Colin Beavan has a blog called No Impact Man.  But he had a bit of an impact today on New York State Senator Jeff Klein, representing the beautiful Bronx.  Colin, in an effort to leave no carbon footprint behind, rides a bike.  Senator Klein, in an effort to leave as large a footprint amongst his constituents as possible, drives a black Mercedes.  And they met.

As explained in this open letter to Klein, Colin describes the meeting thusly:

With nowhere to go to get out of your way, and to avoid serious injury or death, in desperation, I chose to knock on your window to let you know that I was there and that you should avoid veering further in my direction.

At this point, you brought your vehicle to an abrupt halt, not to avoid hitting me, but because you apparently needed to communicate something to me. You rolled down your window and said, “Get your hands off my car, you fucking asshole.”

I said, “You were veering into me and going to crush me.”

You said, “You better not touch other people’s cars. You might find that touching other people’s cars is more dangerous than traffic.”

Apparently, Sen. Klein is not running for re-election this year.  Or he just really, really loves his car.

But all things considered, his means of expressing his unhappiness with Colin’s decision to knock on his window could use some tuning up.  While this is New York, and New Yorkers are known for their use of colorful, sometimes expletive, language, it would have been wise to calm it down a notch after learning that the knock came only after a near-death experience.

Now, the thing is, Senator, I don’t particularly call you to task for calling me a fucking asshole. If the roles had been reversed, and I had a big black Mercedes and you came up in a purple helmet, knocking on my window, and I didn’t realize I was on the verge of crushing your legs, I might have called you a fucking asshole, too.

I’d like to point out, however, that, as mad as you were about my touching your car window with my hand, you could double or triple that strength of emotion when it comes to how frightening it is to be on the other side of the Mercedes driving wheel, especially when that particular Mercedes is coming toward you. 

Weigh it up: “he might scratch my black Mercedes” against “he might cause my little girl to be left fatherless.”

As for No Impact Man, who is doing everything he can to eliminate his personal negative affect on our planet, this fortuitous event may well be the start of his being Significant Impact Man, if he can get Senator Klein to consider using his obviously strong rhetorical skills for a more beneficial purpose than threatening a Manhattan bicyclist.

And for those of you keeping score, Senator Klein gets no points for this encounter.