From: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Subject: Re: Rude drivers, was Re: Auto insurance laws in different state
Reply-To: byer@adobe.com (Scott Byer)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 22:30:39 GMT


In article <unknown>, Terry Von Gease <twv@hpcss01.cup.hp.com> writes:

> Look sport, when you're out there pedaling your little heart out
> on your child's toy you are mostly in the way.  Not only are you
> in the way, you pay not one dime in support of the roadways you
> claim a right to use

Oh, this is amusing.  Let's just forget about the approximately
SEVEN DOLLARS A GALLON the American automobile is subsidized by
those who don't drive.  Subsidized by GENERAL taxes - which, oh,
let's see, bicyclists pay!

>  and you have no obligation to be financially responsible for any
> damage or mischief you and your toy might cause.

Excuse me?  No, we're still liable - it's just that bicyclists
don't cause anywhere near the damage that a two-ton junk of metal
driven by blithering idiots will cause.

> But it's the part about being in the way that you don't seem to
> understand.  No matter how fast you little legs can pump, unless
> you've got gravity working for you, relative to an automobile moving
> along at any sort of speed at all, you're standing still.  It's
> kinda like coming around a corner and finding a sawhorse sitting
> in the middle of the road.

Gee, I bet that one bicyclist is almost as annoying as the 3000
cars sitting still in front of you on the freeway, no?  Oh, yes,
it must make you feel so good to know you've scared enough cyclists
off the road to make your commute take 20 minutes longer.  Real
smart.

> I don't want to harm you but I want you to share my anxiety.  I
> want you to think your going to die.  If you want to finance and
> construct your own bicycle road system or even add realistic bike
> lanes to the existing road system, that's great.  But you have to
> pay for it yourselves.  Until that time I want you to hang your
> toy on the garage wall.

What?  After paying for YOUR roadways, we should pay for our own?
I'd agree with you if YOU PAID YOUR OWN WAY.  You DON'T.  To think
that you do is to show the hieght of naivte.  I'd just like to see
you TRY to fund your precious roads with taxes purely from motorists.
I'll HAPPILY get off the road WHEN YOU DO.

Such auto-addiction is so un-patriotic, so digustingly ANTI American,
why don't you just move to some coutry with fewer bicyclists, where
they have a greater dependance on foreign oil, where they can't
breathe the air some days.  Gee, what do you mean you don't want to
live in Mexico City?  It's so nice and bicycle-free there!

I'm an American, dammit, and I bicycle because is what I can do
FOR my country.

Unneccesary driving simply WASTES the precious resources we need
to compete with the other countries in the world.  We have to be
efficient to compete, and DRIVING ISN'T EFFICIENT.  Maybe YOU want
to be forced to learn a foreign language someday, but I like english,
and I will do everything I can to make sure I can still live in a
country that can speak it.

--
Scott Byer                             NeXTMail: byer@mv.us.adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
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Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc