Posted on 07/29/2008 7:55:24 AM PDT by fightinJAG
When gas prices surged above $4 per gallon earlier this year, it didn't take Nostradamus to predict that there would be a resultant rush to carbon-free commuting options—especially in a place like Portland, which is known for its ample network of bike lanes. Cyclists in "Stumptown" are spinning their spokes here in unprecedented numbers, trading in their fuel-guzzling SUVs for stylish 27-speeds.
But the cycling surge has created conflict, as the new breed of commuters bumps up against the old, oil-powered kind.
First came a drunk cyclist repeatedly smacking the driver of a car with his bike July 6, before a passerby stopped the melee by knocking the pedaler to the ground with one punch (the driver happened to be a longtime cycling advocate, who'd kicked off the altercation by chiding the biker for blowing through a red light.)
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
In Virginia, where apparently we still enjoy a good amount of freedom that is lacking in other states, I don’t need a certification on my driver’s license to enjoy my boat. I personally think there should be a hunting season for nuts on PWCs, but I don’t demand the government swoop in and regulate it. I don’t need a government license to arm myself either.
So, are you going to kick everyone under 16 off of their bikes? In the rural town I grew up in, I used to ride horseback into town. Do I need a license for that too? As a conservative, is there any means of transportation that you don’t favor government interference of?
They wear silly pants . . .
Not in Seattle for the “Annual Nude Bike Ride”.....
Not a flame, but yours is exactly the type of attitude we're talking about.
Even though there's not an exemption for cyclists, most cyclists seem to think they can interpret the laws according to their own dictates.
Energy wise, it is very expensive and, frankly, kinda dumb for a bicycle to arbitrarily stop at a stop sign where one can see all four approaching directions to a distance of several hundred yards - and there are no vehicles approaching. If it is at the bottom of a hill, even more so.
LOL! It's only expensive if exercise is not one of the reasons for cycling.
Fred Reed (fredoneverything.net), after ex-patriating to mexico, mentioned in one of his articles that, and I paraphrase, the other day a guy rode his horse into town, with his son riding in back, and neither of them was wearing a helmet. And nobody cared!
Ah, freedom. :)
Maybe you can show me where in the constitution cycling on public roadways is a protected right. If I have to be licensed and insured to operate my vehicle on public roadways, why should adults 18 and older using cycling as means of transportation be exempt? Do cyclists have a responsibility to obey the rules of the road and pay for any damage they cause?
So let’s do away all driver’s licensing and insurance; that would be the conservative thing to do, eh?
BTW, by “more taxes,” if you mean road use taxes for cyclists, I’m not for that at all.
Just because others choose to ignore the laws doesn't mean you should, too.
>>Even though there’s not an exemption for cyclists, most cyclists seem to think they can interpret the laws according to their own dictates. <<
I do that in my car too. ;)
>>LOL! It’s only expensive if exercise is not one of the reasons for cycling.<<
It is the frustration it brings, not unlike the frustration one feels during the rushour freeway parking lot. Exercise is only ONE of the reasons people bike. The speed one attains via their own muscles is also a great rush. Having to scrub it off for an “arbitrary” stop is very, very frustrating - and really unnecessary.
“Critical Mass” a-holes. We have them in MPLS,too.
Courtesy, time of day or traffic conditions are not components of the law governing signaling your intentions while operating a vehicle on the road.
If you're (cyclists in general, not you specifically) are going to demand the right to operate as an equal on the road, then you're should be obeying the same laws as the other vehicles.
There are not any exceptions or exemptions for cyclists.
>>Maybe you can show me where in the constitution cycling on public roadways is a protected right.<<
Show me where in the constitution walking on taxpayer funded sidewalks is a protected right.
By all means, I should get a ticket if a policeman observs me violating the law.
I’m in OH.
Most of the streets where I live, and on the way to work, are narrow, older streets with curbs. Once you’re out of the residential areas, than there’s barely any paved road outside the right line, followed by some gravel, and then grass.
Not much is bicycle friendly, but then the weather isn’t very accomodating much of the year either.
Ironically, we do have some bike paths in our metroparks, but they have to be shared with pedestrians, which seems to aggravate both groups. In some places there are dirt horse trails that parallel the paved paths, but the runners get upset with bikers using those. The rollerbladers are out of luck altogether ;)
The Infamous Brock Yates Memo
You may have read about the memo that Brock Yates wrote to Secretary of Transporatation Pena, and which was published in Car and Driver, that rather bashes bicycle transporation .
Brock Yates: A memo to Pena—bikes are for fun.
Within the strict, brainwashed code of political correctness, automobiles
enjoy a status roughly akin to AK47s, A-10 Warthogs, and Trident-firing SSBN
“Boomers.” Mysteriously excluded from such damnation are Volvos and Saabs,
which is an anomaly of the first magnitude. After all, both firms produce
nimble, and—for the PC Luddites and pecksniffs—outrageously sporty
products (the latter component being unacceptable in PC-dom because no
pleasure should be gained from any device propelled by the devil’s own
fossil fuels). But the Swedish operate without censure within this clique of
humorless, faintly fascist oppressors, perhaps winning by default as they
are contrasted with the rest of the exhaust-spewing, posy-crushing,
window-rattling predators that compose their competition.
