"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:in article [email hidden], Ian Smith at [email hidden] wrote on
19/7/2003 4:29 pm:
Quoted message said:illinoisleader.comcolumnistsview.aspOpen ↗
I replied, as ever.
Re your op-ed piece on cyclists. Which is much more op than ed, I
suggest.
Quoted message said:
The thing which leaps off the page is this: "We were in our car. We had
our
Quoted message said:seat belts on as required by the law - our insurance and license fees were paid. We had paid fuel
tax when we purchased our gasoline. Now wouldn¹t
you
Quoted message said:think that would give us a bit of a priority?"
No, it doesn't. Cyclists use the roads by right of way whereas drivers
use
Quoted message said:them under licence. That's mostly because almost all the danger on the roads (and practically all
of the appalling death toll) is caused by motor vehicle drivers. The nugatory tax on gasoline does
not come anywhere
close
Quoted message said:to funding the direct and indirect costs of car use to the economy You
are
Quoted message said:required to wear seat belts because drivers routinely drive into each
other,
Quoted message said:the landscape and the local flora to the detriment of all concerned. Most club cyclists are
insured, as are their bikes, which can cost thousands of dollars. In other words, they have a
right to be there whether you like
it
Quoted message said:or not.
And, after all, they pose very little danger to you - and you only pose a danger to them if your
impatience is such that you can't wait for a safe place before passing. Which would be so
unchristian that I can't believe you would do such a crass and dangerous thing, would you? Or does
the conservative Bible omit the inconvenient Beatitudes?
In any case, perhaps before you denounce cyclists for not using the
bikeways
Quoted message said:you should ask them why they don't. You may be surprised. For example, they might tell you that
road bikes don't work well on graded trails, but
do
Quoted message said:work well on paved roads (the clue is in the name, here). A wheelset costing several hundred
dollars can be ruined by one excursion on a bike trail. Or one excursion on a freshly-planed road,
which may explain why
the
Quoted message said:riders you saw were proceeding cautiously.
Maybe you don't know that two of the foremost cyclists competing in the world's most famous
bicycle race are American - perhaps you would be quite content for Lance Armstrong's talent to
have withered on the vine due to
his
Quoted message said:being excluded from the roads paid for out of his tax dollars and built as
a
Quoted message said:result of the campaigning of the League of American Wheelmen - bicyclists
to
Quoted message said:you - but I think you will find that many others don't share that view. Maybe you dismiss Tyler
Hamilton's incredible determination, competing in
a
Quoted message said:race the equivalent of running a marathon every day for three weeks
despite
Quoted message said:a broken collarbone - or maybe you think Americans don't need to set or
see
Quoted message said:that kind of example. After all, what country needs the kind of determination which allows a man
in constant agony to be standing in fifth place in the most gruelling sporting event in the world?
Who needs that kind of drive?
Perhaps you will also find that transportational cyclists rarely find bikeways going where they
want to go, so they use the roads - which generally do. That's what the roads are for: vehicles.
You may be surprised: some cyclists also pay tax (and not all of them benefit from
the
Quoted message said:rather generous subsidies which you get in return). The inability to appreciate the difference
between 100 mile rides at a reasonable pace and leisure rides which involve trundling along
bikeways is not unique to you, of course. I rode 100 miles on each of the last two Sundays, so I
understand this better than you seem to.
On the other hand maybe you are sufficiently convinced that any car
driver's
Quoted message said:journey is automatically more important than any cyclist's that you simply don't care. This is a
point of view which is nicely covered in the dictionary under "arrogance."
One recommendation: don't knock until you've tried it. Get out and ride
and
Quoted message said:maybe you'll see what it's all about.
Guy Chapman
Are you appling for a place in parliment in the near future, Guy, perchance? If you do I'll vote for
you (I'll have to move first though!)
Pete White
