[SDCBC] Pedal Power in the News

[Serge Issakov]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 12:30 PM, John Forester
<forester at johnforester.com>wrote:

> What CBS publishes about cycling is entirely predictable. You can't expect
> anything else and you can't change their view, because they publish what
> America believes. So just accept whatever nonsense the public press
> publishes about bicycle transportation and continue with your own affairs.
> What we vehicular cyclists need to do is to preserve, nay rejuvenate, our
> right to use the public roadways with the rights and duties of drivers of
> vehicles, no matter what the public superstition is. Don't waste time and
> effort tilting at windmills, because these windmills win every time, but
> devote your efforts to that which is necessary, regaining the full legal
> right to operate with the rights and duties of drivers of vehicles.


I agree that the highest priority of bicycling advocacy is to regain and
retain our right to operate as vehicle drivers.

However, trying to increase the popularity of bicycling within the culture
is also a widely accepted goal of "bicycling advocacy".  That's why I'm
puzzled as to why so many bicycling advocates participate in efforts (and
celebrate such efforts) that greatly exaggerate the dangers of bicycling in
traffic, efforts that cannot help but can only hinder the popularity of
bicycling.

Serge


-- 
NOTE: Any opinions expressed above are mine and not necessarily shared by
any organization in which I am involved.
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