I am sure the lads who sell Volvos and Saabs are perfectly happy—if
slightly baffled—to accept this irrational imprimatur of high-minded
purpose (all the while selling decidedly non-PC iron like the Volvo 850
Turbo Sportswagon and the Saab 900 Turbo convertible to the rest of us
automotive Visigoths). To this I say congratulations, not only for offering
such slick machinery to enthusiasts, but for cleverly exploiting a
collection of nits who, if given their druthers, would have us all pumping
around on 92-speed mountain bikes.
Ah, yes, the bicycle. This is the quintessential PC transport option module,
rivaled only by the canoe and a pair of Timberland hiking boots. The bicycle
is a former child’s toy that has now been elevated to icon status because,
presumably, it can move the human form from pillar to post without damage to
the environment. A laudable accomplishment, to be sure, and one that has
been embraced by such progressives as the Chinese Communism hierarchy, who
find the ant-like movements of their population aboard bikes easy to
control, or by that brilliant social engineer Fidel Castro, who has ravaged
the economy of Cuba to a point where ownership of a bike (Chinese-built) is
akin 90 miles to the north to possession of a Cadillac.
Don’t get me wrong, I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own,
including a trendy mountain style, and ride them for pleasure and light
exercise. A spin down a quiet county road (sans one of those goofball
brain-buckets, of course) with no ambient sound except the wind whistling
through the spokes and the muffled rustle of the tires on the pavement (and
my heavy breathing) produces real pleasure. But the notion of transforming
this recreation into a mode of mass transit is PC looniness of legendary
proportions.
But consider the ravings of Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who left
Denver, where he served as mayor, after building an airport boondoggle that
will enter the annals of aviation as a serious rival to Howard Hughes’s
Spruce Goose. Having recently commissioned a $1-million abuse of good sense
called the “National Bicycling and Walking Study,” Pena and his fellow
bureaucrats discovered an amazing fact: While 100 million Americans
occasionally ride bikes for pleasure, only a handful use them for commuting
to work. This valuable study ascertained that considerations of safety, not
to mention rain, snow, high winds, 100-degree heat, and the prospect of
arriving at one’s desk smelling like an entire NFL half-time locker room,
were mitigating factors in prompting most sensible people to employ a
convenient device called the automobile for such missions. Your tax dollars
at work.
Such elemental realities do not deter intrusive busybodies like Pena. Citing
a wondrous piece of legislation called the “Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991,” he plans to press municipalities to
present long-range plans for transportation that will include the
construction of special bike paths and police bicycle patrols to ensure the
safety of said peddlers as they pump their way to work. Your tax dollars at
work.
This sort of utopian lunacy is being considered, despite a Heritage
Foundation report that indicates that over the past 25 years, taxpayers have
unloaded over $100 billion to develop urban mass-transit systems (excluding,
of course, the dreaded automobile), yet today ridership is ten percent lower
than when the government first opened its wallet in 1963! Example: Each
year, 50 million of your tax dollars are donated to interest payments on the
subway system beneath Washington, D.C. This subterranean nightmare was so
expensive when built that it was estimated that the District could give each
potential commuter an automobile valued at $9000 and still save money. Does
this imply we like to drive to work? Consider that, according to National
Transportation Safety Board statistics, 74 percent of the population
commutes solo, and that the percentage is increasing annually.
This is, of course, an anathema to the social engineers, who will do
anything, including the entertainment of the bike-ride fantasy, to wean us
from automobiles. Two critical components are ignored. First, cars work.
Admittedly, they take up a great deal of space, but America is blessed with
space, square mile upon square mile of space that has permitted the
population to comfortably spread out into suburbia (yet another source of
hatred to the planners). The automobile, both a cause and an effect of this
decentralization, is ideally suited for our vast landscape and our generally
confused and contrary commuting patterns.
Second, considering that most of this nation—excluding a tiny southwestern
corner of California—is prone to radical blitzes of weather (too much rain,
heat, snow, cold, etc.), the bicycle offers limited opportunity for usage,
especially when the average commuting distance is more than 10 miles. Such a
20-mile round trip might be a snap for Greg LeMond, but it could trigger
mass cardiac arrests among your basic desk-jockey crowd.
Worse yet, we seem to be attempting to take all the fun out of bicycling.
Riding is a wonderful, healthy recreation, but we seem obsessed to transform
it into a machine of socialist utility embodying all the joie de vivre of a
wheelbarrow. It has become a mobile Nautilus for humorless fitness freaks.
(And never mind the compulsive nannyism that now forces little kids to
pursue their childish adventures while packaged in those stupid helmets.
What next, motorcycle leathers and hockey pads?) To Secretary Pena: Fix your
busted airport and leave bikes alone and the commuting to us sociopathic
drivers.
Yes, I understand.
As they say, integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.
Good article. Funny thing: It takes me 28 minutes to bike commute and 42 to drive.
When I worked at Safeco in the U-district and lived at the south end of Mercer island, the bike commute was seven minutes faster, on average, than taking the bus.
Also -and this is a biggie- after a half hour bike ride, I am mentally MUCH sharper at work, compared to idling in a few miles of bumper to bumper traffic before I get in. Needless to say, my attitude is much chipper as well.
Also, I am 54 and in better health than most of the 20-somethings around the cube farm.
>>As they say, integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.<<
I agree. And that is why I am a “spirit of the law” sort of guy. I AM doing the right thing. :)
I don’t. The light is green, there’s no right turn lane, I proceed though the intersection like everyone else. In this scenario (and this is typical), some jerkoff will speed up to make his no-signal, no-look right turn instead of waiting the approximate five seconds it would’ve taken to wait for me to cross.
HAHAHA! Great comparison.
Obviously a picture really IS worth a thousand words!
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