Downtown Denver has a pretty great little system called B-Cycle that is used in several U.S. cities and many European cities. Basically there are bicycle stations all over downtown and anyone can check a bike out from a station, bike to where they are going and drop the bike off at another station. It's a great program and we love being able to use it to get around downtown Denver. However this program became the center of a scandel in our recent gubernatorial race here in Colorado. GOP candidate Dan Maes said the bike sharing program was actually a part of a U.N. plot that is connected to cities all across the world.
Now I could try to explain such a comment, but I just can't. I mean how do you explain crazy? Feel free to read more about Maes' explanation for the theory at http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894. But honestly our politics lately has become insane and paranoid. The fact of the matter is bike sharing just makes sense. It's cost effective, an easy way to get around, and it's beneficial to the environment. Period. But wait...
Oh my God it's too late, they have already invaded! Oh no...
we were a part of the U.N.'s plot to take over the world!
But as we took part in this plot I looked over at Tomme while he was biking and he simply said "bicycling makes me happy" with a big smile on his face. And it is abosolutley true in his case. Tomme often does his 11 mile commute to work on his bicycle and there is no question that he is happier on the days he gets to do so. This past year has really been his first chance to get into it. When we first bought our road bikes he loved it, but within just a few months he had to take off for his first deployment to Iraq. And when he returned he lived in Colorado and his bike and I stayed in KY while I finished grad school. But this last year of he and I living in the same place with both our bikes we have really fallen in love with it. It just feels good I think to start your day outside on a biccycle than commuting in a steel box. But this is not how everybody feels about cycling.
Often as we bike we have people yell things like "get off the road" (despite the fact that bikes are considered vehicles and that it is technically illegal to bike on the sidewalk). When this happens I often think how impatient we have become as a society. I mean really unless you are a surgeon rushing off to the hospital for an emergency, the 30 seconds you might have to slow down to get around a cyclists really is not worth getting so upset. Why does cycling make some people so happy and others assholes?
Well here in CO, one particular jerk seems to be embodied in one of our district attorneys. In Colorado there was a case of a Morgan Stanley financial manager, who handles accounts for wealthy clients, who allegedly veered off the road hitting a cyclists from behind. According to some reports he then fled the scene and pulled over later in a Pizza Hut parking lot to report damage to his car, but still did not report hitting the cyclists. The DA Mark Hurlbert decided not to file a felony charge against the defendant because of the implications a felony on his record might have on his job.
Well. This same DA decided he would file felony charges against two cyclists in a case where one of the cyclists had purchased an entry into a race called the Leadville 100, and upon finding out she could not do the race she gave her entry spot to a friend (who subsequently finished second in her age group under the other girl's name). One of the cyclists was a teacher, and the other was a nurse. Speaking as a nurse, having a felony charge on your record is a big freaking deal that can ruin your career. You have to report it to your state board of nursing, they can take your license away, and it could also make it very difficult if not impossible to get malpractice insurance. And as someone who knows a lot of teachers, having a felony charge can greatly hinder your career there as well. When asked why he decided to file these charges against the cyclists the DA said "After talking with people in the race, this is something very serious".
So apparently when it is a rich guy who nearly kills a man and then flees the scene it is not serious enough to warrant a felony charge if it may have implications for the defendant's job, but if the defendant is a nurse or teacher who gets second place in a bike race under someone else's name, that is a serious enough offense to warrant a felony charge despite the fact that it would have major implications for their careers. Me thinks someone has a thing against cyclists and a big thing for money?
Anyway the anger some people have against sharing the road with cyclists is overblown and misplaced. They are just people trying to get fit and have some fun so take it easy and try not to get too upset that you will make it to where you are going a whole 10 seconds later than you would have if the cyclists had not been there.
