Leuf wrote:
On Sat, 20 May 2006 00:02:21 GMT, "George E. Cawthon"
wrote:


I don't know where everyone else lives, but in the
states I have lived in, bicycles enjoy the same
rights as motor vehicles. In many places traffic
laws recognize that a bicycle is different from a
car and do not require bicycles to come to
complete stops at every stop sign.


When I was in 6th grade one day I was getting off the school bus in
front of my house just like every other day. As I was crossing the
street I was probably thinking things like should I get the math
homework out of the way first, or fool around until dinner. The next
thing I knew I was on the ground about 10 feet back and to the right
of the last I remembered.

Lacking any other explanation I assumed I had tripped. How do you
trip in the middle of the street I wondered. How embarassing.
Everyone is leaning out of the bus staring at me, how am I gonna live
this one down. I was endeavoring to get my ass into the house as
quickly yet nonchalantly as possible, but it was difficult as
everything was spinning.

You know that feeling you have when you cut yourself and it doesn't
hurt yet, but you know it's going to? I suppose I had that feeling as
my hand went up to my face sort of on its own. After looking at the
blood on my fingers for a second or two I gave up on the nonchalant
approach and bolted for Mommy.

As it turns out what actually happened was someone on a bike decided
they would go around the bus with its stop sign and flashing red
lights into the opposing lane to pass it. His shoulder got me square
in the mouth. I consider myself lucky to have only lost a couple
teeth from it. I don't have any memory of the collision and I was so
disoriented after I never saw him at the side of the road with his
busted up bike and shoulder. I do however quite clearly remember
standing in front of the bathroom mirror staring at my face still
waiting for it to start hurting while my mom was out in the street
looking for my teeth.

The point of my story is not that cyclists are the problem. Motorists
are not the problem. Stupid people are the problem. As a society we
haven't yet gotten the balls to say "I'm sorry, you're a moron. You
can't use the roads." We'd take care of the whole 'energy crisis' and
put a dent in health care costs in one fell swoop.

Stop signs are there for the stupid people that can't figure out that
stopping there would be a good idea. The problem is that stupid
people are not able to determine that they are stupid and that the
signs are for them. So let's just stop at the ****ing sign, okay?


-Leuf
Yep, absolutely true. But isn't it ironic that
the rules are for stupid people that can't figure
out the rules and for people that refuse to follow
rules. If people stopped at all the stop signs,
stop signals, cross walks and other required
stoping places and if everyone signaled for every
turn and every lane change, there would be far
fewer accidents. A 30 second simulated driving
test (computer type) would weed out a lot of poor
driver ans the little old ladies that can't move
their feet off the gas pedal. Most recent of the
latter near me was about 2 weeks ago and about 1/4
mile from my house. Drove right into the store
window.