Just about that app ban while cycling

What a relief: since July 1, you risk a fine if you look at your phone while cycling. I am almost in a cheering mood. But really, and this is not meant sarcastically, on the contrary. I really hope that there will be strict enforcement. Yes, that sounds a bit prissy, like a rule-follower who should mind their own business and not pay so much attention to others.

But yes, I actually have to pay attention to others. Look: I am a scaredy-cat in traffic, so I follow the rules very carefully. One time running a red light and you end up under a tram – and I would find that a shame for myself. If I take my green (a mistake, I know, it’s not my green), then the outcome is actually not much different, because that collision with that student-like Baudet lookalike who ran the red light and therefore thought I, as a green cyclist, should yield, and emphasized his argument with a ‘get out of the way, slut!’ shouted from his toes, felt just like being run over by a truck. But okay, let me not get stuck in discussions about when you can continue, at green or at red, because that is sometimes a bit fluid in my Amsterdam. You learn to deal with it, but then came that smartphone.

Now I not only very nervously follow the rules, but also meticulously observe all the smartphone lovers around me. Keep those earbuds open. A guy on the right zooms by hands-free with his eyes on his playlist, without stopping for the crosswalk (also fluid, you know, who gets to go first), where the group of pedestrians splits apart, almost as if Jesus is parting the sea. Saved by about twenty pedestrians. From the opposite direction, a mother swings the front of her cargo bike with her little ones in it into the intersection (running a red light, told ya) to turn left, with a frantically typing thumb and two eyes on the screen, and a third eye on the traffic. She cycles blindly past me and a moped – I hit the brakes, moped goes around in a wide arc. Saved by two people. A girl cycles with the flow and scrolls through Insta, but when the flow stops at red, she unsuspectingly continues, still focused on #lovemylife. Startled when the tram she almost ends up under slams on the brakes and rings its bell loudly – saved from a ten-tonner by the driver, and by the other eighty passengers, so lame I count that too.

You understand where I’m going: it’s fine that someone always wants to look at their smartphone, but that is a bit of an ego trip. The rest of the world has to pay double attention and maneuver around you to ensure that nothing happens to you – you have no idea how often and what kind of acrobatics that requires from others. Deadly exhausting. Tssk, that’s not just egoism, but also toddler behavior. Let’s see how quickly that ends when the poop hits the fan. I hope quickly, but fear the worst.

Text: Kalinka Hahlen