Bike Accident

Well, it's been a few days and I'm due for a new post so here it is.

In the last post I was asking about a bike club in Strathmore. Today I read an article on the first page of the Strathmore Standard that drove the point home. A girl was riding her bike on August 28th when she was struck by the driver of a pick up truck who failed to stop at a stop light.

Brings me back to mid December last year when I was struck by a pick up who failed to stop at a stop light. It was the very first day of training for my 3rd marathon, 5:30am and I was in the cross walk. Just as the story in the paper, the twit left the scene of the crime. I couldn't remember his plate number by the time I got to the cop shop (I ran there) and nothing ever came of it.

I'm glad to see that the witness perused reporting the guy and the cops were actually able to press charges. The girl apparently walked away from the accident and thankfully wasn't injured!

I think that it is hard for cyclists in small towns or places that are over-run with jacked up pickups and young, drunk stupid men driving them who are all making over 100K a year as a rig pig. It's an oil town Strathmore. I like it here, but it is turning into an oil town. The police here have a hard enough time with natives, drunks and drugs: but I do think that there needs to be a real crack down on not stopping at stop lights and stop signs!!!

In my bike commuting, most of the 'close-calls' that I have had are when I've had the right of way, yet the vehicles think that they don't need to stop because I'm just a bike, or they are habitually blowing stop signs all the time. Either way, it's unacceptable and dangerous!

I've often thought of taking matters into my own hands, however I won't publish how, in case I actually do it, then there might be evidence that it is me doing it. Enough about that.

I am really interested in getting a bicycling advocacy and awareness group together in Strathmore!! We need to do this!!! If you are at all interested, please leave a comment and possibly even you email address and we can start something. I am going to start posting signs about this around Strathmore, so watch for them and lets get something going. The point that I would like to make, is that there is a peaceful, respectable and non-boisterous way that we can inform the public and car drivers that we are on the road, we have legal rights, and ultimately, we allow them to move about the town faster simply because we aren't clogging up the roads with a vehicle of our own. The more people that ride bikes, the less the traffic congestion!! Motorists should thank us for keeping 'their' routes clear, by giving us just a bit of respect and consideration as they pass us.

This is a bit of a rant, but I want it to be more than that. I want to get as many people as possible on bikes. I would love the day when people complain about the bike paths being too crowded with bikes on the way to work!!! What a problem that would be. It's up to you. It's up to me. To quote (at least this is where I saw this) an inspiration to me, Mark Rehder, "RIDE YER BIKE"!!!