🚀 go-pugleaf

ms@gf.org writes:
>I've been reading, with great delight, some of the deranged
>frothing from motorists in the wake of last week's Critical
>Mass battle in San Francisco. All the usual elements of
>Monoxide Machismo are richly present: bloodthirsty reveries
>of murder and mayhem, low-risk long-distance chest-beating,
>etc.

>I can't stress too much how important it is for cyclists and other
>transportation activists _not_ to be upset by this.

You are misguided, Mr. Smith.  I ride my bike to work about half the
time.  I have enough problems with drivers as it is; I don't see
how it helps me to have folks who are already highly stressed
worked up to a homocidal rage against bicyclists.  I'd like to
stay alive, thank you very much.  In a contest between a psychotic
motorist and a pissed-off bicyclist, who do you think is going to win?

Now, imagine this alternative: a mass ride is staged in a way that
does *not* appreciably disrupt traffic: e.g. four-lane or wider
roads are chosen, everyone rides in the right lane so emergency
vehicles and traffic can still get by, traffic laws are obeyed,
large numbers of boring middle class people participate, have fun,
and decide, "Hey!  Riding a bike in the city could work for me!".
Positive press is generated, awareness is raised, more people get
out of their cars and get into bikes.

But no, a lot of the folks who are getting their jollies from the
big CM mess are overgrown macho boys who, if their upbringing had
been a bit different, would be militia types frothing at the mouth
against the Zionist Occupied Government or something.  The impulse
is the same: too much testosterone, not enough maturity, folks drunk
on power over others.

That is, to a lot of CM'ers it's more important to throw a big fat
monkey wrench into the system than to improve conditions for bicyclists.
-- 
-- Joe Buck	http://www.synopsys.com/pubs/research/people/jbuck.html

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