A Bitter Bicycle Rider

King Solomon said long ago, "There is nothing new under the Sun."  Recently, in The Record Eagle, there was a story about a bicyclist who was hurt while bicycling on the newly erected, controversial, Leelanau Trail System.  It seems someone dug two 18-inch deep trenches across the trail.  As Crickett Crampton wrote in a letter to the editor: "It is one thing to oppose the Leelanau Trail System; it is another thing entirely to purposely sabotage an area and cause someone to wear a sling, suffer tendon & ligament damage.  Or in a worst case scenario, suffer permanent paralysis or death."

There is nothing new under the sun?  I was in Israel when a controversy was raging about the use of motorized vehicles on the Sabbath.  Ultra religious Jews wanted no vehicles to go through their neighborhood, a neighborhood situated in the heart of Jerusalem.  For the most part, motorists avoided that section of town, but the Ultra Orthodox wanted to make absolutely sure that no one would ever dare travel through their neighborhood, so they strung invisible wires along the road, wires that subsequently beheaded a motorcycle rider.

To what extremes will we go for our beliefs.  Will we kill others to enforce our way?  Obviously some people will -- some people in other countries, some people in this country.

I am a bicycle rider.  It is dangerous weaving among two ton vehicles on the open road -- and now, when I get off the open road, I'd better beware of possible dangers on my bicycle trail -- my ride on a road that is supposed to be safe for bicycles: it might contain a death trap.

This simply reinforces my belief that people in America are crazy in their love for cars, crazed in their hatred of bicycles.  They'll pave over the whole world to get their cars quickly from here to there.  They won't yield an inch of land for bicycles: Drivers hate to see bicyclists; pedestrians hate bicyclists; home owners hate bicyclists.   People think bicycles are for children and real adults go places by car.

That's why we vote down Public Transportation; that's why we will literally mine bike trails.  Deep down car drivers think any means of transportation other than cars is child's play -- not something to be taken seriously.  Real people own cars, use cars for absolutely every trip.  Bicycles are toys and toys don't belong on roads.

As you can tell, this is a bitter bicycle rider talking, but I know things will improve.  The future does not belong to motorized vehicles.  They are doomed to extinction: they take up too much space, use too many resources.  The future belongs to non-motorized vehicles.

 

Copyright © 2004   Henry Morgenstein

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