Dear passenger: Mea culpa

Dear passenger in the red Toyota Rav4 that the driver parked near the Bank Saloon street parklet on the evening of Aug. 13:

I’m sorry if my firm palm against your window jolted you. You were looking in the same direction your car was turning — away from me, who had just caught up to you. I understand the sound must have shocked you. Most often, as we drive anywhere, nothing hits our car. It shields us from everything outside. Usually, no sudden, loud sound emanates inches from our heads as did my contact on your window.

Maybe the unexpected conditions surrounding us contributed to your apparent shock, as they did to mine. Downtown At Sundown brought many automobiles and people to the area before you arrived. I was working, just embarking on a test ride of a bicycle I finished building. I rode west on Fourth St. from the south sidewalk ramp outside of Ray’s Corner, when a friend on that aforementioned patio shouted a distracting but welcomed joke at me.

He distracted me slightly from an SUV slowing in front of me. As I slowed toward a stop about a car length behind that SUV, I noticed its lit reverse lights. In a moment, I thought about shouting to the driver, but I saw no evidence anybody was looking at mirrors or behind the car, noticed it approaching fast, and decided to instead ride around to evade collision. Seeing that even you, the passenger, didn’t notice me compelled me to get your attention.

Hitting your window was the only way I recognized within my grasp.

In the last six years I’ve started countless test rides on Fourth St., entering the roadway close to where a teen girl, riding a bicycle, was run over and killed between Ray’s and Bank in 2024. That was the cyclist traffic death in Brookings I feared for years could happen, whereas this was the first time I’d witnessed somebody reversing on Fourth St. I saw your car and the one driving in the opposite direction in my periphery as that friend joked, which is why I slowed before knowing what was happening. Maybe your driver had put on their left signal. In the few seconds that passed, I assumed your driver wanted to turn south into the alley.

One upsetting detail to add to this situation is that the oncoming driver had the right of way, yet stopped for your driver. After 20 years of growing up on a farm and driving everywhere, 18 years ago I made a bicycle my primary transportation mode. I rely heavily on people using turn signals and still don’t trust they’re accurately applied until I see a turn. All too often, people don’t apply them until after they initiate a turn, if they signal at all. For efficient traffic, opposing drivers should just take the right of way when it’s theirs. This was a classic case of one driver acting “polite” and subsequently contributing to a dangerous situation.

Even more upsetting is that your driver did not aim at the alley, but instead at a parking spot. I’ve worked downtown for more than a decade now, and noticed a clear shift in driving behaviors on Main Ave. since 2020. Since then, many people have taken to crossing the double yellow line to park, which is illegal, but nobody really seems to care, I guess, and by golly, who has the time to circle the block or park a block or two away and walk anymore? That behavior has frustrated me for years, as sometimes it causes near destructive traffic disruptions. Yet I understood it is a generally benign behavior and therefore just tolerated it with grief. Well...I never expected it could almost get me run over.

Passenger, I want you to know that in reflection, I’ve concluded that if I were a more secure, stronger, more patient man (like my younger self), I would not have smacked your window. Instead, I would have stopped my test ride, waited until your driver parked, then gently approached you both to let the driver know they almost collided into me, which they could have prevented by simply looking in their rear view mirror before reversing. I take solace in the fact that I’m an adult with full agency and mobility and at least half my wits, rather than a child running around in excitement for DT@SD. People can wield hypotheticals with malicious reasons, but that’s not my aim when I say your driver could have run over a child if one was in my stead.

Please passenger, understand that I had no malicious intent when I smacked your window. I just wanted your driver to know that what they did almost hurt me, because I’ve followed transportation policy and street design with passion for the last 14 years, and I’m saddened and frustrated with how the least of us suffer the most from those things in our society, including people whose decisions directly cause injurious and deadly collisions. I didn’t want anything from you but for your driver to be aware and hopefully make wiser decisions that won’t possibly hurt anyone in the future.

I thought leading with an apology was important, because I still want to believe in the best in people. A couple seconds or so after I smacked your window, as your car was about half way through its pull into the parking spot, you opened your door. Impulsively, as I was still on some adrenaline or something, I said to you something along the lines of “You just about ran me over! I was right behind you when you started reversing!”. I was upset, but did not feel any loathing. I was loud hoping you could hear me.

Then I was saddened and disappointed that your instinct was to threaten me if I’d touch the car again, as if I wanted to touch the car in the first place - I wouldn’t have touched it if it hadn’t almost crashed into me! Across many years I’ve read about people here in the US retaliating against their traffic victims, including getting violent and fatal at times. In response I sarcastically yelled back, “Yeah, cause a car is so much more important than a human life!” And that was the end of our interaction.

I’ve hoped that you only reacted that way, because the smack surprised you, you therefore felt attacked, and then didn’t notice what I said about almost being run over. I’d like to believe that if you knew my life had been threatened, you’d have been sympathetic and accepting of what I said. However, as much as I want to believe in the best of everybody, I can’t assume it given so much of what’s happening in the world and how complacent many in our own community are toward the suffering of others. That’s why I have written this.

Please, everyone, pay more attention to how you and others drive, and think about the power behind any given automobile. Keep in mind the momentum and power that has made our streets more amenable to and prioritizing of automobiles than to and of people in the last century.

And passenger, if you recognize who you are and want to have a conversation, you can find me at Bluestem Bicycles. Maybe together we can make Brookings a safer place.

Caleb Evenson is a longtime Brookings resident and co-owner of Bluestem Bicycles.