Bicycles

Last night the wife and I watched our local television news which included a story regarding a grassroots movement that calls itself -- "Critical Mass".

Overall I thought the reporting was poorly done but here is what I was able to gather. Critical Mass is a group of bicyclists which organizes mass gatherings where they all ride together to "re-claim the streets.........." based on one of the group chants that I heard them yell during the story which went --

Leader: "Whose Streets?"

Gang: "Our Streets?"


What the hell? What do they mean by "our" streets? The streets are the domain of bicyclists only? Since gasoline taxes - which are paid by automobile drivers like myself not bicyclists -- are a primary source of funding for street paving perhaps we drivers should have our own chant.

Now I admit that in some of the footage in this news report I did see numerous bicyclists simply enjoying the freedom to ride their bike complete with costumes for some of the riders. However, many of the Critical Mass members simply created public safety hazards by violating all traffic rules and traffic lights.

Again -- whether it was the poor reporting or simply Critical Mass' lack of message clarity I could not determine what they want. If I had to guess I would say they hate automobiles and want to "re-claim" the streets for environmentally friendly vehicles but that is just a guess.

I do know that if Critical Mass continues its practice of traffic anarchy that someone is going to get killed in a traffic accident. Once that happens then like all political movements throughout history Critical Mass will have a martyr from which to drive t-shirt sales!!! :-)

Remember your hand signals,

Todd