Everybody should follow the bike lane arrows. Feat David Byrne
Summary
David Byrne has a take about New York bike lanes: follow the arrows. Simple, right? Not in practice. Kareem and the Talking Heads frontman bond over the chaos of cyclists going the wrong way, delivery workers zooming past in both directions, and the cultural differences between biking in NYC versus Copenhagen, where Byrne once got publicly shamed for stopping in a bike lane to check his phone. The conversation turns to why delivery cyclists break the rules constantly. They're paid per delivery, not hourly, so speed matters more than safety. Kareem admits he's part of the problem, anxiously tracking his pizza on his phone while the guy cutting corners is just trying to avoid getting yelled at. Both agree they tip 20% regardless. Society ruined it.
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Full Transcript
So, what's your take? I'm a bike rider. I get around New York on a bike. Everybody should follow the arrows and go in the direction that they're supposed to go in.
100% agree. No matter who you are. I agree. If there's a moment I'm not paying attention or next minute, I know there's somebody about to crash into my face. Could be a delivery truck. Could be a cop car. Could be someone with a stroller. Get your baby out of the bike lane. Do not use your baby as a battery ramp. You're going that way. They're going this way. They're not following the arrows.
I don't know how to enforce it. I mean, in other countries, people stay going in the direction of the traffic. They stop at the lights. They do all that kind of stuff. Those countries have polite societies. They do have—it's a different society, too.
Yes. You know what we don't have here? Shaming people.
Oh, that happened to me. Where? Copenhagen or Amsterdam or some place where they ride a bike line. I was riding and I had to stop to look for directions on my phone and all of a sudden I'm hearing this: "Get out of the bike, you idiot. You committed a faux pas."
Boy, did I ever. So they yell at you?
Yes. I was shamed. And then you were like, "I'm never stopping the bike lane again." Yes. It was so embarrassing.
It's up to the cyclist to shame the other cyclist for doing the wrong thing. Cuz normally when I see someone coming at me, I go, "What an—" under my breath. But I don't go, "You're going the wrong way, you—" If I go "wrong way," like, am I—is this guy going to like put on the brakes and go, "Okay, we're—yes, we're going to settle this right now"? All of a sudden, he's Irish.
Yes. There are a lot of people in the bike path now. Yes. Yes. The delivery guys, they're zooming, man. They're going so fast and often times they're going the wrong way. In a sense, I don't blame them. They get paid by the delivery, right? And so their incentive is to make as many deliveries in their day as they possibly can as fast as they can.
The corporation is responsible. Yeah. The structure of how they get paid makes them behave that way, right?
I'm thinking about all the times, you know, I'm on my phone: "Where the hell's my delivery? Oh, why is my delivery taking so long? Ah, where's my—where's my delivery?" You know what the guy's doing? He's cutting corners because he's so damn stressed out cuz he needs to make my pizza delivery. He does not want you to yell at him. I don't yell. Okay. I'm not a yelling guy.
Do you do anything? Do you say, "Sorry, I can't give you a tip"? No, no. I tip. I always tip. I tip 20% even if it's bad service because society has ruined life forever. That's your tip.