Slightly Skewed
Jack Knox
On one of the few days this week when it was actually hot and dry enough to get hot and thirsty, teacher Pam Guilbault decided to hit McDonald's for an iced coffee.
So she wheeled her bicycle up to the drive-thru line, patiently waited her turn behind an idling SUV -- then was told the restaurant couldn't serve her.
"The window cashier said they were not allowed to take an order from a 'non-motorized vehicle,'" she wrote in an e-mail. "I had to go park my bike, lock it, take my pannier off the bike and go inside to place my order.
Meanwhile, another SUV was able to sit idling in the drive-thru. Just didn't seem right to me.
"I did ask further about this and the manager told me they often get late night 'walk throughs,' where the drive-thru is the only thing open and the drunks try to place an order. So this is a policy to protect the safety of their employees."
McDonald's spokesman Chris Stannell confirmed that it is indeed company policy to limit drive-thrus to, well, drivers -- though he cited customer, not employee, safety.
Other fast-food outlets have similar policies. Tim Hortons only allows people in licensed vehicles to use its take-out windows. "It's for the safety of our customers," said the company's David Morelli. "People move fast in drive-thrus. We don't want to put people who are on bikes, or on scooters, or walking in a position where they can get hurt."
Can't have the clients getting crushed at the double-double.
A woman at Wendy's headquarters said the same thing. No bikes. "We have it labelled on our drive-thru windows." A cyclist could get shmucked in the dark.
OK, but Guilbault wasn't riding at night. Nor, it's safe to assume, was she drunk (though heaven knows it has to be tempting for teachers at this time of year). And when it comes to safety, the pucker factor presented by your average fast-food line pales in comparison to that experienced when, say, white-knuckling down a city street with a bus pumping hot exhaust directly into your ear.
Which brings a couple of thoughts to mind:
A) Ours is a car culture, and will be until BP has sucked the last litre of oil out of the earth and poured it directly onto a shorebird for old time's sake.
Bike to Work Week might pack the trails for a few days and convert some participants into full-time commuter cyclists, but for others it's like the Winter Olympics or the World Cup, where we all turn into diehard biathlon/soccer fans for a fortnight, then forget them for another four years.
For all our lip service to global warming, we would rather see the ice caps melt and turn Vancouver into Atlantis before crowbarring our ever-expanding butts out from behind the wheel.
This tepid approach to environmental change is led by the provincial government, whose HST will add seven per cent to the cost of a bicycle July 1, the same day the tax on luxury vehicles drops.
B) Since businesses are not in the business of turning away business, the cars-only policy smacks of liability chill, fast-food companies driven (not pedalled) by fear of it's-your-fault-I-spilled-the-hot-coffee-in-my-lap lawsuits.
Litigation-shy corporate fussbudgets -- or, rather, their litigation-happy customers -- are turning us into a society of over-regulated, cosseted, Day-Glo vest-wearing, don't-run-with-scissors wimps, unable to assume the slightest personal risk without first gaining the permission of Big Brother or signing an insurance waiver.
We just marked the 66th anniversary of D-Day, when Canadians stormed the beaches of Normandy; today it's deemed too dangerous for them to buy a burger on a bike.
C) I used to crack up when my mother told the story of padding in slippers and nightgown from her Prince George hotel through the drive-thru next door at 3 a.m.
Now I know she's lucky to be alive. She should sue.
