The “Share the Road” campaign urges motorists and cyclists to coexist on America’s roadways harmoniously in the interest of both parties’ safety. The biggest problem is the safety aspect, but let’s start with the issue of sharing the road.
As a driver, there is not much to do beyond staying within a lane and obeying traffic laws to share the road with bicyclists. Bicycle riders, however, seem to think they take priority over automobiles, that stop signs and traffic lights don’t apply to them, but should they ride in the middle of the street, they sure want to enforce the rules on everyone around them.
As for safety, cyclists will never be safe on the road. Not that cars are always safe, but in a car-on-car crash each person has a chance at survival. Ride your bike in a suit of armor; if my Buick hits you at 40 mph, I’ll be fine and you will be dead.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 630 cyclist deaths in 2009 as a result of traffic collisions. In the scope of things that is not a whole lot of people, but that number only tells half the tale, because, the worst problem with bicyclists is the emotional damage they do to the motorists who wind up killing them.
On Sept. 12, in King County, Wash. a 24-year-old-man was driving his pickup truck home from a friend’s birthday party at a bar the night before. Just past 2 a.m, the driver struck and killed a cyclist. Upon inspecting the scene, the driver realized the bicyclist he just killed was the 21-year-old friend whose birthday they had just celebrated together. Distraught, the driver shot and killed himself at the scene of the accident.
Our progressive Sonoma County bubble believes reducing the number of cars will solve the problem. But trust me, cars aren’t going anywhere. We’ve already erased the ozone layer without even batting an eye, so why would we change now? The answer: outlaw bicycles from the roadways. In fact, outlaw any vehicle unable to inflict equal or greater damage upon an average-sized automobile in a collision. If you can’t share in the toll of an accident, you can’t share in the road.
People will scream, “We have a right to ride here,” and “This is a free country.” But what about my freedom to live my life without the guilt of having mowed down someone’s mother, father, son, or daughter? I’m just trying to make it through the day, and if I wanted the chance to kill people there’s a war I could get in on.
Don’t think about taking your bicycle to our state parks either, because mountain bikers are as big a nuisance to hikers as cyclists are on our streets. Spring Lake posts signs stating the speed limit is 25 mph for riders in the park; however, I have never seen a bike with a speedometer, and who is there to give them a ticket if they are speeding?
Worst of all, mountain bikers flying down the trail expect pedestrians to move off to the side. But when I go hiking, I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and there are ticks in the tall grass, so why don’t you use your vehicle for what it was designed for, riding off trail. Bikers in our parks epitomize the problem with cyclists in general: they have a Napoleonic complex of sorts, only instead of despising tall people they hate anyone not “enlightened” enough to ride a bike.
