Dedicated to life, liberty, walking, biking, and running. And the survival of our planet.
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
He owns a very nice bike helmet, he says, and even wears it if he needs to ride in gnarly traffic. However, with dedicated bike lanes, such as along the West Side of New York City, he lets his (now) gray hair blow in the wind. He doesn’t want to unnecessarily risk “helmet hair.”[1]
Continue reading “David Byrne (Talking Heads) and His Bicycle”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
While I enjoy embedding a good video in a post, I will spare you any road-rage videos, although if you search YouTube on “road rage compilation,” you can view to your heart’s delight, or until your stomach turns (as mine did). However, because it captures so much of the road-rage mental state, this animated video by Your Favorite Martian is worth a view (it would get an E for explicit lyrics on iTunes, so, kids, you might not want to play it for your parents).
Continue reading “Road, Rage, and Peace”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
[Don Bushey, owner of Wilderness Exchange and, along those lines, quite active in rock climbing and skiing, wrote the following in an email.]
I honestly think that recreational road riding is the most dangerous activity I engage in—at least statistically this seems true. The main difference is that with the other dangerous things I do—rock climbing, backcountry skiing, and surfing—there are behaviors and actions that can minimize and reduce my risk. With road biking, it is entirely out of my control (except for wiping out), and getting hit by a car from behind is a purely objective danger. I should tell you sometime about my near death experience that I had on a road bike up Sunshine Canyon . . .
[So I asked for more, getting the account along with his theory of risk ~ Louis]
Continue reading “The Most Dangerous Activity in which I Engage (guest post, Don Bushey)”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
I should know. I didn’t have a car for five years.
For years my house looked like this:
Now it looks like this:
Continue reading “It’s Easy Not to Drive…”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
For those who do not know, Leo Kottke is one of the best and quirkiest acoustic guitar players of the last fifty years, an American Treasure whose sense of irony and sarcasm might undermine anything I quote below.
That said, I was recently watching a DVD, Leo Kottke: Home & Away, Revisited, during which he talks about cars, reminding me that my heart sings when I consider a world with more music and less noise and air pollution.
Continue reading “Leo Kottke vs. Automobile”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
Smart phone usage prompts this post. Nearly every driver knows the dangers, but not every driver feels the dangers. Hence the advantage of being a pedestrian. Frankly I’m surprised there are not more car-to-car, car-to-bike, and car-to-pedestrian collisions. The human body and mind are wonderfully made.
The underlying problem is of course distraction. Drivers were instructed to “keep your eyes on the road” long before the mobile phone. But somehow people like myself hone in on texting and map reading as the biggest threat.
Continue reading “Driving with a Distracted Mind”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
Crossing the street should not be a death sentence. (Richard Retting, quoted in Denver Streetsblog)
Continue reading “Hit! or Hit and Run? (Denver-Boulder Reports)”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
Today, we start with a quiz. What do these cars have in common?
If you said they are the best cars for pedestrians to get hit by, you are fully woke.[1]
Continue reading “Best Cars to Get Hit By as a Pedestrian”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
Below are some recent events that chip away at the disproportionate role of the automobile in Western society (and, technologically, almost all society is Western).
As reported in “CU Denver Today” an extensive study recently concludes that adding protective bike lanes (i.e. lanes with a physical barrier, not just paint) to city streets not only makes the bicyclists safer but all the drivers safer.[1]
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
Below is an exemplary message written from a driver to a bicyclist after a near collision in Louisville, CO last week. As I post it (with the author’s blessing: “Louis, yes! Please feel free to use whatever you want. Maybe that will increase the chances that he’ll see this somehow!”)… as I post it, I know that the faults are bi-directional, and that drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians all make mistakes, the salient difference being the degree of vulnerability.
Continue reading “Driver Apologizes to Biker (Louisville, CO)”