This weekend was an interesting one. I ended up in the ER on both Friday night and Saturday night ‘ and I hadn’t been drinking.

Basically, I got hit by a car Friday afternoon while trying to train for a bike race that was this weekend. The accident sucked, as all accidents do, but luckily (REALLY luckily), I ended up with just a lot of big bruises and road rash. I didn’t do any damage to the car and my bike survived, more or less intact. I still tried to race on Sunday, but my body got the best of me and I had to drop out early.

But the experience itself, besides scaring the crap out of my mom and making me feel pretty badass, brought to mind an important issue to me: A lot of people in Binghamton ‘ but especially people on campus or nearby ‘ tend to either forget that they’re supposed to share the road with cyclists, or just drive like plain assholes.

This fall I had to read a story in the news about a cyclist in Rochester who had been killed by a driver who hit him from behind going at 45 to 50 mph. Initially, the driver of the vehicle wasn’t even charged for a crime. Most cyclists are riding on something that weighs around 1 percent of what a car does; we’re basically at the whims of shitty drivers. So try to steer clear of us and give us some space on the road.

I’m already anticipating the argument, ‘but you idiots should use the SIDEWALK like pedestrians do,’ so I’ll just clear it up quick:

1.Sidewalks have a lot more (sometimes severe) cracks and imperfections, most of which make you feel like someone is trying to pummel your rear end with a leather-covered sledgehammer. Not fun. Furthermore, it can actually lead to damage in pretty tender areas if you’re not careful, as well as damage to the bike.

2.Sidewalks are where people walk. For some reason, people don’t always move out of the way when someone’s barreling down a sidewalk at 20 mph. This often results in bad news.

So why can’t we just share the roads? I mean, riding a bike has proved to be the most energy-efficient mode of transportation in existence, period. It’s better for the environment, cheaper, healthier and doesn’t leave you at the mercy of $3.50 per gallon gas prices. Furthermore, I’ve never heard of a cyclist that ever ended up hitting a car and injuring the car’s driver.

From now on, just watch out for cyclists. I’m tired of getting nervous whenever someone with a BU sticker pulls out in front of me. Just show us the respect you would another driver. Flip us off if you really want, but otherwise, just give us some space.

‘Pete Groh is a freshman English and political science major. If you like bikes, e-mail him.