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Every day I ride my bike to work (downtown Boston) from home (Somerville), and I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern: glass bottles smashed and left in bicycle lanes. It’s a bizarre phenomenon, but a consistent one. It’s now the third consecutive day that I’ve found new instances on my daily commute, and there was no shortage of them last week either. I wish that I could attribute it to careless and reckless behavior, but the pattern is too consistent to conclude thoughtlessness. It’s always completely shattered and it’s always in the dead center of the bike lane.

Glassbreakers, please stop. Please. Perhaps to you, it’s a prank. Perhaps a biker cut you off on your way home and this is your payback. Perhaps giving a biker a flat tire is your way of doling karmic justice.

Please stop.

The reality is that there is more at risk to us, and to you, than a flat tire. When I’m going 25 miles per hour over the Longfellow Bridge in a bike lane not much wider than myself, a sudden flat tire can be the difference between being struck by a car and not. It can also be the difference between a multi-car pile-up and not. When I see shattered glass just a few feet in front of me, I have two choices: one, take the flat and risk skidding into traffic, or two, veer directly into traffic and pray that the driver is able to swerve out of the way.

The worst of road experiences need to end with a honk, a yell, or if you must, an inappropriate hand gesture. You can show your anger without putting lives on the line.

Please, please stop.