Posted by Monetta Roberts on August 21, 2008 at 22:55:27:
Gang: I doubt many of yous guys are opening my posts designed to needle a certain someone to the very brink of madness (nor do I blame ya)....so I've cut and posted here (below), something embedded in my "Girls 6, FBM -0-" post. Since that post, I've fetched a paper and, sure enough on the front page, below the fold, there's an article and photo of yet another
DE-molished bike.
Reminds me of a photo I saw a few yrs ago of Gabe Chamblin's bike remains after a pick-up truck driver ran him down on DIP....the collision threw Gabe up on the hood of the truck, and, if I'm remembering correctly, the first thing the driver did after getting out was go look at the front of his truck for damage......while Gabe was laying stunned and injured on the hood of his truck! The guy didn't even ask if Gabe was Ok, just went and checked out the front of his truck. What is WITH people?
Anyway, apparently there were two bikes/bikers involved in this latest drunk driver "attack." The pictured "bike bones" belong to a local athlete and popular orthopod who was, if I'm getting this straight, was thrown ~30 feet upon impact. Neither athlete was seriously injured, but I imagine they've got some pretty good road rash, and I wouldn't sneak up behind them and startle them for a while if I were any of yous. The driver was arrested for DUI (nevermind attempted DTA ---death to athletes). Anyway, here (below) is my yearly diatribe that I wrote earlier about the importance of safety, as none of us can get fitter or healthier (or score more points) if we become crippled or dead losing a fight with a big ol' ton of SUV speeding steel.....
In more important news to all: I just got the briefest hint that there's been yet another car eats bicycle (2?) with riders on the mean streets of Mobile. I think it may be reported in the Mobile Press Register, though I haven't seen the paper and have no details. Ya'll probably know more than I do, but jeezum, this is my home town and I'll be THE very first to say it's one of the most bike unfriendly towns I've even seen or heard of.
Despite the lack of bike trails (MOST preferable for biking AND hoofing it, in my opinion) or even bike lanes---which still don't guarantee safety, but they're a darn good start---there just really seems to be a mean-spirited mentality amongst many of our fine citizens: Many of them appear to absolutely resent having to share the roads with anything that doesn't have a hemi, or isn't an SUV. It isn't just dumb luck that so many athletes and commuters and recreators on bikes go down around here. I'm not suggesting anyone change their life, or live in fear of doing or being whatever it is he or she wants, but I do sincerely suggest that when you bike the mean-every-dog-for-himself-streets of Mobile and even Baldwin Co., you never, ever, get to the place where you feel 100% safe from your fellow roadsters. Because you just simply are not.
Finally, something new to add to the safety lecture: A fellow who just transfered to my PPOW (pleasant place o' work) came from a military base in HI, where his job was to teach enlisted peeps how to ride motorcycle without killing themselves. He had a lot of young soldiers, freshly returned from war, and he told me that the first two weeks home from war are the most dangerous for returning war vets: They've had that adrenaline pumping for so long, that they often start to experience withdrawals once they're in a relatively safe setting. To offset this, and keep the excitement going, they sometimes do things like buy big ol' honkin' motorcycles, climb mts, etc. Anyway, there were so very many motorcycle accidents on account of a lot of the adrena-heads didn't know how to operate them safely, that this particular base made it a requirment that the enlistees take this guy's training course before they could drive a cycle onto base. That was a really long story to get to this point: The guy said that one thing some of these kids don't realize is, cars do NOT and can not see them the same way they see other cars on the road, and that's if they see them at all, which is not a given. And that's a motorbike, which generally is bigger, makes more noise, etc.,.
If anyone comes up with a plan to protest being maimed and disfigured while trying to train and improve fitness on bikes...please, clue me in, I'm there!
~mo~