I'm back! Did you miss me? While my post count was climbing my living life count was receding. Like Pink Floyd said, "shorter of breath, and one day closer to death." So, I went for a bike ride yesterday. Wanna know how I did?
Distance: 42.06 miles
Average Speed: 2.301 MPH (F-250, eat my dust!! What did the snail say when he rode on the turtle's back? Wheeeee!)
Weight lost: 4 pounds on the ride (mostly water), 0.6 lbs actual (If I was heavy enough to begin with I could lose enough weight riding my bicycle to make up the difference between a big block and a small block!)
Traffic laws broken: Rolled through a couple of deserted 4-way stop signs in a residential area, but did stop and wait patiently for two red lights.
39.8 in a 35 zone, 38 in a 35, 26 in a 15 (in my neighborhood where NOBODY does 15)
Cyclists encountered: 4
Cyslists breaking law when encountered: 0 (Now the next 196 are going to have to be doing something illegal to match the Shasta Lake PD statistics)
Motorists breaking laws: Couldn't keep track
Unhappy motorists: Most of them looked unhappy. People just don't seem to be enjoying life as much as they used to.
Number of motorists I made angry: None, that I know of. At least I wasn't honked at, run over or off the road, nothing was thrown at me and nothing was jammed into my spokes or up my a$$ so I must have been doing okay by them.
I even made it home in time to mow the lawn before it started raining. So, all in all, I had a pretty good day.
Now, back to business! That statistic from the Texas DMV about 70% of accidents being caused by cyclists is pretty disconcerting. If you guys would stop hitting them, running them off the road, etc. maybe the cyclists could get that stat up to 100%!
Did it mention that 100% of accidents between cars are caused by motorists? Maybe we should start looking at getting motorists off the road. They sure are causing a lot of accidents! Statistics can be strage at times. I don't recall the exact number they bandy about around here, but for the sake of argument we say that 30% of fatal accidents are caused by drunk drivers. That would mean that 70% of fatal accidents are caused by sober motorists. Drunk drivers must be safer, at least statistically.
Maybe the Texas manual should say that a lot of motorists often disregard the rules of the road. There's probably a lot of that going on, too. It sounds like Walker, Texas Ranger should get away from the donut shop and start enforcing some traffic laws!
Look, if I had a magic wand I could wave to make everybody play nice, obey the law and get along peacefully with everybody else, I would wave it! I've offered some advice on things we can and should do to coexist on the roadways. Do any of you have any ideas? (Short of banning cyclists)
Oh, yeah, and since this thread has drifted into "tossing salads", all I can say about that is if you find somebody willing to do it for you, give it a try!
Al
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