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From: eju@drutx.UUCP (UrygaE)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: Bicycles, Violence and Hatred
Message-ID: <2897@drutx.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 18:11:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: drutx.2897
Posted: Tue May 28 18:11:40 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 02:35:51 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 39

A Sanjay Tikku posted an article in net.bicycles that at first
infuriated me.  But then I realized it was written out of ignorance.
  
Sanjay wrote about the roads for MOTOR vehicles, about bicycles being
in the way when in a hurry, about bikes should'nt be allowed to occupy
a full lane, about inconvenience and irritation, and several references
to "my lane" without any reference to what granted ownership.
  
Apparently Sanjay Tikku is still living in the stone age where the
person with the biggest club(in this case a car) can conquer someone with
a smaller club(a bicycle).  Just because your car is bigger than my bicycle
and CAN easily push my bicycle out of your way, that doesn't mean you have
the RIGHT to do so.  We are supposed to be living in a civilized society
where reasonable laws dictate how we interact with each other.  Those laws
say we all have an EQUAL right to use public right of ways.
Whether we choose do drive a car, or drive a bicycle doesn't confer any
superiority upon one or the other.  As such, we need to cooperate with each
other in order to use the public facilities provided.  Ill admit many roads
aren't designed to accomodate both bicyles and cars easily.  We keep hearing
from our government how we should drive less and conserve fuel 
and clean up the air but the powers that be
refuse to even consider adding a couple of feet of asphalt to the curb lane
to make sharing easier.  So until we have better facilities we'll have to
share what we have.  You know its funny, when I'm bicycling home from work,
enjoying my closeness to nature and a car comes up behind me and forces me
to the extreme right side of the road, I, like Sanjay feel inconvenienced
and irritated that someone is in MY LANE.  Using some of Sanjays irrational
logic, if I was there first, maybe its really my lane.
And why can't CARS be OUTLAWED from all but the freeways.
But we all know that's not reasonable either.
So why cant we live like the civilized human beings we're supposed to be
and get along with each other, as long as REAL RIGHTS aren't being violated.
Let's look beyond the car and the bicycle and see the person and deal
with each other at that level.  I'm willing to give it a try, are you
Sanjay?
  
P.S. I'm glad to hear Sanjay that at least you're not the type of
person who hit me in the back with a water baloon from a pickup truck
yesterday.