker 3: And I want to tell you that cyclist was way
Speaker 3: out of out of wine and not only should have
Speaker 3: been sided, but depending depending on perhaps depending on the municipality,
Speaker 3: could have been cited for driving recklessly like that that citation.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you he was flying and it wasn't a kid,
Speaker 2: he was an older guy. Uh And he was flying
Speaker 2: and I just thank God that I picked him up.
Speaker 2: Because all of us have those moments when you're not
Speaker 2: paying attention. I have had those moments.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: We all daydream something else, some other thought comes into
Speaker 2: our mind. And we're not thinking about what we're doing,
Speaker 2: and it could lead to a real problem, a real problem.
Speaker 2: I can remember as young as a young dad pushing
Speaker 2: my son in the baby carriage out in the roads
Speaker 2: of Sherbourne and they would be these guys at ten
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning. I was working nights in TV
Speaker 2: and I, you know, take my son. You know, he was,
Speaker 2: I mean a year or two old in a baby
Speaker 2: carriage and you know, the big cars coming down cut
Speaker 2: through between Route sixteen and twenty seven, and they were crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean they were. It was a cut through and
Speaker 2: I can remember yelling slow down, and they want to fight.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, let me put the baby carriage on
Speaker 2: the side of the road here, let's have at it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's insane. It's insane. Hey, robin
Speaker 2: Ie got a whole bunch of calls. We're going to
Speaker 2: try to sneak in. Be well, my friend, Thank you much,
Speaker 2: Thank you, good I talk to you soon. Good night.
Speaker 2: Let's go next to Dave in San Antonio, Texas. Dave,
Speaker 2: are they as crazy as San Antonio is up here?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: No, they aren't. And uh well, I had my experience
Speaker 5: on a cycle as in Michigan, and we didn't have
Speaker 5: bike lanes for as cyclists, we traveled in the lanes
Speaker 5: of the cars if we wanted to travel with the lanes,
Speaker 5: and we traveled on the side of the road or whatever.
Speaker 5: I got fast enough to travel with the lanes of
Speaker 5: the car. I could average thirty five forty miles an
Speaker 5: hour on the slow lane. I went to work every
Speaker 5: day on a bicycle doing that, and I find that
Speaker 5: the motorists were very courteous of me on there. I
Speaker 5: mean I was hugging the edge of the slow lane,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, yep, and they go by,
Speaker 5: and it was I was never any danger to them
Speaker 5: because I was going about as fast as they were.
Speaker 5: Fifty five was a speed limit. I could hold forty
Speaker 5: forty five all the way to work.
Speaker 2: And how long in those days was your commute.
Speaker 5: Thirty miles there and thirty miles home, so.
Speaker 2: Would take you? If you were doing what thirty thirty
Speaker 2: five forty you were getting to work in a little
Speaker 2: less than an hour.
Speaker 5: So that was good work, right, Yeah, And plus I
Speaker 5: saved a lot of Guess why.
Speaker 2: I'll bet you a lot. I bet your weather down
Speaker 2: there better, better weather pattern than we have a little
Speaker 2: hot in the summertime, but but probably the rest of
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 5: I don't blend you for your hostilities of the West.
Speaker 5: That's the way cyclists are treated. Bike wings everywhere, and no,
Speaker 5: that's not right. And if they if they want to
Speaker 5: take a bicycle or you know, they should learn to
Speaker 5: they should get you know, athletic enough to go as
Speaker 5: I was fast enough on the road to weather, they're
Speaker 5: not going to get hurt.
Speaker 2: Well, this guy was flying, Dave. I'm telling you this guy.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, not a steep hill, but he
Speaker 2: came down an incline. He was flying, and I saw
Speaker 2: the light change and I said, this guy's not stopping.
Speaker 2: And I obviously had the right of way, but what
Speaker 2: good did it do me to go through that intersection
Speaker 2: and and either get hit by him him or have
Speaker 2: him try to stop. There was no way he was
Speaker 2: going to be able to effectively stop without killing himself.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, it's you know, I mean, he I
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on in the guy's mind. It
Speaker 2: wasn't some kid. This was a guy who was like
Speaker 2: sixty sixty five years old, at least he looked that way.
Speaker 5: To me, so I beget he was seventy today to dad's.
Speaker 2: Crazy thirty on a Sunday morning. What was he rushing
Speaker 2: to go to church? I don't know, all right, Dave,
Speaker 2: I got to keep rolling here, man, gotta keep rolling. Man,
Speaker 2: have a good one. Get let me get Audrey and Cambridge.
Speaker 2: I'd be welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 7: Oh, I'm fine. How were you?
Speaker 6: Dan?
Speaker 7: Oh my god, I kept calling because the line was busy.
Speaker 7: You know, in Cambridge it's unbelievable. I mean, I know
Speaker 7: it's everywhere, but I mean one night I might have
Speaker 7: told you this before. We went up the city Hall
Speaker 7: and there were hundreds, when I tell you, hundreds of
Speaker 7: people like people with their helmets, with their little kids,
Speaker 7: even they have little kids talking at the microphone to
Speaker 7: the counselors that could barely speak right. And there were
Speaker 7: only a few of us and.
Speaker 2: Spandex.
Speaker 5: Oh all of them.
Speaker 2: That's a shame.
Speaker 7: And yeah, and it was just we just wanted to
Speaker 7: get the little have a little delay before they put
Speaker 7: more bike lanes on our main one of the main
Speaker 7: streets here, Cambond Street, And oh my gosh, they just
Speaker 7: went on and on.
Speaker 2: They heard a story today on BZY Radio that there's
Speaker 2: some sort of a petition over there to say parking spaces.
Speaker 2: Are you hip to that or no?
Speaker 7: I haven't heard of it yet. I know there's one
Speaker 7: section on Broadway, but don't worry, I'll be signing it.
Speaker 2: Well, it was. You can check out WBZ News go
Speaker 2: to our website in Boston News, uh and you can
Speaker 2: find it. And I'm telling you it was, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It sounded like a pretty interesting story. It was a
Speaker 2: significant number of signatures to save parking spaces because the
Speaker 2: loss of the parking spaces kills the business.
Speaker 7: It is it is and they don't care. And you know,
Speaker 7: when you were talking about it before, I forget the
Speaker 7: when you were saying, how you know the bicycles on
Speaker 7: the sidewalks? What what they did here? There's a senior
Speaker 7: housing development not too far from where I am and
Speaker 7: they actually put the bike lane on the sidewalk in
Speaker 7: front of the senior housing. A bike doesn't it. I mean,
Speaker 7: it just gets more ridiculous every day, and it's just
Speaker 7: it's infuriating, and yet people are fighting it and fighting it.
Speaker 7: And now now what they do in Cambridge. You can
Speaker 7: put a building up with no parking. I mean, not
Speaker 7: too long ago, you could not build a building without
Speaker 7: having attic of pocketing's a building going up.
Speaker 2: It's all part of a combined strategy, it really is.
Speaker 2: It's a part of it.
Speaker 7: It's crazy, though, but I don't get it.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 7: I don't get it, because why don't. At least it's
Speaker 7: the bicyclists, you know, obey the traffic law laws, but
Speaker 7: they don't. And I call them the II group. Yeah,
Speaker 7: well that's a good one, because that's all they talk,
Speaker 7: think about it as themselves. I want to do this,
Speaker 7: and I want to do that, and I want to
Speaker 7: ride my bike. And some of them didn't even live
Speaker 7: in cambers that were up at city Hall that night.
Speaker 2: Well, I've told you how passed. And this goes back,
Speaker 2: This goes back like thirty years. I'd be driving my
Speaker 2: kids on Sunday morning to a soccer game or a
Speaker 2: little league game, and I've had a few kids, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of their friends in the car, and out
Speaker 2: on some of those roads in the western suburbs, you know,
Speaker 2: in Westwood and Natick and places like that, you'd have
Speaker 2: like these three guys dressed in the same sort of outfit.
Speaker 2: It's like they were on some sort of professional sports team,
Speaker 2: but they just had the same yellow spandex outfit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they would drive three abreast. If you come up on
Speaker 2: them and you just beeped quietly, they'd turn it around,
Speaker 2: flashing the broad atge with kids in the backseat of
Speaker 2: the car.
Speaker 7: Really yeah, yeah yeah, And as other said, they so yeah,
Speaker 7: oh yeah, and it's so elegant. I mean, they just
Speaker 7: think that they own the road. I mean, one guy
Speaker 7: one day, I mean, and I just halloed at him.
Speaker 7: There's poor woman was trying to get out of the
Speaker 7: arm there was like ann Chice store.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well yeah, she's just trying to pull out a little bit.
Speaker 7: And a bicycle is going by and saying, hey, you
Speaker 7: your blocking the road. He went. I said, you're going
Speaker 7: to a red light. The guy was going to a
Speaker 7: red light. No, they don't care.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately I got you in before you.
Speaker 7: Oh, I know, you got a kind of call us.
Speaker 7: This is like a source spot with so many people.
Speaker 2: Okay, well thanks Audrey, talk soon. All right, all right,
Speaker 2: we're gonna stick with this into the eleven o'clock hour.
Speaker 2: Angelo and Tim you stay there. I got lines at
Speaker 2: six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty and at
Speaker 2: six one, seven, nine, ten thirty