Logan Square Driver Twitter, Tumblr Feed Takes Humorous Approach To Safe Streets

By Chuck Sudo in News on May 7, 2013 9:50PM

Streetsblog Chicago's John Greenfield tips us to the anonymous (for now) Logan Square Driver, who Greenfield says is the Stephen Colbert of the Safe Streets Movement.

Like Colbert's skewering of conservative media by posing as an oft clueless bloviator, Logan Square Driver advocates making streets safe for pedestrians, bicyclists and other non-drivers by donning the guise of an entitled asshole motorist who feels sharing the road with bicycles is an inconvenience, at best.

Logan Square Driver's Twitter feed has been live since last September. The Tumblr site went up a couple weeks ago. Greenfield writes whoever is behind the anonymous (for now) blog has a good knowledge of the local transportation history and the urban planning issues at the heart of the "drivers versus cyclists" argument. Calling motorists "True Warriors," Logan Square Driver asks drivers to make fun of cyclists who choose to use a "toy" to get around town while "dressed like a superhero."

Take this post where LSD theorizes on what could happen if trucks are lost.

My hat goes off to Michael Ennis, who deploys this tactic beautifully when complaining about Seattle’s anti-driver policies hurting “Boeing executives who need to move airplane parts around the region, and for the freight industry that needs to get goods to market.” He paints a picture in which anything that hurts the working man who just wants to use his car to drive around the block to pick up a gallon of milk also hurts the successful executive who wants to ship two tons of steel to a factory!

This risk when using this tactic, of course, is the the brighter members of the co-op-shopping crowd may recognize that it is, in fact, trucks, rather than passenger vehicles, that deliver such goods. Have no fear! Instead, take a page from the True Warriors in Prospect Park West, who, led by Chuck Schumer’s lovely wife, went so far as to sue to remove bike lanes. Fedex and the Postal Service, it turns out, use the same road space as our single-occupant-vehicles! In other words, anything that inconviences us, inconveniences them (the engines of our economy, I remind you), which further inconveniences us! In other words, anything that inconviences drivers is by definition exponentially inconvenient to everyone! Including ambulance drivers!

The Twitter feed is just as funny, but in a smaller number of characters.

In a city that's given us the @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed, the SoYeahDuh! Tumblr and Twitter and other social media accounts parodying real-life Chicago politicians, political and social issues and everyday life, Logan Square Driver is a welcome addition.