Dedicated to life, liberty, walking, biking, and running. And the survival of our planet.
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
The honeymoon is over: even a pandemic cannot clear the streets for long. I know, I know, it’s a sign that national economies are surviving. But, my, for those who spend most of their time on their feet or on their bikes, the quiet, clear streets were wonderful.
A couple of incidents have come to my attention lately: a bike fatality in Boulder and an apologetic driver in Denver.
Continue reading “Incidents #1 (Boulder, Denver)”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
This post offers some quotes from Peter Sagal’s The Incomplete Book of Running (2018), a confessional book, both humorous and insightful.
Continue reading “Wait, Wait, Peter, Don’t Run From Me”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
I was pretty sure I had invented all those words, but that’s not the case. Covidiocy refers to people who make inane statements or perform inane actions relative to covid-19. Covidity refers to having a proclivity toward respecting the guidelines for slowing down the spread of the virus. Covidity has its own Facebook page. Covitality predates covid-19. It is a kind of therapy for adolescents (especially). It phonetically contrasts with co-dependence. In Person vs. Automobile, however, I give it a new meaning.
Continue reading “Covidiocy, Covidity, Covitality”
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.
[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.
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.
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)”
Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
When I discuss the American (and increasingly global) dependency on automobiles, some people with a politically conservative bend respond by saying that the problem is a result of personal irresponsibility, no more.[1]
I was raised to think this way, to think individualistically. So I get it.
However, over time, I realize that done exclusively, this thinking allows conniving and greedy organizations (or their leaders) to move invisibly through the world, exploiting freedom by limiting the range of choices that occur to individuals. As a result of such organizations, even if one’s moral fabric permitted him or her to resist pernicious trends, the very idea of resisting may never enter one’s mind. The gains of corporate and political greed are usually won upstream, with whispers in back rooms, such as, What they don’t know won’t hurt us, and, I don’t care who they vote for as long as I choose the candidates.
Continue reading “The Legal Bias Against Pedestrians and Bikes (Part 2 of 2)”