people who drive, suck

I just got back from the grocery store, which I got to on my bike. It is one and a half miles from my apartment. In that distance, I got almost hit on three separate occasions, two of them having just left the parking lot...both in the same intersection. Sitting on the crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn green, I stand by a car turning right. As I am going straight I go once the light turns green...so does he. I try to hit his car with my open right hand and miss, but tell him what I think of him anyway...he dives off. As I am still moving forward, a guy and his girlfriend take a real shallow left, trying to sneak in in front of me, almost hitting me in the process. I flip him off and tell him to he can do to himself...he has theballs to try and tell me where to stick it as if I weren't the one doing shit that could kill another human being.

The third near-death experience was one of the usual...not bothering to look both ways while turning. Bikes are slower and so people "just assume" that I won't get to their corner before they go. I've learned to anticipate this and correct myself -- either by hitting the brakes or swerving -- before it becomes an issue, so it's really a non-issue, I guess. But it isn't, you know.

I only mention this because I find it indicitive of the human condition as a whole. I've been thinking a lot about what's wrong with society and been able to whittle it down to just a few. I'm not ready with my thoughts to explain them in any sort of detail, but I have found one that transcends the others, and is in a lot of ways related to them, though I haven't figured out exactly how...whether it is the cause, the effect, or something else...but I think that the most major disease of the human race is our ego. We regularly put ourselves and our needs ahead of any and everyone elses...it's why conscience doesn't always stop murders from happening, and it's what drives a consumeristic society. ...It's also what gets me almost killed about once per every mile bicycled in my experience.