Thanks for that one, Hazel. However, as a certified, card-carrying (Schopenhauer Grade 1) pessimist, I have to add a few cavets here.
Before I say anything further, however, let me toss out a few street creds. I’ve been a two-wheeler all my life, starting in childhood. In 1967 I finally ‘got serious’ and bought a Schwinn Supersport 10-speed. Then in 1971, I acquired my first quality bike, a Peugeot PX-10 (not an ‘E’- model) and I still have that wonderful French bike in my two-wheel stable. After that I acquired many other bikes and as an expatriate American I’ve ridden bicycles all over the world, including China, Saudi Arabia, the Nederlands and in German-speaking European nations.
My bicycling experience continued in the USA (post-expat career) as a daily bicycle commuter, mountain biker (Cyclocross) and all this concurrent with also being a life-long motorcyclist, beginning in high school and continuing today (sportbikes only, thank you…no Hardly-Goodsons!).
In short, I’ve put in quite a few miles on two wheels, so I feel I am fairly well qualified when I observe that in America, we cyclists STILL run great risks each and every day trying to ride safely and sanely on streets and roads built for and dominated by four-wheeled, six-thousand-pound killing machines (read cars, SUVs and pickup trucks).
That takes huge gouts out of the joy and pleasure bicycles otherwise afford and it doesn’t take much imagination to visualize the carnage and mayhem that results whenever a motorist turns reactive or belligerent in our presence on a road (“Share the Road” should more properly be rendered “Share the Roadkill”, by their standards). Pit a six-thousand-pound, four-wheeled motor vehicle against a 90-pound bicycle with its 150-pound rider and you have instant hospital acute care fodder, no bones about it. Since I’m a medical professional, I know a thing or two about acute trauma injuries and believe me, you DO NOT want to suffer injuries that typify such accidents!
At any rate, I still believe in and enjoy the sense of freedom and joyous heightening of the senses that two-wheeled vehicles impart, despite my knowledge of what catastrophic dangers lurk out there on roadways. But I also regard each and every automobile driver as a potential homicidal maniac bent on my personal destruction. Perhaps that’s why I’m still alive and in one piece after over 70-odd years on two wheels.
As long as the United States still suffers under effects of a car-culture gone mad, thanks to the co-optional pimping of the automobile manufacturing industries, and as long as we Americans are regarded as nothing more than automobile consumer-sheep to be exploited by crazed capitalistic corporations, there will be no truly safe streets anywhere for bicyclists (or motorcyclists). Youthful impetuousness and feelings of indestructibility certainly don’t help our cause, of course, since immature and reckless bicyclists and motorcyclists are almost as bad as ignorant motorists when it comes to promoting safety on two wheels, for that matter.
However, we DO need to remain positive and (hopefully) optimistic (I say this despite my inherent pessimism over the generally deplorable state of the human race) and continue to press-on regardless for a more-two-wheel friendly culture.
Famed medical economist Ivan Ilych was a strong advocate for bicycles throughout his life. He believed that bicycles were a strongly unifying force that draw people together, recognizing that automobiles only foster antagonisms, anonymity and ‘separateness’ (they do, of course). He early-on recognised all their many benefits and positive aspects and felt that bicycles were a unifying dynamic that drew people together, rather than separating them and dividing them. He also believed that no culture that relied fully on bicycles could ever be a tyrannical dictatorship. He was absolutely correct, of course, but that formula fails utterly in a nation mindlessly dedicated to excessive automotive power, speed and thrill-seeking. How sad!
I had originally hoped that bicycles would help draw the homeless ‘into society’ rather than further their exclusionist marginality, but I quickly learned that you also need to be ‘clear in mind’ (free from substance abuse and resulting mental health issues) in order to fully achieve that effect. Today, bicycles merely help the homeless further cement their status as highly mobile nomadic ‘fringist’ outsiders and there’s a further downside to this in that theft of bicycles has risen dramatically over the past 20 years.
Several times in my life I have ridden the serenely beautiful Pacific Coast Bicycle Route that follows Highway-1 along the Pacific Coast up through Oregon, and each time I have been chilled to the bone witnessing all the extremely close calls and narrow-misses that occur there between bicyclists and car/truck traffic. Truly, a road-kill situation is always lurking just a hair’s breadth from the nearest bend in that exquisitely beautiful highway. It amazes me that we don’t see more slaughter on such congested thoroughfares (with their at-times non-existent bicycle shoulders).
All this said, I can only advocate conscientious use of basic safety equipment, such as high-viz helmets and clothing in hopes that they shall both protect riders and warn others of the presence of fragile human bodies on two-wheels. That and good situational awareness and a stringent application of old-fashioned basic common sense!
And yes, I enjoy great bicycle cartooning just as much as the next person, but we can never for a second keep fail to keep that darker down-side of our chosen passion in firm focus as we daily flaunt death on our two-wheeled vehicles!
Just as it is true that our roadways shall not be safe for use of automatically driven 4-wheeled motor vehicles until ALL the vehicles on the road are being automatically driven/controlled, bicycle riding will never be fully safe until bicycles and motor-vehicles DO NOT share roadways. Since it’s unlikely that things will never approach the point they have in Holland in that regard, my only additional comment would have to be ‘good luck’ and best wishes for a safe bicycle experience!
