The Spokesmen on Examiner.com
May 26th, 2009 | By Fredcaster | Category: NewsDonna Tocci pointed out an article on Examiner.com today in which my other show, The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast, is the part of the lead-in to the story.
I guess this means we’ve made the big time — even if the author talks about the show and then spends the rest of the article explaining why one of our group was wrong.
DL Byron from Bike Hugger bears the brunt of criticism in the article (Says the author: My experience is diametrically opposed to Byron’s), but I do like it when he says, ‘I enjoy listening to The Spokesmen because there are diverse viewpoints represented, and there’s always something interesting.’
Give it a read and let me know your opinion.
They are talking about different things. DL said “that if I’m in a bike lane, I get way less harassed than if I’m out on the road.” Ed Wagner of The Examiner.com said that “when bike lanes or multi-use paths are available – and by available I mean there’s one in the same county – motorists harass cyclists and insist they use those facilities”. See the difference–being in a bike lane vs. being harassed because you are in the road and there is a bike lane (trail, whatever) somewhere else, nearby or not.
Motorists have yelled at me to “get on the @#$%ing trail” when the nearest trail was half a mile away and didn’t go to where I was going. If there were no trails, that motorist would still have yelled at me, probably something like “get off the @#$%ing road”. When the sidewalk was widened in a neighboring town and called a bike path, the local police told cyclists to “get on the path, we spent $3 million on it.”
We need to educate and change people’s behavior. That goes for motorists, police and cyclists alike. That’s a tall order.