Re: Touring Digest, Vol 97, Issue 31

Message: 8
ate: Mon, 7 Feb 2011 14:46:58 -0600
rom: Jon Meinecke <[email protected]>
ubject: Re: Rights vs. Responsibility
o: Moni <[email protected]>
c: [email protected]
essage-ID:
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ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Moni <[email protected]> wrote:

 Hear hear!!! ?You just said what I have been thinking. ?How come a car
 driver feels like his responsibly is different when coming up on a
 cyclist, compared to a motorist?
Entitlement, of course  In their mind, the roads belong to motor
ehicles, not cyclists.  Cyclists don't belong there, they are 'in
he way', don't you know?
A few years ago, I had an email conversation with the Texas
tate senator who introduced a bill to ban bicycles from roads
ithout improved shoulders with a speed limit of 45 mph or
ore.  Basically, he wanted to put almost every county and
arm-to-market road in the state off limits to cyclists.
He said it was for cyclists safety.  After all, in his own rural
eighborhood he had been driving on such a road and come
ver a hill at speed to find a cyclist "in his lane" and he had
o swerve and brake.
I pointed out that the real problem was operating a motor
ehicle at an unsafe speed for conditions (limited sight lines).
e said, no, it was because the cyclist wasn't travelling at
osted speed.
I asked if the situation would be different if he came over the
ill to find a tractor, stalled car, deer, cow, pedestrian, etc...
in his lane".  His response for the tractor, was that the rural
oads were built for farmers, so they were *entitled* to use
he road.  (The Texas Farm Bureau was a supporter of the
ill.)
Jon


Jon, you actually TALKED to that slimeball Wentworth?  Commendable, but as you saw, futile.
He ALMOST made me embarassed to be a Texan.  As you can see from the converstion, he is solidly in the pockets of the Farm Bureau.  Them good ol boys just wanted us pesky cyclsts off 'their' roads, dontcha know.  They described the terrible emotional burden it would have been for them to come round a curve or over a hilltop and hit one of us.  Just that little bit of logic escaped their mini minds, that they had just described the basics of... oh, I dunno... DRIVING BEYOND THE ROAD CONDITIONS?  Driver's ED 101 anybody?  Oh wait, that implies education... never mind.