The psychology of zombies

I never intended this blog to be about cycling to the extent it now is. It is supposed to be about what I am doing writing-wise, with the occasionally flash-fiction stories of incidents in my life. But when repeatedly faced with zombies who drive their kiddie-spawn to school in Suffolk while apparently believing that leaving enough space for the width of my shoulders, plus a breath of air, is sufficient after ignoring a whole clutch of other sections of the Highway Code, I feel obliged to impose yet another 'moment' from my busy schedule of avoiding the forth-coming zombie apocalypse on you.

She looked at me. I swear she looked at me. At some basic level she must have recognised me as a cyclist and promptly decided it was therefore okay to pull out to overtake a row of stationary vehicles and head straight for me leaving the aforementioned unit of space for me to exist in. Is driving a car so comparatively safe these days that, on the subconscious level, the driver thinks that as they might be immune to the perils of bad driving, everyone else must be?

I call them zombies because they appear brain-dead. At least there's no discernable reasoning going on behind their eyes. And why does all semblance of rational thought dissipate the moment a mother drops off her off-spring? Is the daily commute to the primary school so mind-numbing that all aspects of safety are forgotten as soon as the job has been done? There is some kind of spark there – the startled reaction as I bellow in their direction sometimes gives me hope that they might learn from their mistakes. But, as I say, they exhibit all the appearance of zombies and I doubt they'll be satisfied until they claim me. The words I shall shout then will be beyond profane ...

 

Oh, the first thing i did when I got home was throw a bucket of water over my bike. It seemed as good as any way to start removing the pounds of mud I acquired near Waldringfield.

 

Don' do stupid – it's just not clever.

Total recorded cycled miles since 21st July 2012: 1739